Whiteline Swaybars

[Tangles]

Having my suspension done this monday (3rd April 06). For like $200.

Having the front and rear Bilstein shocks fitted with my standard springs, plus the rear Whiteline subframe alignment kit, plus the front Whiteline castor kit, and the front and rear Whiteline adjustable swaybars.

Going to try to help out the man (on site, works from his van) so its going to be pretty cheap..... a good deal!

Hopefully we can find time to fit the Davies Craig oil cooler as well, but we'll see about that on the day. I can leave that until I get the valve body upgrade done at MV Automatics.

Question to you all though: What is the suggested settings for the swaybars? Mine are the adjustable ones, so what holes should I use? The top holes, middle holes, or bottom holes - front and rear?

What are the settings that you are using, and how does that effect the handling of your Stagea?

With the shocks, the rears will be standard height and I'll drop the circlip on the fronts by one groove.

Cheers, Brendan

[Sydneykid]

I'll kick it off, my stabiliser bars are set full soft on the front and middle on the rear. Together with the extra caster on the front, this eliminates the plough understeer that it had when standard.

Cheers

Edited March 29, 2006 by Sydneykid

[AlexCim]

I beleive i am the same as SK, but not sure.

I think i may even have the fronts on full soft an rear on full hard.

I prefer a car thats a bit taily as i like to control oversteer more than understeer.

I find the weak link in my car is no longer the suspension its the weight and the tyres. So next set of rubber i will be buying will be some expensive stuff, to compare hankooks to top dollar tyres. Maybe some Pilots, T1-R's or P-Zero Neros.

I find the car these days doesnt understeer coz of the suspension, as when mid corner the car doesnt tend to understeer, its just on entry, the weight just pushing the bitch.

Ill sort some brake pads too, going to get some endless SSS's and see how they help too.

[Tangles]

So fronts on soft and rears in the middle.... I gather thats using the top holes at the front adj. swaybar, and middle hole at the rear adj. swaybar...... although I DO like the thought of 'taily'!!

But then again this is a family car, so I cant go around trying to make it into a bigger version of my bike (although by bejeesus Im trying!).

Brendan

[AlexCim]

I think i may have not made my point too clearly about oversteer.

There are a few ways for a car to loose traction.

1. Over power the wheels with power (common RWD)

2. Overpower the tyres [Crappy tyres on rear or front causing under/oversteer (think something like ice driving)]

3. Overweight the tyres (Heavy car into tight corner understeer)

4. Crappy suspension set up

Now, the suspension is set up pretty damn well and i think SK did a great job on choosing parts, because mid corner the car is BRILLIANT, IMO and my passengers aka the people who call me crazy (in a wagon that be too )

There is only so much of 1, 2 and 3 that you can correct with improving 4, you can only effectly remove a certain portion. Just because you put a massive swaybar on an overpowered honda doesnt mean it will 100% balance the car". Just gotta try and balance as much as you can.

Now, by making the rear swaybar harder you are essentially going to overpower the lateral traction of the rear tyres with the weight of the car (suspension wont absorb as much energy, so its pushed down into the tyre/road contact area). So the car wont really loose traction unless you are at the limits of the car + tyres.

Ive found that the corner speeds i do, on my private sealed road hill climb track, are within the limits of my car+tyres+swaybar setup so ive decided to put on a bit more rear swaybar so that when the car eventually DOES loose it a bit mid corner, it will be oversteer rather than understeer (highly doubt you can "balance"ly loose a car, so its gonna be either over or understeer)

So Brendan, the car wont be more "taily" in normal driving conditions unless you are a very quick and hard driver, but i know that im not exactly slow though, all the time. If you want more rear-ness of the car, get an Atessa controller and change the bias for a daily drive. Oh, a harder rear sway setting may also help you slide around if you like getting sideways in the wet. For me, its a good balance of wet drift/mountain.

Disclaimer - Dont take my knowledge as gospel, thats just my view/mindset of how things work.

[Tangles]

Im running middle adjuster hole for both front and rear.... seems nice and taut.