sway bar advice

[touge_ae101]

dropping my swaybar off to get a custom one made tomorrow as the only one available is a whiteline 19mm non-adjustable swaybar. wanting an adjustable one so i can vary my suspension settings between track and road.

can't think of anything worse than having the car too stiff for the road. with the conditions of our roads it gives me the heebie jeebies!

what have other people had experience with sway bars on light FF cars like the ae101? not sure if i should stay at say 19-20mm and just make sure it has plenty of adjustment or go up to 21mm. where should my baseline be?

car is set up with TEIN's now so suspension is stiff enough but the feeling of the car atm is that the rear swaybar just isn't pulling the rear end around the corner and hence its understeering quite badly. don't want to stiffen the shocks anymore at this stage.

any advice would be good

[Distrb]

20mm adjustable (solid centre, not hollow like stock) will be a significant difference and you will notice it.

i run that size on my ae82 in the rear, and it is plenty enough for the road or hilliclimb or bent sprint when cranked right up. Helps it turn in nicely. On the track it just doesnt cut the mustard, so i raise my spring rates in the rear to compensate.

from memory neo runs an adjustable whiteline bar on his ae101 fxgt and eats end links when it is cranked right up

you can probably make a 20mm one work for you, but may have to fiddle with spring rates & alignment settings to get the balance right. Personally i'd like to run lighter spring rates and a heavier bar.

[touge_ae101]

oh sweet thanks so should be looking to go up to at least 21-22mm as a ae82 would be even lighter in the rear than my ae101.

would rather have a stiffer swaybar and not increase spring rates as that leads to the car not handling well over bumps/changes in the road.

yeah i have read neo's thread a few times but the guy who is making mine will also machine me some end links and use all the good stuff as he builds them for targa and race cars. so hopefully have no dramas with links.

going to try doing a slider type adjustment instead of holes so it will be more variable. hopefully it works out ok.

[Distrb]

yeah i only raise the rates on the circuit, where you dont have the same undulations to really upset the car like you do on the road. One option if you cant find a good compromise between road and track is when you get to the track, put in some really heavy springs and drop the bar altogether to compensate that way.

I can see a slider type adjustment losening tension on the bar when it is put under load. at least with the holes, it cannot move to deacrease in that way.

i ended up making my own end links with rosejoints and threaded rod. which worked quite well.

[1I1]

I recall seeing images of someones shocks (in an AE101) with the lugs that the links bolt to snapped off at the strut. This was with the Whiteline bar set at it's hardest setting

[RobertC]

I recall seeing images of someones shocks (in an AE101) with the lugs that the links bolt to snapped off at the strut. This was with the Whiteline bar set at it's hardest setting

It was Acesniper. it broke the tab off his trd shocks.

[Bazda]

I tried a white line non adjustable rear sway bar on my ae92, took that out after a track day as it made the rear end step out like crazyness, the back was just really unstable.
I run 6kg rear springs.

My front end seems to turn in really good so I've just left the stock bar in there.

This is what I think is happening and your compensating for it by using a heavy rear sway bar.
you have lowered the car, you have soft ish front springs (8kg or less)? The roll centre is all up the poos and is one of the main reasons why these cars push when lowered down. The more the suspension works up front when lowered the worse the front end pushes - this is what I found, I compensated for this by running 14kg front springs. But now i've just made my self a roll center kit to lower the points back to stock.
I've heard this makes a HUGE difference on these cars from some feed back i've gotten from race guys in Australia.

[1I1]

Yeah Rhys' front springs are around 5kg

[Bazda]

Yeah Rhys' front springs are around 5kg

I ran 8kg springs, once the front leaned over to a certain point the car basically had no turn at all. As the roll center was way way way way gone out the door.

Basically you want to get the roll center back to standard, so if you lower your car 50mm, you need to move the bottom ball joint down 50mm, not just the arm, both ball joint and arm. For some cars like nissans you can buy ball joints with longer stud parts to lower the roll center back down, but you cant buy these for Corollas.

I've been designing a roll center adjustment kit for some time now and there is no real simple way to do it on our cars. I'm in the middle of making my set now. Will post up pics when i'm done in my members thread.

[touge_ae101]

yeah for now i am running 5 and 4 kg spring but i'm looking at getting some 8 and 6kg springs as they are quite cheap something like $250 a pair for TEIN springs.

tbh mine isn't very low at all. a std levin is about the same height as mine (maybe mine is a bit lower) the suspension arms are pretty much dead level when you look under the car and shocks are only travelling 20-30mm when cornering hard.

i'm wanting to try set it up to start with to be versatile and suit the changes i eventually want to make. and also to be well suited changing between road and track setup.

would be interesting to see your roll centre adjusters bazda. what kind of price range you think you will be looking at for selling them?

might have a play round with raising the car 20-30mm at manfeild and see if it makes a difference. might just muck up my wheel alignment settings though.

[Bazda]

Def you need to go stiffer thats for sure.

I wouldn't worry about a rear bar yet. I would sort out harder springs first.

