i am trying to fix up my suspension a lil more…now i have front and rear spoon strut bars , em’s racing C-pillar bar, a progress rear sway bar, kyb gr2 with tein s-tech…but im getting tanabe sustec pro ss coils and an autopower race bar…so im not worryin about the shocks and springs…but what i want to know is … should i get a front sway bar or just leave the stock one?? i read awhile back before i bought my rear sway that u dont need to get the front and just upgrade the rear…ben if u see this …let me know bc i trust ur knowledge…i tried looking for some threads reguarding this but i cant really find any… :hmm:
…o one last question…say i leave the stock front sway bar…should i look into getting a front lower tie bar ??..thanks…
With what you got, you will be fine. Leave the front sway bar alone. With the back stiffened like you got it’ll give it some oversteer which helps with more precise cornering. Yeah, it sounds backwards, but it works.
hey thanks alot MoonScryer i really appreciate ur help… 
well…i would say it depends how you want your car to handle and what kind of racing you want to do. Some people prefer a neutral feel to the car, where as some like the back-end to kick out more, which helps on the sharp turns.
if you want your car to rotate more, then leave the front sway alone (great for auto-x).
but if you want to do some road (aka circuit) racing, then too much rotation isn’t good. The last thing you want when you’re taking a high speed turn is your backend to start kicking out.
I personally have both the front and rear sway bars upgraded and I like the neutral feeling. I can comphensate for the lack of rotation by braking late and harder into the apex of the turn.
my 0.02 cents
I’m going to have to agree w/ Eclypz. Especially since MoonScryer’s suggestion is WAY to general.
lilfab: my suggestion to you is to do some research. Find out what “bars” will do to affect the handling of the car. Don’t take this the wrong way…but from your question it isn’t apparent that you even know the differences which a lower tie bar and a front sway bar may have in how your car handles.
Also, like Eclypz asked… what do YOU want out of your car. Cars should be tuned differently for different types of driving/racing. In addition to that, cars should be tuned differently for different types of drivers and their preferences. For example, what do you like about how your car handles now? What do you NOT like about how it handles now? To a certain extent these questions however are irrelevant because you will soon be changing to coilovers. So when you do that it may change the characteristics of how your car handles/drives/rides. These may be good changes or bad ones, that depends again on what you want out of your car.
You should look into how you want your car to handle, and what type of driving you plan on doing with it. Do you want to autocross? Run trackdays? Just have a good handling street car? Do you want as much oversteer as you can muster? Do you want a neutral handling car? Remember that how you want a car to handle on a track is not always how you want it to handle on the street… especially in adverse conditions.
Overall… I suggest you do some more research into handling basics, that sorta thing, once you’ve got at least a general idea of what direction you want to go, then you can start figuring out what parts are needed. That should give you a good idea of where to start in regard to spring rates, sway bars, tires and alignment specs (don’t forget tires and alignment, they’re very important too). You may have to try different things until you figure out exactly what you want.
Good Luck!
i dont think krb’s and stechs are that good to begin with if you want a good handling car, they are to soft from the knowledge ive read from here, and i really dont know if strut bars make a difference in our cars
S. Techs are more of a street spring than a race spring, but again, it depends on what he’s looking for. He may just want a better handling car for the street, in which the S.Techs and KYBs GR2s are fine. But if he wants to get competitive, then yes, go with another spring/shock combo.
strut bars do make a difference, but the difference isn’t night and day. You’d have to be taking some pretty hard turns to notice a difference.
lower-tie bar is probably the most useless bar. I got one to reduce the stress on the LCAs. I didn’t feel a difference at all when i put my lower tie bar in.
good response, Colin.
I forgot to mention the differences of the handling characteristics between normal driving conditions and extreme driving conditions and I’m glad you mentioned it, Colin.
As i previously mentioned, my car handles neutral when racing, but when i drive on the street, my car understeers. Just make sure you’re aware of that when you’ve decided what you want and decide to test it out. Test it out at the speeds u want your car setup for.
I was actually mainly talking in regard to adverse conditions like snow or rain. If you have your car tuned so that oversteer is normal or its very easily induced it could be dangerous on the street. Obviously if its tuned in such a manner, you’re skilled driver, and you use some common sense, then it probably isn’t an issue (or at least not a big one). But especially in areas like here in so.cal where we don’t get much weather… people aren’t used to driving in rain, so people don’t even think about it when they buy parts for their cars. And it can catch them off guard. If you can somewhat easily induce oversteer when its dry…it will oversteer quite easily when traction is limited. So if you’re driving on an on-ramp in the rain and lift the throttle, you may be in for a surprise as the rear end of your car begins to step out.
thanks for ur replys…appreciate them…i already know that my kyb and s.tech’s are crappy…i run the mountains alot and im going to start autox soon…if u want an idea of how i want my suspension…i do research about suspension alot and i was just wondering peeps opinons about the front sway bc i heard that u gain a lil understeer back that u just lost by puting the rear sway on…and i heard that the front lower tie bar does help and that the rear is pointless…i ran the mountains with just my strut bars and a pillar bar before putting my sway in… so i know how much those helped…i think they help alot personal opinon…i just want my car a lil stiffer thats all… thats why im going to put some good coilovers on…i running es 100’s on 14’s and those grip good enough for me…so my tires are good…
the es100’s really aren’t that great of a tire, although they’re decent for the price. If you’re gonna autox, then a set of azenis would be a much better choice.
I’m currently running the es100’s and i was pretty dissappointed w/ them. But then again, they were cheap, so I guess I can’t complain too much. And actually i took them out to the track a few weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised how well they performed once they were good and warmed up (made a huge difference that they were good and hot). Also, when I tracked them there was only 20-50% tread left, so that probably helped as well (at least helped them not chunk too bad).
I do road racing with my ES100s 
they do fine…
I’m just waiting for some good R compounds that come in 205/45/16.
I’m stuck with 16" rims because i need them to clear my brakes 
Changing the suspension bushings help stiffen things up a bit.
Yeah, i was actually pretty happy w/ how the es100’s did at the track. But on the street my old Potenza Re710’s were MUCH better. But i guess those two tires are sort of like comparing apples to oranges, its obvious one is gonna be better than the other.
How come you want to run 205-45-16? Seems like you’d want to take advantage of those 16’s which I imagine are are at least decently wide…and run some 215’s. And aren’t there some R compounds out there in 205-45-16? I know hoosier and kumho both make some. Maybe they’re not exactly what you’re looking for?
As for bushings… I’m quite happy w/ my ES bushing kit. I think it definitely helped. The car feels more “solid” now. But my rear trailing arm bushings were even better of an upgrade. I was amazed at how much better and smooth the rear of my car is now that the bushings aren’t complete crap. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… replace your rear trailing arm bushings… its well worth it 
I have to run 16"s to clear my brakes 
I should rephrase that…i can’t find any 205/45/16 R compounds that are affordable…the Khumo’s are $200cdn a pop and they’ll probably only last me one season 
are there ANY affordable R compounds?
I can get a032r cheaper, but don’t come in my size.
hehe…i guess it doesn’t really exist…i’m just waiting for something to come to the $150cdn range.