You'd better quantify that to be vehicle specific. That doesn't apply on all vehicles.

Yes I'm aware he's talking about the rear coming out when braking in turns and not in a straight line. That's what I said.

I'm going to switch swaybars out and run it out on my backyard track and see how it goes. I'll check back and post what happened.

Sorry to get off track, I know we're supposed to be on camberlinks right now.

4x4 Backyard track test is inconclusive as it's way to dry and loose to tell. On the street it feels good, but I need to go back to the indoor track for proper baseline testing.

nevermind.. got it

asked what truck....2wd slash

in what situation would you want i smaller sway bar in the front? granted on a loose track i dont use a front sway bar at all on my 4w buggy and thats a pretty common setup.

On the 4x4, I had the smaller front swaybar for when I was at a loose outdoor dirt track. Never occured to me that I needed to go to a stiffer front swaybar for high bite clay. Anyway, it seems to work good on the street which is really high bite. The indoor track should let me know how it affects handling on all the other bumps turns and jumps.

My backyard test and swaybar/droop issue was with the 4x4. I will not bring up my 2wd slash anymore, too much confusion as it has its own issue.

A 2wd rear motor buggy. There is so much more weight in the rear that it takes far more roll resistance to control it. It may be possible with camber links and roll centers but it may not. I don't even see the need for a front bar on a 2wd rear motor buggy and I can't think of a way you would ever possibly need one in front that is larger than the rear unless you don't tune with balanced effective spring rates. If that's the case then that's the only time I could ever see using a front bar. It would be a bandaid to control a deficiency in some other area.

Are you by chance still running the stock servo saver on the 2wd? If so and if it is old and week under high bite senarios can cause simular effects.



On the sway bar issue. I was told before that the sway bar on the rear of the vehicle will effect the front and the front sway bar will effect the rear of the car. For instance if the car has to much turn in on entry that a stiffer rear sway bar will help. Is this bogus or about right?

i beg to differ, try driving a 1/8 scale without sway bars!!! i havent seen a 2wd with any sway bars in years!! there simply is no need for a sway bar on a 2wd, its hard enough keeping the rear in check as it is, the added sway is welcome!
My real life STI has a thicker sway bar in front as did my RX7! unless you are just talking about 2wd buggies, then you have a point.

It is more appropriate to say anything on the car affects performance in some way. A rear sway bar does affect the front and vice versa but it is in an indirect way. If you add a sway bar on the rear of the vehicle but not on the front, the sway bar is affecting the roll stiffness at the rear of the vehicle which basically means the rear roll rate is made stiffer in relation to the front. What if we don't use a sway bar in the rear but remove a front sway bar, assuming of course we had one to begin with? The front end roll rate is lessened which means the front is softer in relation to the rear. The same net effect has been accomplished but of course one setup is probably stiffer than the other in overall roll rate.

In regards to my comment about a 2WD rear motor buggy potentially needing only a rear sway bar, Team Associated would seem to agree with me as they only offer a sway bar for the back of the B4/T4. They don't offer a front. Short course changes things a bit as the vehicle is longer and with longer arms more roll resistance is needed. The front bar will probably still be lighter than the rear though if set up well. 4WD cars change things up a bit as well as weight is more evenly distributed between front and rear and again maybe a sway bar is needed at both ends, or one end, or no end. A rear motor 2wd buggy is so imbalanced that many things are done different than other vehicles to try to overcome this imbalance such as far greater rear roll stiffness and much greater front end rake than 4wd vehicles.

Where is the engine in your STI or the RX-7? Are they in the front of the car or in the back behind the rear axle? I said REAR MOTOR!!!

I also said a rear motor vehicle MAY need a rear sway bar. I didn't say it always does. If someone uses a stiffer rear spring rate than optimal they may be masking the lack of one but at the expense of performance in other areas. Some people adjust their cornering ability through shock and spring tweaks. Then they adjust their performance on jumps and bumps with shock and spring tweaks, which leads them to readjust cornering power through shock and spring tweaks, and on and on and on...

In your opinion....

No racing tip from anyone anyone should be considered gospel. What may be unnecessary for you may be just what someone else needs.

There are several very fast drivers I know who use swaybars in their trucks. I tried driving their trucks and they were way too twitchy and aggressive for me, but they seemed to like them!

Don't get on Marcus' case too bad. He's a very smart guy who is quite good at this and he's a very good driver. Rear motor buggy is very different than the other stuff due to the severe imbalance built into the design.

Marcus has an RB5 which is a good example of a good handling rear motor buggy that handles well without the need of sway bars. However he added over a quarter of a pound to the vehicle. It is within the wheelbase and some is up near the front. This did something very important. Yes he added weight but more importantly he gave the car a better overall weight balance. Before the mod, the weight behind the rear axle was a greater percentage of the total weight of the vehicle than it was after the weight was added. This means that the rear needs less rear stiffness in relation to the front than it would have it he had not have added weight.

I was in the very early stages of tuning my car when I saw his run and saw how well it handled. I was always taught to remove weight if possible and never to add it. Adding seemed counter intuitive. People corner weight a little bit but no one deliberately adds 20% more weight to their race car! Nevertheless I added nearly a quarter of a pound to my buggy. Most of it in the same places he did. It works very well! This was a prime example of doing something backwards from what everyone else does and having it work good. Fortunately today's motor and battery technology make this quite feasible. That extra few ounces is no longer the difference between winning and having a dead battery during the race and we usually have far more speed than we need now anyways.

Fred, can you do a summarized breakdown of how the camberlink adjustments affect roll center/stiffness?

example....
higher rollcenter =
lower roll center =
inner upper= lower rollcenter
inner lower = higher rollcenter
link moved outward =
longer camberlink =
shortercamberlink= etc....

This would really help as sort of a cheat sheet at the track