Sway Bars: What did you choose & why?

[Kludos]

Yeah I'm pretty happy with the rear of my car, just looking for a bit more turn in. I'll start with the "hard" front and medium rear and tune from there

 

[Kludos]

Have done a fair bit of testing with sway bars now, and decided to go from the whiteline to stillen.

Whiteline:
Ran these in the stiffest setting front and rear, which is 7% softer than stock at the front and 17.7% stiffer in the rear. This gave the car a bit more steering, without any weirdness. With the softer front setting (-19.8%) the front of the car would continue to roll/dive into the corner and produce late rotation.

I also tried the rear bar in the stiffest setting with the stock front bar and felt that was better overall, the initial turn in was better than with the whiteline bar, and the stiffer rear helped prevent understeer on exit.

Stillen:
Since I've been tracking my car I wanted to have much stiffer options so I went with the stillen kit and it was an immediate improvement. I ran the softest settings on the street which is 37% stiffer at the front and 21% stiffer than stock at the rear. The car sat usefully flatter and I saw a 0.1 improvement in max G both direction on my local mountain pass that I drive regularly.

At the track the car also improved (along with some other changes), but I was still getting more body roll than I felt was optimal. I tried the firmest setting both ends (70% stiffer front, 37% stiffer rear and the car was much more stable in high speed sweepers, and had developed some nice mid corner rotation. I've yet to properly try these settings on the street, but my feeling from driving the car home is the front bar is too stiff for the street and the middle hole might be better for spirited driving, or if not go back to soft at both ends.

I've got a lot more tinkering ahead, and obviously there are other setting to adjust to dial in our out steering/oversteer.

tl;dr:
Both sets of sway bars are good. Whiteline is best if you're looking to change the balance of the car without affecting the roll characteristics too much, Stillen is better if you're looking for stiffer options for track use.

And TBH even though the numbers sound like a lot - e.g. 70% stiffer - while the changes are noticeable, sway bars are more like fine tuning compared to other adjustments like toe and camber.

 

[tractng]

Have done a fair bit of testing with sway bars now, and decided to go from the whiteline to stillen.

Whiteline:
Ran these in the stiffest setting front and rear, which is 7% softer than stock at the front and 17.7% stiffer in the rear. This gave the car a bit more steering, without any weirdness. With the softer front setting (-19.8%) the front of the car would continue to roll/dive into the corner and produce late rotation.

I also tried the rear bar in the stiffest setting with the stock front bar and felt that was better overall, the initial turn in was better than with the whiteline bar, and the stiffer rear helped prevent understeer on exit.

Stillen:
Since I've been tracking my car I wanted to have much stiffer options so I went with the stillen kit and it was an immediate improvement. I ran the softest settings on the street which is 37% stiffer at the front and 21% stiffer than stock at the rear. The car sat usefully flatter and I saw a 0.1 improvement in max G both direction on my local mountain pass that I drive regularly.

At the track the car also improved (along with some other changes), but I was still getting more body roll than I felt was optimal. I tried the firmest setting both ends (70% stiffer front, 37% stiffer rear and the car was much more stable in high speed sweepers, and had developed some nice mid corner rotation. I've yet to properly try these settings on the street, but my feeling from driving the car home is the front bar is too stiff for the street and the middle hole might be better for spirited driving, or if not go back to soft at both ends.

I've got a lot more tinkering ahead, and obviously there are other setting to adjust to dial in our out steering/oversteer.

tl;dr:
Both sets of sway bars are good. Whiteline is best if you're looking to change the balance of the car without affecting the roll characteristics too much, Stillen is better if you're looking for stiffer options for track use.

And TBH even though the numbers sound like a lot - e.g. 70% stiffer - while the changes are noticeable, sway bars are more like fine tuning compared to other adjustments like toe and camber.

Good stuff. I am going to upgrade swaybars next, probably Stillen.

 

[trackratZ]

Stillen at full stiff front and soft rear gave me the best balance, both track and road, more immediate turn-in and still forgiving at rear gave confidence, no snap-oversteers as long as you don't overpower the rear, easy to do.