Sway bar Testing
- Thread starter Wiisass
- Start date
Comparing with the MK4 bars, the fronts are up to 200% stiffer, but most of the rears are 250-500% stiffer than stock. What's up with that?
Maybe the stiffer and lighter Tanabe MK3 rear bar is the better choice?
Maybe the stiffer and lighter Tanabe MK3 rear bar is the better choice?
tekdeus;1032760 said:
Bumping for more feedback on these questions. Why would there be such an enourmous difference between the % increase on the rear sways of the Mk4 bars compared to the Mk3 bars?
Here is the chart in case you missed it: http://www.theoryinpracticeengineering.com/tech/SupraARBtest.pdf
Like I said on the notes on there, I don't know how accurate most of the MK4 stuff is. I only tested stock and some version of the TRD bars, the ones that I got from Dan Cord. The rest were estimates based off the numbers published on Titan's site.
But the Mk3 stuff was all actually tested by me. I really can't say why some are a lot stiffer than others or why the MK4 bars increase the percentage much more than the Mk3 bars.
But sway bar choice depends on a lot of things. It depends on your spring rates and weights of the car and how you want the car to be balanced. I am not a fan of overly stiff sway bars. I like to get the least amount of roll rate from the sway bars as possible to balance out the load transfer distribution of the car. This least amount depends on how stiff you want the springs and how the car is expected to handle. Sometimes the bars end up being stiffer than I would normally want because they're needed to balance things out. But generally a stiffer sway bar will transfer more weight from the inside wheel to the outside wheel under cornering. This will load up the wheel already carrying a higher load and will just decrease the lateral load capacity of that tire and the axle as a whole.
With that said, I run stock sways with my TIP Bilstein Motorsports setup and they are enough. The car feels great.
So for your setup, I really don't know what springs your running or anything else about the car. So it may not be the best choice to just go with the stiffest bars. I wish the whiteline bars didn't weigh as much as they do but it might be a easy compromise to make due to the adjustability of the bars. I haven't really run the numbers for different spring rates and different car weights, but adjustable bars are very nice thing to have and will really help dial in the car. It might even work out that using a Whiteline rear bar and stock front could be the best setup for someone with stiffer coilovers on the car. But I can't say for sure until I look at everything.
Tim
But the Mk3 stuff was all actually tested by me. I really can't say why some are a lot stiffer than others or why the MK4 bars increase the percentage much more than the Mk3 bars.
But sway bar choice depends on a lot of things. It depends on your spring rates and weights of the car and how you want the car to be balanced. I am not a fan of overly stiff sway bars. I like to get the least amount of roll rate from the sway bars as possible to balance out the load transfer distribution of the car. This least amount depends on how stiff you want the springs and how the car is expected to handle. Sometimes the bars end up being stiffer than I would normally want because they're needed to balance things out. But generally a stiffer sway bar will transfer more weight from the inside wheel to the outside wheel under cornering. This will load up the wheel already carrying a higher load and will just decrease the lateral load capacity of that tire and the axle as a whole.
With that said, I run stock sways with my TIP Bilstein Motorsports setup and they are enough. The car feels great.
So for your setup, I really don't know what springs your running or anything else about the car. So it may not be the best choice to just go with the stiffest bars. I wish the whiteline bars didn't weigh as much as they do but it might be a easy compromise to make due to the adjustability of the bars. I haven't really run the numbers for different spring rates and different car weights, but adjustable bars are very nice thing to have and will really help dial in the car. It might even work out that using a Whiteline rear bar and stock front could be the best setup for someone with stiffer coilovers on the car. But I can't say for sure until I look at everything.
Tim
I'm looking at the whiteline sway bars now that I am running the softest street coilovers I could find (Tein Flex, just 50% stiffer than stock). It was not urgent until now, that I want to solve the problem I have with my super-low offset wheels and widebody setup rubbing my fender liners on tight corners! I'm hoping the whitelines will give me the right balance. My front tires are 245/18" BFGoodrich KD's, their best handling street tire, with beefy sidewalls.
The only speculation I have about why they don't make the rear bar that much stiffer on the MKIII is because of the known issues with tearing the tabs off the control arms...
My STs are an awesome improvement over stock fo me too. I would like to try whitelines next to get my car even flatter in turns.
Poodles;1095103 said:
If that is the reason, then perhaps a stiffer bar in the rear with reinforced tabs is the way to go? Mk3's and Mk4's have similar weight distribution, don't they?
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Not sure to be honest...
The other thing to look at is the staggered wheel setup and the fact that have a high wing that may be heavy enough to cause issues.
Way too many variables.
The other thing to look at is the staggered wheel setup and the fact that have a high wing that may be heavy enough to cause issues.
Way too many variables.
Are the results going to be different for targas and h/t's or is it going to be just one set of info? Should there be two sets?
Davismj711
PA Mountain Supra
With the whitelines having 3 different stiffness levels, it's hard to go wrong with that choice. I did.
BTW, anyone here try out the different levels, and have feedback to report on how they made your car handle?
BTW, anyone here try out the different levels, and have feedback to report on how they made your car handle?
Any updates on this? Been eagerly waiting to select a set of sway bars. Oh and Wiisass your pm box is full.
I have ST bars but have not put them on yet. I hear nothing but good things about the feel of ST's though.
I'm going to be updating my calculated chart to hopefully fill in some of the gaps until Wiisass can get around to testing all of the options. For now, does anyone have any information on Addco MK3 swaybars. They've been discontinued for a over a decade (presumably because of the rear endlink tab failure), but they still used the MK3 picture in their ads until ~5 years ago:
So if anyone knows the diameters off hand, or can look it up in an old Summit/Jcwhitney/etc catalog I'd appreciate it
So if anyone knows the diameters off hand, or can look it up in an old Summit/Jcwhitney/etc catalog I'd appreciate it
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ma71supraturbo;1411703 said:I'm going to be updating my calculated chart to hopefully fill in some of the gaps until Wiisass can get around to testing all of the options. For now, does anyone have any information on Addco MK3 swaybars. They've been discontinued for a over a decade (presumably because of the rear endlink tab failure), but they still used the MK3 picture in their ads until ~5 years ago:
So if anyone knows the diameters off hand, or can look it up in an old Summit/Jcwhitney/etc catalog I'd appreciate it
Addco can still make the sway bars just call them