Hear me out please. I am not a rookie to suspension, but my experience has been with other cars. I had "vintage' mustangs before my G37 coupe. My '67 had fiberglass rear leaf springs, yes leaf springs, heim jointed strut rods, 620 front coil springs, larger front sway bar, and roller front spring perches. My '86 had adjustable front coil overs, tubular front control arms, and Bilstein shocks and struts. I did some hanging out at the Corner carvers website while doing these cars. I now have a 2008 G37S stock. I realize it is a much more advanced car then the mustangs, the mustangs did handle pretty good though. This car seems to handle good and I'm not noticing a lot of body lean. Maybe I don't drive hard enough? It has 65,000 miles on it so I'm thinking the suspension is probably in pretty good shape. So I'm wondering if sway bars will help me that much. A lot of you think of sway bars as one of the best mods to do. I obviously like handling. Any constructive feedback is greatly appreciated. The car is stock and I'm ready to do some mods. Thanks.

 

I have the G37x sedan and when it was on stock suspension/ sway bars I felt like it had too much body roll and leaned too much when cornering aggressively. I swapped the awd rear sway for a rwd sway which is thicker and immediately the turn in felt better, the car rolled less, and it had more oversteer characteristic which i prefer. I definitely think you will notice a difference in handling if you decide to switch to aftermarket sways.

I do not remember off the top of my head but i remember hearing that the stock front sway is pretty similar in thickness to aftermarket so it is more worthwhile to buy an aftermarket rear which is beefier and has adjust-ability. There should be a thread somewhere on this site discussing oem sway bar and aftermarket thickness so give that a look. But yee, if you want more understeer go for a stiffer front and if you want more oversteer use a stiffer rear.

 

Does your car understeer if you push it too hard into a turn? If that's a thing for the way you drive and the places you drive it, then yes. Swaybars.

 

I put a set of Eibach's on my 08 Coupe and they made a big difference even on their softest settings.

 

As I see it, it depends on what model of the G37 you have:
• The SPORT (G37S) model comes from the factory with stiffer springs, tighter damping and larger sway bars. Based on track days with my G37 Sport Sedan, I don't see a need for aftermarket sway bars, springs or dampers. The G37xS does NOT have any of these goodies. It is just a G37x, with the sport front facia.

• The non-sport is for a different audience and has much softer everything. This is where a sway bar will help it to "feel" better in the turns.

Sonic's Priority Guide to Awesome Handling:
• Proper alignment (either factory settings or a little more toe out at the front)
• Sticky tires
• High Performance Driving school - many bad driving habits upset the car
• Then look at suspension to address issues

 

I think you mean "when you adjusted the dampers to their softest setting" with the stiffer Eibach springs.

 

Too much credit there on the Sedan Sport Package, Sonic. The RWD models had the same springs & sway bars front and rear, regardless of the Sport Package. The only things that made the RWD Sport Package seem "sporty" were the Tokico dampers, limited slip diff, BBK, 18" wheels and summer-only tires. And as someone (RobC?) figured out recently, the "sport steering" is a factor of the tie-rod ends, not the steering rack itself, which is kind of fascinating.

Does the RWD Sport Package "need" aftermarket sway bars? Well, no, we don't need any of this stuff. But does it benefit from aftermarket sway bars? Oh heck yes it does.

Also, FWIW, the OP has a 2008 G37S Coupe. I believe the '08 Sport Package had shorter rear gears matched to the 5AT that was configured for that year only, before the 7AT came out in 2009. They had the same 3.692 final drive that 6MT used. (Pulling that one out of the memory hole, don't quote me, LOL) The gearing has nothing to do with this, I know, I'm rambling. But the OP has the Sport Package, so the question is will he appreciate upgrading his swaybars, and my answer is absolutely he will.

But car forum, so answers will vary.

 

Respectfully, I disagree... In driving both, the non-sport is a great highway cruiser and the Sport is a canyon carver...
I only checked the front springs but they are a different part number (54010-JK04B vs 54010-JL01D for Sport)

The sport steering is different as it has different service specs like pinion rotating torque and has a different ratio, which is the travel ratio of the pinion to rack travel. It has nothing to do with tie rods. It also has a different power steering pump and power steering controller.

Maybe my G37 is somehow different than the rest, after all it is from California.
I would never put larger sway bar on the rear, as my car is tail happy enough in stock form.

 

I didn't know that. Are you talking about the difference RWD vs AWD, or RWD Sport vs. RWD Journey and AWD?

Could be. I'm just repeating someone who recently figured that out. I think it was BULL, not RobC.

Yeah, it was @BULL . Here, I'll tag him and see if he wants to comment.


You'll never know what you're missing, but as long as you're happy in OEM trim, that's cool. Even modified, I would never call the G a canyon carver, but I don't have any canyons around here to carve.

 

No canyons in East Tennessee either, but lots of hills and curves
I think I need to do some serious driving with the car and better asses the current handling capability. This is not my daily driver so not like I'm experiencing it a huge amount.
And I'm going to be losing some handling ability since my Pilot Super Sports are needing replacements and I will be going with something all season since I was limited a decent amount of driving the car this past winter, and the bucks to be replacing them this often. Admittedly I would kind of like to try the sway bars given the cost and potential. I'll give an update if I go with them, but not in a hurry, always enjoy the car even as it is.
Thanks so much to everyone for the feedback, it did help.

 

After saying the sport and non-sport G37's have different front springs, I wanted to double check and also look into sway bars.
After spending time *painfully* looking up 24 parts, here is what I found out:



• RWD Sedan: Sport and non-sport use the same front and rear away bars
• RWD Coupe: Sport and non-sport use the same front and rear away bars
• AWD:Coupe & Sedan use unique front and rear sway bars

Springs:
• Each variation have unique springs - nothing is shared between models

As mentioned, if you have AWD, any RWD front or rear sway bar would be thicker.
(assuming it physically fits, I know the rear does, not sure about the front sway bar)

If you have a RWD sport or non-sport model, and want a bigger sway bar, you will need to look at the aftermarket.

I hope this is helpful

 

Excellent research, Sonic! That's definitely good, miscellaneous info.

So the RWD sway bars are the same Sport/non-Sport, but the springs are different. Springs and shocks will certainly differentiate a RWD Journey from a RWD Sport Package (and 6MT).

I was 99.9% sure about the sway bars, but my comment on the springs was an assumption, not a fact.



Hmm. My OEM Sport Springs have been in the attic now forever. Maybe I should see about selling them?

 

Thanks, Rochester.
I did start to look into the shocks as well, but the number of combinations was getting too big for the time I had.
In a nutshell, every combination (sport, journey, AWD, RWD, coupe & sedan) seem to have unique part numbers.

I think the factory sport springs could be an affordable upgrade for non-sport models. Someone needs to try this!

 

That is some really good info. Always been curious about the sport / non-sport suspension differences. All the other differences, seats, wheels, etc., are obvious. This will help.
Thanks.

 

Hi, ran across this thread with my old post while at the Acapulco Mexican Grill having a 32 oz Dos Equis Amber draft and once again searching on sway bars. In my opinion a very good thread with lots of info, worth a read. Had some stuff going on last 2 years but still have the car, still stock. Ordered a Fast Intentions CB with 18” resonators a couple of weeks ago. Seems like would be a pretty good time to do sway bars with the exhaust gone. So was looking at that, looking at Hotchkis or Z1 Basically just wanted to re-introduce myself so to speak since I have been away for a while. I’ll post after I’ve had the new exhaust for a bit. Again this thread is worth a look.