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How control bars affect handling

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Chemical
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How control bars affect handling

Postby Chemical » July 24th, 2007, 12:15 pm

When I am out the track with the local sports car club, I am often asked how to make a car handle better. You can have all the horsepower in the world, but if the suspension isn't up to snuff, horsepower is useless. Techniques used to make race cars handle better also can make street vehicles more stable and safer. :!:

Springs are usually the topic of conversation, but control bars are often the difference between good handling vehicles and those that tend to "fall over". Both sway bars and panhard bars are used for suspension control, but the purpose of each is often confusing. They are used for entirely different purposes.

Panhard bars are used to help locate a solid rear axle under a vehicle. The bar is mounted across the vehicle, with one end connected to the rear axle housing and the other end connected to the body. During cornering or sideways movements of the vehicle, the bar keeps the axle located laterally under the body. Panhard bars should be as long as possible for the best handling.


Independent rear suspensions do not need a lateral bar to hold the axle in place, and some vehicles with solid rear axles do not use a panhard bar. The rear axle may be held in the proper location by leaf springs, control arms mounted at a V-shaped angle, or even a Watts linkage. The Watts linkage is a type of panhard bar but it uses a swivel linkage in the middle to reduce the body lift effects that a panhard bar has during hard cornering.

Sway bars are used to reduce body roll or lean during cornering. Almost all vehicles are equipped with a front sway bar (Not the cheaper versions e.g the wingroad VS AD wagon) and many performance vehicles have a rear sway bar too. Sway bars are wide U-shaped bars with the bottom of the U often mounted to the body with bushings and the arms of the U mounted with links to the suspension. When a wheel moves up on one side of the vehicle, the spring steel sway bar lifts the wheel on the other side of the vehicle. The added weight on the other wheel keeps the vehicle body relatively flat, making the suspension angles better for higher traction.

There is a lot of science to sway bar selection. The strength of the bar must be matched to the weight and size of the vehicle. Professional racers will use different size bars to help tune the suspension. An increase in sway bar diameter of even a few thousandths of an inch will make the bar significantly stiffer. Some bars are hollow tubes, while others are solid steel. The length of the arms on the sway bar also make a difference. Short arms have less leverage, so the bar is stiffer. Some aftermarket sway bars have adjustable positions for the connecting links at the ends of the bar to adjust bar strength.

Adding a rear sway bar from another car to yours may be simple, but if the front and rear are not compatible, you will have different traction at the front and rear. This can make the car swap ends very quickly. When installing a sway bar, use both the front and rear bars from a high performance version of the same model car, or select a set from aftermarket suppliers. They have already done all the research to make your vehicle better handling

Sway bars are not just for high performance vehicles. Top heavy vehicles can benefit too. Motorhomes, vans, and even work trucks may benefit from the decreased body roll that sway bars can provide. One aftermarket version of the sway bar for motorhomes uses hydraulics instead of spring steel. A double action hydraulic cylinder is mounted between the body and the rear axle on each side of the vehicle. Connecting hoses transfer oil from one cylinder to the other in an opposite direction. If the body leans and one cylinder extends, the hydraulics cause the other cylinder to extend, reducing the body roll.

Many performance enthusiasts believe that stiffer springs will make the car handle better. They will reduce body roll, but give a harsh ride and make wheels and tires bounce off the ground more. Traction is actually decreased! Good handling cars use soft springs, and use premium quality shock absorbers and sway bars to keep the body flat and the tires on the road.

With all this great info, where can I get a b15, wingroad or almera front sway bar for an AD wagon :?:

Hope you guys enjoyed this read also :wink:

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Postby Razkal » July 24th, 2007, 12:19 pm

great post man! quite informative,
now in addition to your question, where can i get a 'performance' Watts linkage system for a First Gen RX7? :lol:

should be stickied imo...

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Postby 3stagevtec » July 24th, 2007, 12:52 pm

sway bars rule! but finding them ain't easy...

