Hi,
We bolt H&R sway bars today on my 997 (and Brembo type3 rotors with Rs29...)
I had a look on the several threads, synthesis:

-softer front
-stiffer rear

Ok? Or mid rear?

This car is not my DD, so I prefer efficient adjustment than comfortable.
(75% fast road, 25% track)

Thxs for advices from those who tried!

Cheers,

P.

 

Such a personal preference, but on first install I would likely go mid-rear (if going soft front), to have a slightly more neutral setup when getting used to how the handling changes. Then after testing, if you want more oversteer, adjust to stiff rear.

I personally started middle front & middle rear to start with, then had 1 adjustment made to fine tune the handling a few months later.

 

Ok, thxs.
So, you are setted soft front/mid rear or mid front/stiff rear?

 

I'm running the TPC sway bars, which I believe are slightly more "heavy duty" than H&R (more of a cup car sway bar). I'm still learning this stuff too, so not 100% sure what impact a more extreme sway bar would have, but when I started with the mid/mid settings I was still getting a decent amount of oversteer surprisingly enough. I've been lucky enough to have one of the best Track setup installers available put my suspension on, so he advised we move to one level more stiff in the front and keep medium rear, and now the car is extremely planted and corners as neutral as possible (no signes of under or oversteer). I imagine a ton of factors go into this (suspension stiffness, alignment settings, tires, etc) so no case would be the same car over car.

I hear a lot of people like a softer setting up front compared to the rear sways for H&R, so my humble opinion would be to start med/med settings, drive the car a lot, ten see how you want to tweak the under/over steer characteristics. But I defer to someone who's had more of your specific setup when selecting your initial settings.

Eithe way, you'll get to learn a lot about your car and how the handling can be customized. You'll have a lot of fun.

 

Agreed with RNS: start soft-med or med-med and adjust and have fun - what setting you arrive at depends on what other suspension mods are in the car and your taste. This is one of the simplest and easiest way to learn about the fundamental principle of understeer/oversteer. Essentially the idea is that a 4WD car tends to understeer, and our car comes from factory understeering - and that's where the softer front recommendation comes from (soft front bar decreases our car's tendency to understeer).

The reason I mentioned "taste" is that while understeer is safer for amateurs, AFAIK (anyone pls correct as needed) pro drivers in Porsche 911's are generally faster not with neutral steer, but a little oversteer. So there is not a "right" setting.

What I do is take my car (safely) through a large diameter curve I am very very familiar with (*NEVER* test on a strange road). When the front bar is stiff, I look for the car to want to go straight, as in hitting the outside curve (other way to describe this: push, or go straight instead of steering, hence UNDER-steering). When the front bar is soft, I look for the front tires to "bite" more in the curve and the car to rotate more (this is also known as loose, or OVER-steering). Pardon me if you know all of this already.
BTW the prospect of going straight while in a curve is why understeer could also be so scary and dangerous, and IMHO it's quite common that the reaction to understeering - lifting throttle or applying brake to slow down - is what causes all hell to break loose subsequently. Lastly, don't forget to increase front negative camber to the max which is minus 1.1. Very important, also to decrease understeer and better rotation of the car in a curve.

 

I forgot to mention: of course the other, and *primary*, goal of the sway bars is to reduce body roll, so at the same time that you are taking care of the front to rear balance as mentioned above, you *also* want to experiment with increasing the stiffness setting so that the body roll is decreased.

In other words, you could try soft med, then med-med, then med-stiff, etc.: increasing the setting and see what happens to the body roll. Keep in mind that there is a price to pay for everything in suspension adjustment - as you gain in handling (less body roll), you are going to lose ride comfort.

 

Totally agree with RNS and Can in terms of dialing the inherent characteristics out of the car. The other thing to take in to consideration is driving style. My experience of being a little more aggressive on the track, such as deep late breaker In a corner, then you will probably prefer a more stiffer set up due to the extreme weight transfers. And a slightly softer set up if you are more progressive and smoother through a corner.

