Should i get sway bars?

[Drk_drftr]

Uhhh yeah..... Should i get sway bars for my s13? I cant afford KYB's yet soooo.............. should i swoop em up?

[Octagon]

Well, it depends, what is your S13 doing or not doing that you hope to cure by installing sway bars?

Trust me when I say that big sway bars are not a replacement for stiffer springs or strut/shocks.

[Ris4drift]

what all do you have done so far? that info woudl help a lot. but yes normally sway bars help. if you jsut want oversteer a aftermarket rear sway bar will help, or a HICAS rear bar.

[Octagon]

Except that "helping" the setup is completely subjective. Stiffer sway bars at the rear typically lead to snap oversteer off the center of the corner or trailing oversteer at the corner exit.

While a set of properly matched (and that doesn't mean same diameter front to back) sway bars can improve cornering attitude, unless they are paired with good damping and spring rates all they'll do is sacrifice "wiggle room" for errors and make mistakes easier to make.

Sway bars are NOT a replacement for proper damping and spring rates.

[Drk_drftr]

Well all I have now is cut springs, stock struts, and front and rear tower bars. Pretty crappy right now. So when i do get sway bars get both front and rear right?

[Octagon]

Like I asked, what does your car do or not do that you hope to cure by getting sway bars?

[Drk_drftr]

I get dumb a$$ understeer when going into corners, sux balz

[Octagon]

Does the understeer happen under braking? At the apex? Exiting the corner?

If it's happening under braking or at the apex, then a larger sway bar at the front won't help, but a larger rear bar will encourage the rear to step out a bit more. It won't improve the front, just worsen the rear. It's a band-aid solution.

Understeer off of the corner, on the other hand, does require a combination bigger bar at the front and rear.

Why you ask? Because the bigger front bar will upset the car at the entry of the corner and off the center, so you'll want to loosen up the tail again.

This is why bar setup is a band-aid, you'll end up chasing your tail trying to correct for understeer and/or oversteer.

[Drk_drftr]

I get it at the apex so.... should i get a rear bar? Or should I go for a front and rear then balance them out to my driving style?

[Ris4drift]

are you trying to drift or go fast?

[sosorice]

according to www.projectgirldrifter.com understeer is caused by
lack of skill so maybe all you need is practice.

[AlexPfeiffer]

Simple answer, No, get some good shocks and springs first.

[SidewaysGts]

Granted hes alex, so agreeing with him is a given but either way its your best bet.

Cut springs are a bad idea, the reulsts in your springs are rarely consistant when you do it, and can actually hurt your performance because of it.

Get the proper shocks/springs, if your just drifting for fun get some adjustable shocks and springs to your liking, if your a little more serious i say save up for a type of coilover set up instead.

[Drk_drftr]

Alright thx for the info, saves me 200+ bucks As for the lack of skill remark, I gave it some thought, I have been doing an improper shift lock and heel toe so ur right! Lack of skill! Dizzam I suck!

[R2K]

yeah i been thinking of getting a sway bar!!! so um buy lowering spring or strut bar or shock first??? and yeah all i have is intake... i drift w/ it pretty good though....

[Octagon]

It all depends on what you're trying to get the car to do.

You see, this is something I've always tried to explain to people - the car is only as fast as you drive it. If the car does not respond in a way suited to your driving style, then set the car up around your style.

Don't just run out and buy parts because "they're better", choose the parts that will get the car to behave the way you want it to behave.

Think about what the springs and the shocks/struts do on a car. The springs allow for suspension movement, while the struts/shocks control the springs' motion. Stiffer struts/shocks (hereafter referred to as dampers) allow the springs to move less. This results in a car that turns in sharper, but has less lateral grip (in a production style chassis, a certain amount of roll is used to add lateral grip, case in point - F1 suspensions circa 1965).

Ergo, stiffer dampers mean a car that changes directions quickly, but snaps loose easily. Also, stiff front dampers tend to lead towards understeer as the front breaks away. The understeer is found typically at the corner exit after the tail has found its path.

Stiffer and shorter springs, however, take away available movement all-together. With stiffer dampers, all of the travel of the suspension is still present, it just takes more weight transfer i.e. force to compress the suspension. Also worth noting is that the inherent droop of the suspension remains in a stiff damper setup, giving the car a tendency to "roll off" the inside front and shift weight to the outside front easily, but without equal roll on the inside and outside, the outside front breaks loose instead of maintaining grip.

The loss, however, with springs, is that lowered or stiffer springs tend to change the suspensions geometry. Camber gain, caster gain, and toe are all altered as the car's natural rest settings change with the new springs. Not to mention, with a lowered suspension, problems like bumpsteer, steering arm angles, and track width start showing up. The gain, though, is equal loss of travel upwards and down thus nixing the "roll off" problem.

A suspension's behavior, whether you realize it or not, all is determined by how long the control arms are, how tall the spindles are, and where they are mounted in the frame relative to the frame-rails themselves. This is the key idea of "suspension geometry". By changing one factor, you radically alter the entire makeup of the suspension. This is why suspension tuning must be approached with careful thought and with an educated and personalized ideal. It's very VERY easy to make a mistake, and I've found out for myself that undoing a mistake is oftentimes harder than getting it right to start with.

[R2K]

dude all they have is lowering spring... as much i dont want to lowered my car theres only lowering spring unless buying like coilover or the whole suspension... any way i get what you want what your car to behave... but i got a problem how you choose because as much i want to get a better and a spring that i want its capabilities to be, also i dont want to mess up my comfort in my daily drive... i was thinking is it better to buy all the stuff that would complete the whole set up that i wanted??? or just buy one by one.... what would you suggest for the over all suspension, and sway, strut and overall handling?

[Drift For Food]

Two things come to mind:

First - technique does a LOT.
If you are having issues with understeer, oversteer, not having the rear end swing out right, swing out too much, etc., technique can control most of this. You do have to addapt to the car. If you know it's going to understeer hard mid corner, change what you do at the start of the corner or even before to compensate. You should be able to get around a lot of issues through small changes in what you do.

Now there is a limit to what a person can do before it becomes the car's problem. This brings me to number two...

Second - setup controls car behavior. If it doesn't behave like you want it to...or it's not physically possible to do what you want it to, change the setup.
Now I put this after my #1 above for a reason. If you don't have good techniques or know how to adapt your techniques to the car, it's pretty useless changing the car as you will still have problems, probably different ones than before. When you get to this point, you have to gain some knowledge of cars and the physics behind them. Understand what the components do and how they affect the car. If you don't know the basics, suspension tuning is very difficult and essentially a shot in the dark. You might luckely come across something that seems to work for you...or you may just be worse off.
As well, even with a well tuned car, driver skill is still very important. You still have to know how to use the car. You still need a good understanding of techniques and have the ability to perform them correctly when needed.

[R2K]

4 me i been drift for quite sometime... its just that i want to build my suspension up!!! w/ stock suspension i drift quite well never oversteer or understeer...

[SidewaysGts]

Your drifting.. but your not over steering...