As the the roll centre kit, its not gona be cheap :S. I thought I could do it cheap but its just no possible.

If you can find me a teflon lined spherical bearing 3/4" ID with an angle of 12 deg movement under $130 then it will become ALOT cheaper as the kit requires 2 of these to replace the movement of the ball joint.
The only one I can get to fit this purpose is a Minebea bearing made in Japan.
Then we have the custom adapters which have to be CNC lathed and CNC machined.
Metal to metal sphericals like found in camber pillar mounts are cheap as, like $30 a bearing lol. But that wont work well when getting covered in dirt and water!

[spencer]

so keen on a roll center adjusting kit if you put the into production, was the first thing on my list of things to sort before my track car gets out and about

[touge_ae101]

Def you need to go stiffer thats for sure.

I wouldn't worry about a rear bar yet. I would sort out harder springs first.

As the the roll centre kit, its not gona be cheap :S. I thought I could do it cheap but its just no possible.

If you can find me a teflon lined spherical bearing 3/4" ID with an angle of 12 deg movement under $130 then it will become ALOT cheaper as the kit requires 2 of these to replace the movement of the ball joint.
The only one I can get to fit this purpose is a Minebea bearing made in Japan.
Then we have the custom adapters which have to be CNC lathed and CNC machined.
Metal to metal sphericals like found in camber pillar mounts are cheap as, like $30 a bearing lol. But that wont work well when getting covered in dirt and water!

i'm not quite convinced having the std sway bar is the right way to go though but i know i def need stiffer springs. as i understand its the springs job to keep the wheel in constant contact with the surface, shocks absorb and bumps/weight shifts and the sway bar is just there to combat body roll. they all work together obviously but that is the easiest way i find to visualise whats happening during hard cornering. which would suit my road/track application better i would think so its not too stiff (springs) on the road and still stays flat when cornering hard.

can't find a seal reliable enough to keep the elements out of the cheaper bearing?? is it worth adapting some roll centre adjusters designed for another hub like a civic or something?pretty much any part for a civic is a dime a doz.

define 'cheap'. lol. are we looking at >$1000 or say between $500-$1000 tbh if it really works it worth it.

EDIT: what front swaybar do you run now and what was in there when you tried the whiteline one? oversteer/understeer is more about front-rear balance than anything else i have found.

[Dell'Orto]

tbh mine isn't very low at all. a std levin is about the same height as mine (maybe mine is a bit lower) the suspension arms are pretty much dead level when you look under the car and shocks are only travelling 20-30mm when cornering hard.

Your car is roughly the same height as mine now, mine has Lovells or some shit in there. My control arms are flat too

[touge_ae101]

tbh mine isn't very low at all. a std levin is about the same height as mine (maybe mine is a bit lower) the suspension arms are pretty much dead level when you look under the car and shocks are only travelling 20-30mm when cornering hard.

Your car is roughly the same height as mine now, mine has Lovells or some shit in there. My control arms are flat too

bastard! yours actually looks slightly lower but ahwell. TEIN website has recommended heights for lowering each model with each coilover. so might aim for those and have a play.

might need to find me some lil 15's to get mine a bit lower!

[Bazda]

Basically cos your rear end is soft the sway bar should help.
Only a matter of trial and error .

I had a white line, non adjustable. it was a off blue colour.

The car over steered big time. I lost the rear end various times that track day and then finally lost it at 180kph and just nudged a wall. Thats when i knew it was time to take it out.

as for roll center kits, honda ones are totally different. I had a look around at all the different cars, none would work for a toyota. Well there is 1 that would work but most likely would make the ball joint hit the disc. therefore you would need to space the disc out. The prob with the toyota hub is where the ball joint connects to it, is on a huge angle!, if it was vertical then the cheap methods will easily work and all id need to do is make an adapter rod.

Dont think you could make a boot over this either..well you could but no lol. You will see once i finish mine. Price we would be looking at around $600+.

[touge_ae101]

yeah have been told it is the best bang for buck mod you can do to improve handling.

trial and error = $$$$

so if i get it right to start with = win! like that will happen with my luck though! ha

oh thats still quite reasonable i think. will be interesting to see the results.

[soopachargen]

Hahaha... my lower arms point upward at full droop. Even a lot of the aftermarket roll centre adjusters aren't designed as well as bazz's ones, they just move the arm and not the pivot point. Are the Aussie guys using roll centre adjusters baz?

[Bazda]

Hahaha... my lower arms point upward at full droop. Even a lot of the aftermarket roll centre adjusters aren't designed as well as bazz's ones, they just move the arm and not the pivot point. Are the Aussie guys using roll centre adjusters baz?

The aussie guys do it another way. They change the whole hub to another toyota one and you have to run +10mm spaces behind the disc!. Also they have to make an adapter still which again is not something you can wack up at home.
I wanted something bolt on not change the entire hubs etc.

[strx7]

What happens if you leave the ball joint where it is (but us a different one) and space it up and fractionally out from the arm, thus essentially widening your track a bit at the same time????