 

Thxs for answers guys,
The work on the car is a bit in late cause of a little issue with the rear left caliper fixation... (need an insert, not the first time I see that)
So sways still not bolted.
I want to reduce the body roll from left to right but more from rear to front.(Can )
I think I will set soft front/med rear for first test.

 

Ok, I still not tried the car yet but I bolted today only the rear bar, setted full soft. 'Will bolt front full soft and set rear to mid in a few weeks.

Brembo type3 are on too with RS29, front + rear.

I will bed the brakes, test all that tomorrow and share, if not rainy.

 

Actually this is very easy to do, just turn the sway bar vertical instead of horizontal. One bar goes from right front to right rear, the other left front to left rear. Your car will no longer dive with braking - guarantee!
If you feel more adventurous you could even cross the sway bar right front to left rear. What a crooked ride that would be; the possibilities are endless. He he.

Kidding aside, I don't know what you have as far as springs, and I use a different bar (GMG), but in my car the sway bar was the very first component I tried, with stock springs. With this set up (GMG with stock suspension) the effect was not that impressive at medium/medium. A little tighter steering, a little less roll, but car still rolls too much.

It's only when I added the Bilstein that the GMG sway bar's effect became very easily noticeable. It could be because I was more experienced by that time, but another possibility is that the suspension as a whole is only as strong/stiff as the weakest part. The stock springs are so soft that it "masks/hides" effect of stiffer bar, so that's one thing you might want to keep in mind - stiffer springs or stiffer coilover as the next step if you are not happy with just the sway bars. Suspension could be such a pain in the derriere but once finished, it will be very very sweet and you'll be in love with your car ;-). Good luck, have fun, and be careful with your testing.

 

I agree with all the above posts. In simple terms if there is understeer you soften front or tighten rear and vice versa. When you soften one side you increase grip, when you tighten you reduce grip but increase control.
But what is very important for the power you are running, before you even think about sway bar settings is a correct alignment and CORNER BALANCING. This should be done with you in the driver seat (or equivalent weight) and half or 3/4 tank. If you have discrepancy in corner weights then roll and squat (what you describe front to rear movement) is exaggerated as when there is any dynamic force applied to the car (cornering, accelerating, decelerating etc) then one spring/ shock is getting more pressure and sooner that the others as the car is "leaning" to that side more. The feeling is that initial roll or squat etc when you drive hard. If you have more than 800nm then it is crucial you get this right first.
So fix that first, then do the test Caanga is saying with a long corner to see if car understeers or oversteers under half or full throttle. Then you can adjust sway bar settings accordingly. Imo the more power you have the softest the rear should be as the car would naturally want to have power oversteer when push hard.

 

PS all the above applies if you have coilovers so you can adjust corner heights. If not then disregard!

 

Hi guys,

While still bad weather I get back the car home and ran a few kms to start bedding the brakes and feel the bar.

The car feels stiffer and better controled but I will test really by dry road and when brakes Ok.

(The initial bite of the brakes seems better too, but I didn't brake longer than 3-4', I really want to bed them perfect...)

To Can and Yorgos: my shocks are stock but fitted with Techart springs (-20mm I guess), still too soft according to me and unable to corner balancing, but the bar seems helping at first test.
Alignements are stock GT3-RS's.

 

sad that any lowering spring is softer than oem springs...i wish there was a spring with oem rate that lowers by an inch or so...

 

I ran 70kms yesterday, I'm really happy with those last mods, even with the only rear bar the body roll is far much better controlled and the feeling at driving great.
I tryed in a "desert corner" to provoc the car and it is still understeering.
I will bolt the front one soon but difficult to imagine it will be far better, really the only rear bar setted soft already changes the car!

About the brakes, they begin to be bedded, I didn't performed longer than 5' braking but the initial bite is outsdanding, the braking power too and no squeal.
I will compare with my buddy's PCCB feeling soon, but the term "stopped by the hand of god" could be used too I believe!

Little synthesis: I'm more used to spend in power mods than in chassis mods, but you can profit 100% chassis improvements each time you drive the car while when you add power you only feel it in few circonstances, so in terms of "pleasure rentability" it is pretty nice.

P.