Sway Bar Endlinks

[dan avoN7]

I am going to upgrade my sway bars both front and rear on my 98 gsx. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to upgrade the endlinks as well? My friend who owns a wrx upgraded his rear endlinks when he got a bigger sway because the stock ones are known to break with the added stress of the bigger sway. Are our stock endlinks able to hold up or would it be good to upgrade them? Also i haven't seen any after market endlinks on sites, only sway bars themselves. Any help would be appreciated. Also do you guys prefer certain sway bars over others in terms of performance and or noise they make.

 

[steve]

I replaced mine when they wore out. They look strong enough to handle aftermarket bars and I haven't heard of people breaking them without doing something dumb like running into a curb.

Steve

 

[jtmcinder]

If this is for autoXing, then I suggest that you try the following: replace only the rear bar with something bigger, such as the bar from RMDSM. If you replace both bars, you'll lose a little of the understeer, but if you only replace the rear, you might (finally) get all the way to oversteer.

And loose is fast.

The other way to get your pig to turn (at low speed) is to up the rear spring rates. A lot. But this makes for a less-pleasant street ride.

And do this experiment in the order I've suggested, because changing the front bar is a PITA. Swap in a new rear bar. If it's too loose for your taste, add the front bar. Don't swap in both and then discover that you still have terminal understeer.

As to end-links ... the stock ones are fine unless you discover that your car sits crooked. Then you need adjustable end-links, which I think you can get from Road Race Engineering.

- Jtoby

 

[TSiAWD666]

Stock ones have held on my RMDSM sway bars for years without any problems.

As for the advice on just the rear stb... I've done that and while it certainly does make the car rotate easier (I can induce oversteer with the steering wheel now for once, very easily), I'm not convinced it increased overall lateral grip. Honestly I think I could go around turns faster with both sway bars on there... but who knows since this is all my perceptions. I do like an oversteering car more than and understeering one though, as it makes negotiating the turns a bit easier.

 

[dan avoN7]

well i need to replace the front because i was in a little accident and it was bent and the endlinks were broken. So i figured i would replace both sway at the same time. I dont want more oversteer. Even though it seems awkward since i have a gsx, i have spun out alot. I have kyb agx w/ eibach pro kit and on plenty of turns my back end has slid out. I have s03 tires and the agx are set to 2-3 normally.

 

[tylerdurden801]

Originally posted by TSiAWD666
Stock ones have held on my RMDSM sway bars for years without any problems.

As for the advice on just the rear stb... I've done that and while it certainly does make the car rotate easier (I can induce oversteer with the steering wheel now for once, very easily), I'm not convinced it increased overall lateral grip. Honestly I think I could go around turns faster with both sway bars on there... but who knows since this is all my perceptions. I do like an oversteering car more than and understeering one though, as it makes negotiating the turns a bit easier.

Well, a bigger rear sway makes the car "loose" by reducing rear grip (simplified but still technically true), so your perceptions are correct, the car will lose grip in the rear easier. This is faster because it allows (or forces, depending on how loose) you to get back on the gas sooner. Really fast FWD cars are setup very loose (generally) so the driver is forced to give it gas to settle the rear down. It's also advantageous on a nose heavy car (ala DSM's and almost all FWD's) to have the rears sliding (oversteer) before the fronts (understeer) because the front tires are so overworked to begin with. The sliding causes an exponential increase in tire temp which causes and exponential increase in tire wear.