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Postby ziig » July 25th, 2007, 11:34 am

DUDE YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN WATTS..ITS A PEICE OF CAKE

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Postby Razkal » July 25th, 2007, 11:37 am

ziig, pm mih nah? :mrgreen:

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Postby ziig » July 25th, 2007, 7:55 pm

what you need to do is get your unequal lenght rods off , get 1/2 inch dia pipe such as seamless tubing,of equal lenght, have a machine shop make you some tapped bungs to insert ont he ends so you can use sepherical joints ..1/2 thread is ideal...then move the brakets down on your axle tubes to match your equal lenght tubes weld in place..bolt on and your done..
NOTE: make sure your tubes sit level when car is on ground...cant think of anything else right now..but if you have questions let me know :twisted:

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Postby blackNshine » August 23rd, 2007, 7:24 pm

yeah man d

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Postby THE SYNDICATE » August 24th, 2007, 11:46 am

Excellent...keep it up D! :wink:

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Postby cacasplat3 » August 24th, 2007, 1:03 pm

nice post.........
in short the aim of the game is to keep the tires at 90* to the surface of the road ie. max. tire contact. when the car rolls, the angle is changed, so less tire contact. by using sway bars this keeps the tires planted even if the body rolls......point to note though.....a slightly larger diameter hollow bar would be stronger to twisting forces than one that is say 1-2mm thinner but solid.....reason? the majourity of the twisting forces(torsion) occurs at the surface of th bar. so the center is relatively unaffected...so the larger the diameter the less stress the bar goes through. but larger is not always better as it could lead to oversteering.

camber angles are also important. a slight negative camber on a car that has to go around a track compensates for some body roll...hence drift cars with the negative camber front tires. it has an adverse effect on tire wear though.

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Postby Maserati » August 24th, 2007, 1:05 pm

good info

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Postby 3stagevtec » August 24th, 2007, 1:25 pm

cacasplat3 wrote:nice post.........
in short the aim of the game is to keep the tires at 90* to the surface of the road ie. max. tire contact. when the car rolls, the angle is changed, so less tire contact. by using sway bars this keeps the tires planted even if the body rolls......point to note though.....a slightly larger diameter hollow bar would be stronger to twisting forces than one that is say 1-2mm thinner but solid.....reason? the majourity of the twisting forces(torsion) occurs at the surface of th bar. so the center is relatively unaffected...so the larger the diameter the less stress the bar goes through. but larger is not always better as it could lead to oversteering.

camber angles are also important. a slight negative camber on a car that has to go around a track compensates for some body roll...hence drift cars with the negative camber front tires. it has an adverse effect on tire wear though.


didn't know that.. excellent info in this thread...

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Postby cdx2k1 » August 24th, 2007, 2:36 pm

Nice thread

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Postby eliteauto » August 24th, 2007, 9:33 pm

good info

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Postby 10-01 » August 25th, 2007, 10:18 am

great info :!:

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Postby xxSTAY TUNEDxx » August 25th, 2007, 4:59 pm

who say sticky???

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Postby Morpheus23 » August 25th, 2007, 6:22 pm

Good Info

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Postby rev hard » August 25th, 2007, 6:28 pm

:) :)

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Postby ziig » August 27th, 2007, 8:19 am

correct on tube dia..cacasplat...except neg. camber allows for the tire to maintain full contact during a turn....when most times the load is more on one side....with stiff chassis the outer wheel will tend to lift therefore neg camber will ensure the innner wheel gets full contact even if one wheel is barely touching.
it is very important to set up your car to what your doing...drift set up is differetn to road racing, and of course drag set is differrent too......

Regarding 4 link suspension...make sure you set up your car so that your tires will plant when needed..the best way to do this is to place car on four jackstands, drop a string and chalk the center of your car......set up 4 link and make sure to check that when car is on ground the lower arm should be paralell, but the top arms may be pointing upwards , finding your Instant center and then setting your arms up to cross at your IC is very important and will determine your wheels ability to hook up under loads,......there is much more info i can put here but this is a nutshell of the things you need........set up is fairly complicated but once you do it it becomes more easy..
make sure if you decide to do a Watts linkage with a four or three link that arms dont cross over during suspension swing, as you know a Watts will prevent side movement during cornering. make sure the arms are equal lenght to prevent positve against negative pitch and roll.

you can make your bracket to bolt directly to your diff pumkin....or you can weld a bracket to you dif case or rear cover.

I am jotting down info as it comes to me so if it is a bit confusing i appologise :lol:

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Postby cacasplat3 » August 27th, 2007, 4:28 pm

good info there^^^^^^i had to read it ah couple times though :lol:

thanks for clearing up the camber thing......it was kind ah hard to put in words
:|

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