quick poll for the street rodders.

[Robotin]

anyone here running an after market sway bar set up on their street car??

how is the drive for daily-ing?

do you have to be super careful street driving? or is it just redicuous amounts of traction every where?

haha

from

-a curious fellow enthusiast

[LimeySteve]

I run an Ireland front swaybar , perfect around town or the track , ride is the same but cornering is "tighter" feeling , it turns flatter , which is good.

[roadhog0]

I have been running an ST Front, IE rear on my car for almost 2 years now. One of the best things I did to the suspension on that car! Yes somedays I do miss the absolute crazy amount of lean. But most the flat ride is very nice. I did it at first with all stock suspension minus sway, then went poly bushings, and Korman race springs along w/ euroweaves... (Scope creep). But my car has seen probably 20,000 miles of daily driving since I did the sways. Do it. You'll like it.

[Davo]

I have one car with large aftermarket anti sway bars and stock springs and it only makes the ride a little more harsh is you hit a pot hole with only one front wheel, if you hit with both wheels at the same time there is no feedback. It is a big improvement in the handling. My other car has B&G spring and large anti sway bars and it is near perfect. My son's car has the H&R spring Bilstein Sports and big anti sway bars which is kind of the standard of suspension upgrades plus he has Ireland adjustable camber plates and the ride is not overly harsh I could drive it everyday no problem. He installed the camber plates because he had a slight tire rubbing problem, so he put a couple degrees of negative camber and it no longer rubs.

[Guest gliding_serpent]

Good question op.

I think the responses you will get will very much reflect the types of roads various repliers drive on as much as the setup themselves.

It is key to remember that maximizing speed on a surface depends on the surface itself. A tight suspension on a perfectly smooth track will always be better for performance. On a bad road... Stock will likely do better because when suspension is too aggressive, you just can't maintain contact with the road. Autocar.uk's comparo of the ford focus rs and the nissan gtr on crappy british roads was a great example. The gtr just could not put it's power down as the suspension was too aggressive.

There is no easy answer to your question, but with roll bars, bigger is not always better. You also need to make sure all parts of the suspension are matched.

I went with rubber engine and tranny mounts, ie stage 1 springs and sways, Bilstein hd shocks, poly bushings. Car is under rebuild now but i will post my opinions this spring of how this middle of the road setup runs on what can only be described as rubbish roads.

[Justin76]

My '76 set up:

Bilstein Sports, IE stage II springs, urethane everything, big sways (22 front/19 rear), IE fixed camber plates.

The ride is pretty stiff, especially around LA roads, I used to live in Santa Monica. Corners great in the twisties for sure. BUT, the biggest thing you have to worry about is driveways. With my stock open diff, I got stuck a few times going up driveways. Once it happens a couple times, you will remember to keep a bit of speed, but if the car in front of you stops, and your rear right wheel happens to be off the ground...stuck.

HTH

- Justin