

| Subject: | Re: Aftermarket suspension parts.. |
| From: | Andrew Grebneff |
| Date: | Tue, 5 Jun 2007 09:24:15 +1200 |
> Suspensions work as a whole system. Adding just one new piece, > without adjusting everything else is usually not effective. For > example, the rear sway bar. While it will feel like the vehicle works > better, you can almost count on it working worse..Because you've just > changed one part of the system, which means all the other stuff is now > not working at optimum.. > What the sway bar does is to transfer some of the body roll down to > the wheels. A trade off. So in exchange for less body roll, you get > more weight transfer between the wheels, for one thing..Plus, now the > front is 'out of whack' because before the change, it was set to work > as well as possible, but after swapping a sway bar, you would need to > go to the front end and do some adjusting there, or at least change > THAT bar, also. If you fit a rear swaybar, this will increase the tendency to oversteer. It is necessary to also fit a stiffer front swaybar such as a Whiteline. > You have to keep in mind that your vehicle is sitting on four > springs..depress or lift any one, or two of those springs, be it by > going round a corner, doing a wheelie in your SVX Syncro, getting > blasted by wind off a triple trailer UPS truck or whatever, and all the > other wheels do something.. One thing that helped me visualize > suspensions when I was wrenching on my race car...Take a couple of > pencils or sticks, cross them, then put em in your hand, horizontal to > the earth. Rotate your wrist slightly and see which way all four ends > of the sticks move...Move one, they all go... Same-o when you are > talking about your vehicle suspension. Four corners.. This is less important with a fully-independent suspension, such as all VW Type 2s have, than a live-axle setup. However better handling is not a matter of "stuffen the springs, swaybars & dampers and lower the car as much as possible". Handling is always a compromise. The siffer an item is, the better the result UP TO A POINT, after which everything goes to hell. Ask Toyota Australia, which marketed an AE90 Corolla hatchback with too-stiff swaybars; the car suffered from excessive understeer.
Have something to add on this topic today? Revive this thread in the forum »