heyo - just bought an 09 Sport vert and I'm looking at sway bars which seems to be the single most recommended suspension mod for these cars, and perhaps even more important for a vert due to the extra weight, as well as the weight shifting due to the top being up or down. as far as brands i assume the build quality and design is roughly the same, but i see some of them have 2 or 3 holes for front and rear stiffness adjustment. feel free to give me opinions about your favorite brand, but my biggest question is this:

what is the optimal front and rear stiffness adjustment for a vert for sport/spirited driving (no track), hybrid driving of top up and down?

Thanks!

 

https://www.myg37.com/forums/motorsp...bars-w00t.html

Have these, are fine and massive improvement with my vert. The diff inserts they have too helped.

 

which mounting holes on the bars are the most optimal for a vert?

 

https://whitelineperformance.com/pro...89-bushing-kit

https://whitelineperformance.com/pro...ar-vehicle-kit

Havent messed with the settings, but I went full stiff.

 

You are asking for something that's quite subjective. I have my hotchkis bars set to softest setting, which is still quite stiff, but I want to make sure the independent suspension still works well while driving normally.

 

I've never installed aftermarket sway bars before, so my experience with them is pretty much nil. Tbh I don't even fully understand how they integrate and work with the rest of the suspension to affect ride quality etc, so I'm really just fishing for any input I can get. I didn't even know they were adjustable until very recently. I tried searching, and I read one of your replies staring you could feel a fairly big difference with how the car handled bumps, but that your wife did not. My wife also drives this, and while it's a nice weather garage queen only and will never see the track, I'd like to have it perform its best while still maintaining decent ride quality. Do you have front and rear set at softest setting, which I assume are the holes closest to the edge to allow more flex? What has your experience been with them on a vert? I see you comment frequently on this forum and its clear you know your stuff.

 

It is a basic video, but you'll get the general idea of sway bars do.

 

Great video above!
From adjustability perspective, the more the bar can twist, the more sway your vehicle will have - so the proper term is 'anti-sway bar', buuut everyone just calls them sway bars as it's easier and some other reasons..

@JRizzie do you have any other suspension mods? How do you normally drive the car - straight line fun or a lot of twisties? How is the pavement in the area you live?
(ex. in northern Ohio I'd avoid anything that'd make the suspension respond poorly to potholes - instead focus on chassis bracing and better brakes / tires vs lowering and sway bars.)
I'm generalizing here, and the goal is to figure out what you are trying to accomplish. There is a chance that you might get a better result with cheaper parts / labor, and avoid any negative effects.

I have both front and rear at the softest setting, but hotchkis bars are quite thick. I imagine that on 'hard' setting these would suck over bumps quite a bit.. Verts are heavy so they require beefier springs front and back. Add another big spring (sway bar), and now you are messing with the normal compression / rebound cycle when you hit road imperfections. The huge benefit of independent suspension is that each wheel can move independently without impacting the other wheel and therefore keeping the car a lot more stable and prevents hopping when you hit a bump in the corner. Thicker sway bars remove some of that 'independence' in favor of reduced body roll.

I'll leave you with this - there is a lot of engineering that goes into car development. Body roll is not a bad thing and it's needed for proper handling. When you modify something, you are likely messing with safety limits, practicality, geometry, and some stability aspects of your car. Would you ever push those limits enough to notice or to make it dangerous? Who knows. But definitely worth keeping in mind.

I'm tired rambling now. Mr ILM-NC can probably just find a good video description of all of this.

 

i like a mix both hammering on the straights and hanging corners, but i don't race and i don't really like to launch the car from a dead stop. pavement around my area is pretty good. small town life with a journey to some larger cities as well, but we typically have medium winters in KY so the salt doesn't eat up the roads too bad. i have a a sport trim and i don't plan to tune the suspension anymore than sway bars and / or strut brace. i run A/S BFgoodrich comp-2's at the moment and probably won't change them out since i bought the car with them and they look damn near brand new.

i did a little more research on sway bars last night, and while i learned a lot about the benefits it was more difficult to find good info on the negatives. i mostly came to the conclusion - PRO's: beefier bars are better for fine tuning oversteer / understeer and give less body roll while also making you feel more connected to steering response and having more control, entering and leaving corners faster. NEG's: you give up some traction due to the increased spring rates of thicker bars. overtuning could give more/less over/under steer which could be dangerous and cause the back end to kick out more increasing chances of losing control, or nose diving into corners. can also cause some loss of independent suspension function like you mentioned causing a rougher ride, possibly wearing suspension parts faster (how much all of these negatives equate too, i have no idea. this is where it got really vague).

literally everywhere i read people are talking about how amazing sway bars are, and how they are a top 3 mod for your money for this platform. the last sport car i had was a tuned civic Si about 4-5 years ago, and i loved how that car inspired confidence by handling like a go-cart. i've never done suspension tuning, and it seems like it could be trickier on a vert. is it something you and your wife would both highly recommend? do you have any regrets or cause for concern to do the mod? thanks for your feedback.

 

If you have decent roads around and you enjoy the twisties, I say go for it. Most of the issues around suspension were from lowering so if you are keeping stock height, you should be good to go and likely won't notice any significant downsides. Plus, you already have the brakes and tires to help you out.
Props on doing your own research and not just jumping on the first 'recommended' product out there.
Last thing - some people reported breaking the stock endlinks with upgraded sway bars. I've been running stock ones for 3-4 years without issues, but have a beefy spare in the box just in case.