I have a quick question about sway bars. What kind of affect do Front/Rear sway bars have on your car? ie. what is the difference between front and rear sway bars. I heard a lot of good things about getting rear sway bars as a first suspension mod. but i am planning on starting to autocross as much as possible (begginer) and i read that for the Stock class, only front sway bars are allowed... so any explanations on what a front swaybar would do in contrast to a rear sway bar?
BTW i dont know if you guys know, but Skip Barber is having their free open house day this coming thursday. Find them on facebook and join the fan page. the first post is a link to a registration site. Spots are limited! Basically for beginners so i want to learn some autocross at the event. Its a mazda event so you get to take and RX-8 out on the skid pad and a "mazda" out on the autocross track. http://www.skipbarber.com/openhouselanding.asp
You wanna feel what sways do? Find a wide open (I mean WIDE open lot) and undo the rear sway. Take a hard corner and see what happens. Same for the front. Make sure you have craploads of runoff space cause you'll be pushing/plowing/slinging the rear all over the place. Really don't do that....:rofl: Right now your front probably pushes a little (called understeer). A bigger front bar stiffens the front of the car and allows it to plant better and allowing the car to turn in faster. Now the if the rear tends to sling out on you, you have oversteer. Bigger rear bar combats that. All that in mind there is a balance to be had. A GREAT street setup is 24mm adjustable front and rear. Front on full stiff and rear in middle or soft setting. If you want all out 27 front and 24 rear. There are many options but the avg joe will do fine with 24mm front and rear adjustables. Don't forget to upgrade the endlinks as well.
contrary to popular belief, according to my butt dyno, when i was running stiffer setting at the rear, car will have MORE initial understeer and then once it loses traction, it will just snap oversteer on you, whereas running a big bar in the front it seems like it holds your intended line thru the corner better but will understeer at the limit (which is easier to control on a wrx imo). I spun my car before on a auto-x practice before when i was running a big bar at the back
Driving style has a lot to do with it. Which is why I said 24 all around is a neutral setup. There's enough adjustability to make it neutral.