RoW 030 sway bar installation on a 2.5L 5spd.

[blinkwatt]

Originally Posted by Allen K. Littlefield

Certainly a good deal. Now are you going to install the rear bar too? I imagine these bars provide somewhat of a balance and you now have two different strength bars on and I am wondering what the handling results will be? Keep us posted as R030 sway bars are somewhere down the list for my '02. Thanks for sharing,

986geezer

I don't know about the rear sway bar. Too many people have said that changing the rear sway bar to the RoW rear sway bar makes the car "tail-happy". Just changing out the front sway bar keeps the car balanced and predicatable but w/ less understeer. The RoW 5spd(2.5L & 2.7L) & "S" FRONT SWAY BARS ARE THE SAME! Guess what?! The base(not RoW) 5spd suspension and base(not RoW) "s" share the same rear sway bar. I hope I'm not confusing anyone with this info. In short,I'm basically running the "S" sway bar set up as of right now.

http://www.cb-racing.com/boxster_030.html

[John V]

In general, moving to a thicker front sway bar will increase understeer, not decrease it. Remember that stiffening a sway bar will generally give you LESS grip at that end of the car.

(Some cars can actually see more grip with a larger front bar. This is due to the larger bar limiting roll and limiting the positive camber gain that strut-equipped cars experience in hard cornering. In my experience the Boxster isn't one of these cars).

The car probably feels better to you because it's rolling slightly less in corners. All that matters is that you like it. .

[Peer]

John V wrote:
> In general, moving to a thicker front sway bar will increase
> understeer, not decrease it. Remember that stiffening a sway
> bar will generally give you LESS grip at that end of the car.

If you mean by saying that "the end of the car" is the same as the REAR of the car, then this is a contradiction.

-- peer

[John V]

Originally Posted by Peer

John V wrote:
> In general, moving to a thicker front sway bar will increase
> understeer, not decrease it. Remember that stiffening a sway
> bar will generally give you LESS grip at that end of the car.

If you mean by saying that "the end of the car" is the same as the REAR of the car, then this is a contradiction.

-- peer

No contradition. A thicker sway bar installed at one end of the car gives you less grip at that end. i.e. a thicker front bar gives you less grip at the front end. A thicker rear bar gives you less grip at the rear end. My initial point was made because the OP seemed concerned that installing a thicker front anti-roll bar would cause his car to oversteer (or rather, decrease understeer). This is not a valid concern. It won't happen.

It is much more complicated than that dynamically, but in the simplest of terms this is true.

[Peer]

John V wrote:
> No contradition. A thicker sway bar installed at one end of
> the car gives you less grip at that end.

Yes, that's correct. I somehow read your initial post the other way. Sorry.

-- peer

[just_me]

A stiffer front bar would be used to cure over steer/tail-happiness. It will INCREASE under steer. Many people confuse flat,prompt turn-in with more grip int he front. Not so. In effect, a stiffer bar causes the wheel on THAT SAME axle to run at a higher slip angle - ergo a stiffer front bar causes more under steer.

I'm chasing a tail-happy boxster and job #1 is to replace the front sway bar bushings - the last remnant of the old, OEM suspension and likely, as the brits would say, perished.

Grant