Hi everyone,

I'm finally approaching the finishing line with my mods for the car. Changed the brake pads and rotors; my Fast Intentions exhaust and cats are on their way, FINALLY...hopefully they will arrive in place; and lastly, my hotchkis sway bar has been waiting and waiting to be installed. I will be installing it along with the exhaust and new endlinks. Any recommendations on which settings I should set the sway bars at? I will be going to a shop to have everything installed because I am tired of being under the car and don't want to mess things up with big items like these.

Just trying to stiffen things up with the car since it acts like a boat while turning on the highway with stock suspension.
Thanks!

 

I'd start on the softest setting initially and then decide if you want it any stiffer. They're stiffer than the stock bars by quite a bit.

 

Hotchkis recommends full stiff front, full soft rear as the initial setting. Then you adjust from there.
It's basically the safest setting to avoid oversteer as you learn how the bars behave.

My coupe has full stiff front, middle setting rear for daily driving. I felt this kept my car the flattest (most balanced) on back road drives. I've only done a few track days and aggressive mountain road carving. For those special events I found full soft rear and second notch from stiff on the front gave me the most traction. Stiffer rear setting kept lifting my inner rear tire and triggering traction control system.

Cool thing about adjustable stuff is you can tweak to your driving style/needs. Sway bars were definitely the most noticeable suspension upgrade and I'd even recommend them on stock cars.

The soft settings are actually softer than stock. At least they were with 06+ coupes (due to beefier stock front bar). Their website list the percentage +/- from stock.

 

Ok, I could have sworn that even the softest setting on those bars was still more firm then stock. I didn't realize that the '06+ had a stronger sway bar though.

 

Something like upgraded sway bars or strut braces are something I've considered adding to my car. If you add front and rear sway bars and strut braces, would that be "too much" ? I mean, I don't want the car to be super stiff, uncomfortable, etc, etc.

 

I did not know the 06+ coupes had a stiffer front sway bar. Anybody upgraded from the DE front bar to the Revup bar and noticed a difference?

You're only allowed to replace one of the sway bars in autocross without getting bumped out of D stock class and into Street Touring Ultra (STU) where I would be even less competitive due to running on street tires and having a daily driver comfy suspension setup. So I'm thinking about just doing a rear adjustable sway bar and keeping the front stock for now, but if there's an "upgraded" stock bar I can totally run that scot-free....

Actually, doing polyurethane suspension bushings or even a power-losing cold air intake automatically bumps you out of stock class, but nobody has noticed either yet on my car so....

 

It's not all coupes, just the ones with sport package, aka came with 19" wheels.


I stand corrected, only one setting is softer than stock.

 

I wonder if I could pick up just the rear bar, I'm really happy with how the front feels on my '06 coupe but the rear could definitely be tighter.

 

Thanks for reply! That all sounds good, but does that go for the 08 Xs as well? Certainly I can just as I go but I'd rather get it as close to a good fit as possible on the first go.

On a side not @cleric670@gmail , I just received the FI exhaust...what a beauty...I hope it will sounds as good as it looks. I noticed though it doesn't have a little hole in the muffler for the condensation to drip out when it gets cold. Should I tell the shop to drill one to both mufflers or will it mess up the system? I am just thinking ahead on how to protect the exhaust from rust during the winter.

 

Don't drill the enclosures, a 15 minute drive is usually sufficient to remove any moisture. That system is pretty much 100% stainless steel and overall MUCH better quality materials than what's used in OEM exhaust systems, you shouldn't have any corrosions issues for the life of the system.

 

Fantastic. Thanks @cleric670@gmail !! I called Hotchkis. Apparently for the X, there is no ability to adjust the front sway bar. It only has one hole. One the rear, they recommend the softest setting to begin with. It is listed in their instructions as well.