^ word. appreciate the knowledge.

 

I've used the 350EVOs on the street for about 10k miles. They work great.
Set to med/med, they make the car with OEM srpings and tires almost perfectly neutral and no harshness at all. The bushing material is not noisey like polys and are still very responsive. I would definately recommend them.

 

g3po, thanks for the reply, I appreciate the info. I was under the impression that the 350evo sway bars came with polyurethane bushings and collars???

 

They might be polygraphite. Much quieter choice!

 

Mr. Q,

Your post on sway bar balance, tire loads and weather was illuminating (as usual), and raised a few questions about my soon to be installed track setup on my G35 Coupe. A little background;

I'll be installing the Hotchkiss sway bar set to reduce body roll (yes I've got collars), but won't be replacing the stock springs/shocks, and won't be installing adjustable camber arms - it's my daily driver. I've researched DOT R compound tires that I'll dedicate to track days, and decided on 245/45/17 Yokahama AO32R's H compound all around on my snow tire rims. The load rating is 1521 lbs, the highest I could find in this size. These are something like 150 lbs. less than the the stock (rear) Pilots, but I'd need to go up to a wider tire to match or beat that load rating, and new rims are not in the budget this year.

My questions are;

1. Was I out of line to get the sway bars before testing with stock bars?

2. I planned on installing the bars at med/med setting for 1st track day, would you recommend against this given load ratings?

Any comments would be appreciated, and I would agree with you on your wet/snow comment on stiffer rear bars with one caveat - VDC compensates.

Thanks

Tim

 

timm,

Q45 might disagree with me, but here is my take on your questions as I undertand things.

1: I don't think you can go wrong with a set of sway bars for street or track. I've got a set of 350evo bars that I've yet to install, but after a few autocross events on stock sway bars, adjustables are extremely desireable. I wouldn't say you were out of line since you now have the ability make more adjustments to your driving preferences.

2: I can't really comment on this based on experience. From reading many posts on this subject, most feel that sways are personal preference. It seems that m/m is where most people like their Hotchkiss bars. Personally, I would look up the deflection rates for both front and rear, then compare each to the stock bars. Then you'll know what each combo does to the overall stiffness as well as the true front/rear bias ratios. Then after a few quick test drives, you'll know where you'll want the adjustments made. Ideally, I would test as many front/rear combinations as possible (starting with soft/soft and then going up from there) . Go with the combo which gives you the fastest times for the type of course you'll be competing in
Remember that running all four tires with the same width will likely get rid of most of the factory oversteer before you even add sways.

As for the VDC comment I can speak from personal experience: VDC has limitiations! On wet or snowy surfaces, if you swing the back end around fast enough, VDC can't always compensate before you lose control. Increasing the rear bias will only make the rear swing around faster giving even less time for the VDC to react. Please don't assume VDC will save you - one must understand the limitations!

Good luck!

Mike

 

Mike,
Please correct me if my assumptions are incorrect, I too am considering sway bars.

Increasing the rear stiffness increases oversteer. Will stiffening the front counteract the oversteer brought on by a stiffer rear? Will stiffening both front and rear make the car more neutral(no oversteer or understeer) while prioviding less body roll and crisper turn-in? And do these assumptions apply to both the sedan and coupe? Thanks and take care.

 

Mike,

Thanks for the comments! I'll probably only scrub a few friction circles before hitting the track (1st time at Limerock) with the R tires & sways, and I wouldn't want to blow it by setting up too stiff for what could be a rainy day start to the season. The smaller diameter/softer compound and wider front tires will certainly change the handling by themselves, hopefully for the better. My main concern is overdoing it and getting tail happy (particularly while trying to trail brake). The last thing I want to do is leave the track backwards at the end of the front straight! It would be a nice crutch to leave the VDC on in the wet, but I lost the stock tire stagger (1.5") when I chose to go same size all around - calibration will suffer I bet.

I agree with your comments on VDC limits, I'm still impressed with the ease of snow driving when it's on though. Snow/sludge driver correction is reduced by a huge amount with VDC - I like it.

Thanks,

Tim

 

amg35 - yes, increasing the rear stiffness will increase oversteer. Yes, adding a stiffer front bar will counteract the induced oversteer. However, going too stiff can have undesireable effects too. Going too stiff on either end can actually cause one of your tires to come off the ground in a hard corner leaving only one tire to provide traction. Obviously that is an extreme case, but I've seen many photos of cars and a few in autox races that this happens. Depending on the type of driving you're doing and the speeds, some body roll is usually better than none as it allows the suspension and tires to do their jobs and conform to the road surface.

If you are testing and tuning you'll want to start fully soft on both ends and keep increasing overall stiffness until you no longer see improvements in your lap times--assuming you are a consistent driver. Now, I don't have any experience on this yet, but I've been doing a ton of reading on this and its what I would do if I could do it tomorrow!

These assumptions apply to pretty much any car; be it coupe, sedan, or whatever.

timm - I can understand your concern about overdoing the rear stiffness. If you do have some time on the skid pad, I'd try the med/med setting and adjust from there. It would really be nice to know the deflection rates (in lbs/in not %) of the sways. I'd say you'll want only about 15-20% more stiffness to your rear (the rest of your car is stock right?) since all four tires are the same width. If possible I'd start testing with the combo gives you that 15-20% stiffness (overall stiffness as soft as possible) and adjust as neccessary from there. Knowing the deflection rates would make it easier for you to predict what effects the changes to the sways will make rather than just guessing between soft/med/stiff. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

I do have to say I really liked driving the G in the snow. If you don't want to think and get from point A to point B, leave the VDC on and drive. I really loved turning off the VDC in areas where I was only 25-35 mph and really having some fun. There were a couple of times I had to pull into empty parking lots and practice some drifting moves. I'm terrible at it, but it sure is fun and taught me alot about how the car reacts. Too bad I'm moving to Florida next month!

I am considering ripping off the snow tires and installing the shock and sways tomorrow too, but we'll see...

 

I know this is kind off topic but if anyone is planning to get some hotchkis sway send me a PM. We sell them for $300cash installed

 

Can anyone please post a pic of the rear EVO bar installed on the car???
(Yeah...I know it's under the car and dark)
It seems to me like it would be really low since it goes under the exhaust....??

 

Bump...I am interested too...

 

I just installed a set of Stillen sway bars two days ago and have been driving them in the snow today. I've got them on med/med and the car feels pretty neuutral but much quicker around corners--more like on a rail. The bars cost me $275 and they're a nice racey red color (you've got to get under the car to see them unfortunately). Oh-- I bought them through Avalon Racing and had their master mechanic, Jeff, install them along with my new Vortech.

 

I managed to steal my roommate's camera this morning. Here are a few photos of the 350evo sway bar I installed this weekend. It rides much higher than I thought it would. Too high almost. The way I have it set up, it makes brief contact with the exhaust pipe at times. The bushing mounts are slotted, so when I get an opportunity, I'll slide the mounts back and that should solve the clearance problem. Otherwise I'll have to mess with the exhaust hanger or something. Sorry I don't have more pics for now!

Mike

 

I had the same exact problem with the exhaust hangar on the midpipe touching the 350Evo bar. So I had a muffler shop shave some of the hangar off and had them readjust the alignment of the exahust system. After they moved it around a bit and retightended the bolts I ended up with plenty of clearance.