Anyone got a Sway-Bar installed? Care to voice opinions???

[kaanage]

That's why the bleeding edge suspension systems (BMW, Merc, Mclaren) seek to decouple the antiroll bars when not required.
The most annoying symptom of stiff roll bars on factory suspension is the increased lateral head shake feeling when driving down a straight yet uneven road (ie Oz back highways). It's becomes most uncomfortable and fatiguing after awhile.

You're only talking about sports cars (or high performance, sports versions of normal cars) running anti-roll bars that are approaching the "solid axle conversion kit" as Carroll Smith put it . Normal cars don't run anti-roll bars anywhere near stiff enough for this to be a problem.

And the non-sports cars that run bars this stiff from the factory are those stupid SUVs which need them to prevent them wallowing all over the road. I know a former australian road-racing (motorcycle) champion who replaced a Ford Territory with a Fiesta because, with urban pot holes, the lateral pitching that you mention was giving him a sore neck.

[noone]

Aftermarket bars certainly can produce this effect.

[Bassik]

Ok well after about 2 hours of mucking around I finally got the bar installed and all I can say is WOW!!!! Driving is so much better and I wonder why they didn't install one factory fitted. Only drove about 10kms but all the normal roads I take I took it hard and body roll was so much less! And only on medium setting. I would highly recommend one!

I'll drive it for another 200kms see how it's holding up, hopefully no noises or anything!

[Whiteline]

But anti roll bars are essentially "springs"? Stiff anitroll bars will not lead to comfortable overall ride.

We disagree as the sway bars only operate when loaded in a corner so they do not affect the general ride quality and only keep the car flatter when cornering.
A good example is a rally car they have very soft and long travel suspension that you will see can take jumps and also huge bumps .These cars over normal roads have a quality of ride that you would not even feel a bump on the places we normally drive but yet they add large sway bars to keep the car flat even with that much height and suspension travel.
Sway bars are one upgrade that does not give poor ride quality.
Coilovers and stiff springs are great with matched dampening but yes will make the ride much more stiff.

The fact we are so successfull is that most of our customers are dailly drivers with maybe the odd track day so they usually fit decent size bars with OE or soft spring rates and keep good ride for dailly but great handling for the odd track day or spirited driving.
If you were to be more track orientated then you would get the coilovers with matched dampening and just slightly larger bars as you want the dampened coilover to do most of the work with just little hep with the sway bars to tune out oversteer or understeer.
We hope this helps explain how the sway bars work

[gavs]

I agree with this statement from Whiteline. I recently changed my rear bar to the stiffest setting and while I could fell the tiniest difference in the rear ride quality of the vehicle, it was to the tune of mid corner bumps. Even driving over the cobblestones in northcote felt and reacted exactly the same as medium. To truely compare, i disconnected the antiroll bar and yes, there was an ever-so-slight difference but I would not say it was clearly discernable, other than I was deliberately trying to feel for it.

[pologti18t]

If you were to be more track orientated then you would get the coilovers with matched dampening and just slightly larger bars as you want the dampened coilover to do most of the work with just little hep with the sway bars to tune out oversteer or understeer.

I think that fixing suspensions "issues" (ie understeer) on a FWD road car with just a rear antiroll bar can be a recipe for disaster IF the car isn't fitted with ESP. At the limit the rear of the car becomes a lot twitchier and the ability/time to correct is reduced.
I had a whiteline rear ARB on the back of my Astra SRI (no esp). Yes it pointed into corners alot better but one sudden swerve (soon after it was fitted) on a highway (kangaroo) showed it's negative side effects. The back came round so quickly and unexpectantly it scared the crap out of me. Needless to say I knew from then on to treat it with respect (much like a Pug 306GTI i owned - DC2 Type R is similar).

The time people will mostly likely caught out (with ESP off) is coming into a corner too hot and backing off the throttle mid corner. The back MAY come round very quickly with little or no opportunity to correct. This behavior has been tuned OUT of most FWD cars nowadays. For most drivers its not second nature to keep the throttle steady or reapply it in this situation.

[kaanage]

Absolutely correct. People complain about cars having an understeering response but the truth is that most people cannot handle liftoff oversteer and the stiffer the rear roll stiffness is vs the front, the more savage will be the oversteer.

Particularly bad (and not hard to get into) is the case where you enter a downhill turn that is sharper than you anticipated - it is instinctive to at least lift off the throttle in this situation and a car that is not heavily biased towards understeer (in normal circumstances) can easily spin. Even ESP would not necessarily save you in this situation if the corner is tight enough or you enter hot enough.

That said, Whiteline was referring to people who wish to track their cars and you would hope that these people would have some idea of what their vehicle response would be and, even better, would adjust their car back to more understeer when putting it back into road use mode.

[pologti18t]

Particularly bad (and not hard to get into) is the case where you enter a downhill turn that is sharper than you anticipated - it is instinctive to at least lift off the throttle in this situation and a car that is not heavily biased towards understeer (in normal circumstances) can easily spin. Even ESP would not necessarily save you in this situation if the corner is tight enough or you enter hot enough.

I had exactly that experience driving a friends Integra Type R on Thunderbolts way. I wasn't overly familiar with the car. Came to a downhill, off camber corner with a tightening radius.... backed off the throttle and immediately the rear started to come round! Luckily I knew to reapply the power smoothly to counteract this (from Pug 306 experience). Apparently the Type R of his had some dodgey rear toe-in that magnified the issue. If no correction was taken it would have been an impact with a rock face

Most drivers, brought up on a diet of average FWD hatchbacks, would have no idea what the heck was going on.

I found with the Astra the best way to get a nice consistant improvement in turn in etc was to fit adjustable dampers (Koni Yellows). Give the rear a couple of extra clicks of rebound and add some camber bolts to the front end (not applicable to the Polo). Transformed the car... it would devour potholed country roads.

[Bassik]

Comparing with Type R the Polo has come pretty close to what I wanted. Still think the teg has better steering but with no ESP it was a lot more rawer. The Polo I can now throw into a corner and not fear oversteer.

Think I mentioned this before but has anyone installed 5mm 10mm spacers to the rear of the Polo...??

If so what do you reckon?

[gavs]

I'm a big believer of the idiom that if people don't understand what they are doing to their car and the effect it can have then they shouldn't do it. Yes, this is narrow minded but this is why I don't rush out telling everyone to do what I have done, don't really enjoy the opposite narrow minded opinion of when things go wrong that it's never that persons fault.

[Bassik]

I know little to nothing about cars. What I do know is it's a lot better after having the sway bar installed

[Bassik]

Anyone got the front sway bar installed?

[Guy_H]

We have, personally I would install them as a pair only, the balance of the car is pretty good standard, putting more "tip" into the front end actually makes the car slower on the track (might "feel" a bit better at 50kmph on the street though)

Good news, we released our new versions today

APR - High Performance Development for Audi, VW and Porsche Vehicles.

[cstb_87]

Hey Guy, do you only sell the APR sway bars as a set?

[Bassik]

Hey Guy, do you only sell the APR sway bars as a set?

Yeah I'm interested as to know if you only sell as a set too?. I was only looking on your website today and noticed you didn't have sway bars so good but bad timing. I've already got a whiteline anti rear sway bar, I'll be a tad pee'd if you only sold as set.

Another thing im interested to know was how tight did anyone do up the rear bar? I recently went back and changed the setting to tightest and noticed the nuts were a little loose, I started tightening them and they just keep going without any tension.