Can someone explain what sway bars actually do the driving handling feel of the car? Is it really worth it? Which ones are good at a decent price?

 

Bump! I'm in the market also!

 

Sways reduce body roll. For example, when you turn really hard to the right, your car kinda leans to the left. It helps reduce that. Of course sways on its own, won't make a world of diffrence. Coilovers would help a lot more, but the suspension works together. Sways are a lot cheaper than coilovers, and they do their part aswell.

Basicall, the sway bars help try to keep the left and the right wheel the same height as each other. Coilovers help make the damping stiffer, so its harder for the wheels to travel upward.

 

WTF are you talking about? More mis-information.

Sway bars alone will keep the vehicle from leaning as much in the corners. Also, they can be used to balance the feeling of the vehicle, providing more or less understeer.

The G35 comes with a good bit if understeer from the factory. Using new sways, you could retain that safe understeer feeling, but with less body roll (better handling), or go ahead and also change the setting so that the vehicle has less understeer. Ultimately, this will yield better handling, but also a higher chance of the rear end swinging out.

Sway bars are one of the best performance/handling "bang-for-the-buck" mods out there.

 

^+1....I agree, first mod, and well worth it. The rear end actually follows the front now.

 

if i get coilovers, i dont need sways. correct anyone?

 

Whoa, settle down there. I never said it won't make ANY diffrence. I'm just saying the suspension works together. Each part does its own job in relation to the other parts. Some people think, OK well I have sway so I don't need coilover or vise-versa. This is actually false. You need EVERYTHING to work together. Coilovers will have a more dramatic improvement on handling than any sways alone could ever do. Sways alone will make a diffrence. Just like springs alone, or any other suspension mod alone. But don't expect a dramatic change from just doing your sway only. Some people rave about how great sways changed their suspension and its true. But it might be misleading to those who want to get sways then only notice a small diffrence in comparison to getting coilovers or something more dramatic.

 

No. They are compliments to each other in the suspension, not replacement. You should do both.

 

Optimum sway bar stiffness is 25-40% of spring stiffness.

You select the springs based on weight and amount of suspension travel desired,........... then you optimize shocks based on wheel tire weight,,,,, then you fine tune roll couple ratio with sway bars.

Note that sway bars have no shocks to control oscillations, why you limit their stiffness to much less than springs.

Sway bars as you incrase stiffness make the suspension less and less independent for bumps........not a problem on racetracks where it is smooth but serious on the street if you go too far.

On the rear oem bats are 0.3 the springs so a 50% increase in bar only makes the new bar 45% of spring stiffness........still within bounds for decent street use.

 

Remember suspensions sole purpose is to hold up the body. As a side function it attempts to hold the tire camber at a negative level to optimize friction thru out its travel range............tires tend to work best with a slightly negative camber by design [0.5 degrees]. The problem is maintaining this under all situations [level of individual spring compression and expansion].

The problem is weight shift which suspensions cannot control only slow down or speed up [spring/shock stiffness].

Sway bars work by REMOVING traction from one side and adding it to the other by attempting to reduce weight shift on the tires.

All in all from the worst factory suspension to the best stiffest brutal aftermarket there won't be a 10% change in the ability to create peak G without a improvement in tires.

Study Tireracks test [new lowering springs/sway bars/shocks =~~2.5-3% improvement.

Lowering body only works because the CG/tire track lowers the weight transfer by a minute amount 20/60=0.33 vs 19/60=0.3166 or 5% less sprung body weight transfer.............tires don't react linearly to less weight so 1/3-1/2 of 5% or 1.65%-2.5% improvement.


Some Body roll is good as it lets you know what's happening to tires.

 

Yes, ultimately, grip is limited by the friction of the 4 tires to the ground.

However, a body that leans a lot isn't using the inside tires much at all. In a hard corner, they may be barely touching at all. Your outside tires are doing all the work. Basically, less body roll (stiffer sway bar setting) allows you to use more of your inside tires and keeps the vehicle flatter in the turns.

 

Tire lift is caused by suspension not having enough droop range........Body lean is a symptom not the cause of weight transfer. Some body lean is good as an indicator of what's happening.