[Ron Sutton]

Hey Lance,

It's not necessarily accurate that the rear sway bar to too stiff for Autocross. But it is too stiff relative to your front sway bar & spring set-up. What the video is showing is "too much diagonal roll angle." I cover diagonal roll angle quite a bit in my chassis threads on here.

When I calculated your set-up using the new Ridetech Muscle bar with .250" wall thickness ... to keep the FLLD/RLLD correct with your trailing arm mounted rear sway bar... required 250# rear springs. Obviously, as the video shows ... when you tested the new chassis mounted sway bar ... it is simply too stiff for the rest of your set-up. That means you're not allowing the car to roll on correctly front & rear. You could say it's rolling too much in the front or too little in the rear ... but in reality ... it's simply the front to rear roll angle difference that is too much.

Diagonal roll onto the outside front tire is critical for proper handling. All cars need to roll over onto the outside front tire "to a certain degree." There is an optimum amount, which I find to be about .35-.4° degree more roll angle in the front when compared to the rear. But the set-up in the video is creating too much diagonal roll. So the front end is rolling over onto the outside front tire "too much". This can happen from too much rear spring rate or too much rear sway bar rate. The results differ. Too much sway bar rate lifts the inside rear wheel. Too much rear sporing rate does not lift the inside rear wheel.

To everyone following along, Lance & I worked out his set-up with the trailing arm mounted sway bar & it handles correctly. Lance got this different rear sway bar to test ... and obviously ... it is too stiff. So going back to the set-up we worked out with the original rear sway bar is the correct path ... for now. If ... if you ever go to a stiffer front sway bar than you have now ... like a .375" thick wall version of the sway bar you have now ... then you will need either a stiffer rear sway bar or stiffer rear springs to keep the FLLD/RLLD balanced ... which is what makes your car handle so balanced & neutral now.

:Cheers: