[Mykl]

Who are you targeting? Autocross guys? Track guys? Street cars?

Everybody's needs are pretty much met by what's on the market right now, so it's hard to make any suggestions.

[awd4life]

i'm running both COBB springs and sways because they were designed to work together, no matter the cross branding associated w/ the seperate parts. i appreitated the dedicated effort to put together a package that would work well w/ what i had.

my suggestion would be to combine a few different "packages" tailored to different driving purposes. like a spring and sway combo for auto-x, or rally-x, track days, etc........

[flatthump]

Originally Posted by Mykl

Who are you targeting? Autocross guys? Track guys? Street cars?

Everybody's needs are pretty much met by what's on the market right now, so it's hard to make any suggestions.

Thats what I was thinking.

But a 29mm hollow bar with a 5mm wall thickness would be nice.

[kts262]

Like some others have said there are a lot of bars on the market so it's an uphill battle to break into the market. And as some others have pointed out, what works best for the track doesn't work best for auto-x, and what works best for auto-x might not work the best for the street. So are you going to make 1 set of bars, or a set for auto-x and a set for track/street?

I think the idea of a 27-29mm adjustable hollow bar is a good idea. It would effectively make it more like a 25-27mm bar and it'll be lighter weight. A compromise between auto-x and track driving but it would probably be an excellent balance.

You absolutely need to use a tapered design like the whiteline or weld/bolt on a collar to prevent the bar from walking. I love how the Whitelines do that. I wish my Cusco rear bar did that.

Adding a teflon non-stick surface and/or a new clamp w/ an easily removable spot to add more grease to the bushing would be helpful.

I'm very happy with my Whiteline 29mm front bar and Cusco 22mm rear bar, but if you come out with a way that I won't need to regrease them, or make it easier to regrease I would strongly consider switching sway bars again. (I used to have a Cusco 2mm FSB before I moved to the Whiteline and noticed a HUGE improvement during auto-x.)

As someone else mentioned, an easier, quicker release/setting for changing the sway bar's effective size while at the track/auto-x without having to break out some tools would be awesome and really make it easy to see how different settings affect the car. Basically what I envision would be a new type of sway bar/endlink setup that would quickly let you slide the endlink to different points on the sway bar, much like how the seat adjustment lets to slide the seat to find the right position for you. This would probably be a fair amount of engineering to make this easy and safe and may be outside the scope of what you are trying to accomplish here.

[GTWORX.com]

Originally Posted by BoostJunkie

I sent you an email but I figured I'd post my thoughts in here. I have been running the Whiteline 27-29mm front bar on the 29 setting for some time and I have been happy with it. However, I decided for this past track event to switch it to the 27mm setting to see how it does. I liked it a lot better...less understeer and the car just felt more neutral and easier to control with throttle inputs. So my thought is to do a 27-29mm hollow bar. The 29mm setting would be similar to the 27mm solid bar, which is about as much bar as you really need if you are running decent spring rates. IMO the 29mm setting on a solid bar is only really necessary for those running in auto-x classes that use stock springs. And then the 27mm setting would be like a 25mm solid bar, which is good for a daily driver. As far as the rear, a 25-29mm (3 position) hollow should do very well.

Definitely agree here....a lot of people who want to run the 29mm bar already have stiff coilovers, and don't really need the 29mm. So i'm thinking 27-29mm hollow front like you said would work very well. It would still be stiff enough for those with just springs, but would also work well with coilovers.

Not 100% sure what Myles has in mind for endlinks, but i have an idea....


- Andrew

[BoostJunkie]

I too have an idea about what he might be thinking about endlinks, at least for the front...

[Compulsive]

Originally Posted by GTWORX.com

Definitely agree here....a lot of people who want to run the 29mm bar already have stiff coilovers, and don't really need the 29mm. So i'm thinking 27-29mm hollow front like you said would work very well. It would still be stiff enough for those with just springs, but would also work well with coilovers.

Hollow is a great idea for weight saving but the larger O.D. required by the hollow tube makes it more difficult to clear other bits of the car.

Keep in mind that the turbing wall thickness plays a huge roll in the bar's effective stiffness so when saying something like above, a 27mm hollow bar could be as 'soft' as a 22mm or 23mm solid bar if the tubing was thin walled.

I think that the 'stiffness' range should be around 25mm-27mm on the front and 22mm-25mm on the rear. Due to there being more room to play with on the rear of the car the sway bar blade can be made longer giving a greater range or adjustability. If the bars are going to be hollow size them to fall into this range of "solid" sizes. It should be easy to improve upon the very poor finish that Whiteline bars have...the welding and paint is all well short of what should be on a nice STi and both Cusco and COBB do a far nicer job of this.

At the end of th day the RCE needs to come up with a product that is superior to all the current bars or it is a pointless move, at least from the consumer's point of view

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by kts262

(I used to have a Cusco 2mm FSB before I moved to the Whiteline and noticed a HUGE improvement during auto-x.)

I've heard that those 2mm FSBs are actually quite ineffective

I can imagine the improvement!

[RainMaker]

A total aside... but if you can figure out a endlink setup that doesnt loosen nuts on a regualr basis... many folks around here would probably stop thinking they had the dreaded strut clunk.

Im considering red lok-tite on the endlink nuts.

[kts262]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I've heard that those 2mm FSBs are actually quite ineffective

I can imagine the improvement!

typo FTW!

[Mykl]

Originally Posted by Compulsive

I think that the 'stiffness' range should be around 25mm-27mm on the front and 22mm-25mm on the rear. Due to there being more room to play with on the rear of the car the sway bar blade can be made longer giving a greater range or adjustability.

Well, however it's done, I tend to want my rear bar to be stronger than the front. Otherwise to get the handling I want I'll have to resort to changing springs, and I'd rather not do that very often. So if some exact numbers to give me an idea of the relative strength each setting has from the front to rear were published, going smaller in the back and increasing strength with the bar end could be a good idea. Otherwise I personally would go with something more simple, like the 24mm Whiteline bars, because from a tuning standpoint I'd know exactly what I was doing to my car when making adjustments.

I personally would like a pair of 24mm-25mm solid bars. I'd go with a hollow bar of similar strength, but only as long as fitment wasn't an issue.

[4banger]

I'll second this. My drivers front keeps loosening on me and it is driving me nuts!

I have the Whiteline 29mm and the RCE would have to be absolutely amazing to get me to switch. I'm sure you guys will think of something!

Originally Posted by RainMaker

A total aside... but if you can figure out a endlink setup that doesnt loosen nuts on a regualr basis... many folks around here would probably stop thinking they had the dreaded strut clunk.

Im considering red lok-tite on the endlink nuts.

[Vikingmoose]

I agree with what has been already said by a lot of folks. I ran a 22mm FSB before switching to the 27mm Whiteline bar on my WRX. While I loved the 27mm bar during autox/HPDE, it was a bit much for the daily driving. (Yes, it does increase NVH) To me, my ultimate swaybar would be between a 24mm and a 27mm solid front bar - something large enough to handle autox and track days but still small enough to not kill me on the VERY rough roads in New England. I like the idea of a hollow bar if it's designed well. Rear bar I have no idea.

[Sucking up]Regardless of what you guys come up with, if it is anything like your other RCE offerings, I'm sure it will be quite the product with many buyers converting from other reputable brands. Wouldn't it be AWSOME to have an entire RCE suspension product line!!! Maybe when that day comes I'll finally be ready to mod the STI ...using all RCE bits of course. [/Sucking up]

[wdb]

Two thoughts.

1. Equal size front/rear bars seem to be gaining a following.
2. Someone mentioned using Cobb everything because they wanted stuff designed to work together. So, make bars that work well with your springs.
3. There seem to be two distinct camps: folks who are willing to compromise daily driveability for track/auto-x performance, and folks who are not.

Oops that's three.

[calisti]

How about using titanium solid bar for strength and weight savings? The bar can be smaller to emulate the tension strength of a large bar. Of course I would want it to be adjustable. A teflon sleeve where the bushings would go around and integrated collars to prevent "walking". Also provide choice of stiffness of bushings: comfort, race, etc.