swaybar question

[Doc]

Originally Posted by dms

Hey Doc, I think you mean Correcting understeer means more grip to the front and less to the back?

It is a challenge and a balancing act because the amount of body role and understeer is seriously excessive. Getting rid of it by replacing bars is, in my opinion, not the way go. Improving it, bars can help. If you break a corner into 3 sections, entering middle and exiting, the front bar will help a lot of the first 2 and for the novice, will work better. The rear bar will help on the exiting of the corner, potentially better for a professional driver.

To me a more balanced approach will be a bar and drop coils with higher rates. We have been able to get our Xa coil overs set up when dropping low, to a neutral position. That has been our goal since the start, and we have obtained it. We now have multiple Camaros that we have access to from a complete Track System with monster tires, the Pedders Camaro, to a Camaro that is stock and a Camaro that has our coil overs. So we will be able to come up with multiple options and recommendations. If the Camaro handling wasn;t so poor, we would not have these issues at all.

thanks
mike
dms

"Originally Posted by Doc
It's very interesting to see 2 respected names with such totally different approaches to suspension setup.

Correcting understeer means either giving more grip to the front, or less grip to the rear or a slight combination of both."

LOL yeah that is indeed what I meant. I even went so far as to actually say it!

Thanks to all of you great people at these companies who respond on our forum, it's a great learning experience as well as very enjoyable to see things being developed for our cars and being able to have some actual input at times on what we want.

Very cool.

[jxmot]

I think what I'll do is talk with other Camaro owners around me and see what solutions they've went with. Right now since I don't yet understand a lot about the specifics of the bars and how exactly they change the car I will wait until I can determine "how I want my car to drive/handle".

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and information, it's been a great help to me and I will continue to watch this thread.

Thanks!

[Rob@WretchedMS]

Originally Posted by Doc

Thanks to all of you great people at these companies who respond on our forum, it's a great learning experience as well as very enjoyable to see things being developed for our cars and being able to have some actual input at times on what we want.

Very cool.

Yes it is very cool, we are still releasing new products for the GTO, some of them based upon what the GTO owners are asking for.

[PfadtRacing]

First of all to the needs of the OP jxmot. He was asking about sways and that was the only mod he planned so I was providing him with the information HE wanted. We're now talking about springs, coil overs, tires and so on. I aplogize if your thread has been hi-jacked! Please feel free to call us anytime and we'd be happy to find the correct sway bar package for YOU.

Originally Posted by Doc

It's very interesting to see 2 respected names with such totally different approaches to suspension setup.

Correcting understeer means either giving more grip to the front, or less grip to the rear or a slight combination of both.

The car is front heavy so there's more force pushing to the outside in the front when cornering, and the rear tires are bigger than the front so they have more grip to begin with. Without mods the fronts in a corner are going to lose grip before the rears do, thus the understeer.

So the "large rear sway bar" philosophy controls body roll thus reducing the weight shift to the outside in the front? And that's how it's reducing understeer? And the "large front sway bar" philosophy makes the back of the car roll more so it shifts it's weight first and that's how it's reducing understeer?

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm trying to understand how two completely opposite strategies can accomplish the same thing here.

Hi Doc,

You're correct. In order to correct an understeer issue you need to essentially provide more front grip/bite or less rear grip/bite but there is more to it than that. The chassis will distribute the load to either the front outside tire or the rear outside tire. In an understeer condition the front tire is being loaded beyond it's capacity thus sliding. What we do to correct this is move some of that load to the rear outside tire to distribute the load evenly over each respective tire maximizing overall grip.

What you're trying to accomplish is a neutral balance. Believe it or not there is a balance between understeer and oversteer. We developed the Balance bar to reduce the massive understeer for customers that have a budget and want there car to be more responsive. Our Sport Sway Bar and Race Sway Bar packages were developed to provide that balance and give you a range of adjustment from that point to set the car up the way YOU want it. That is why adjustability is so important; not every driver likes the same set-up and feel. We offer 3 sway bar packages.

Balance Bar Click on Image for more info.



Sport Sway Bars Click on Image for more info.



Race Sway Bars Click on Image for more info.





Our Race Bar Package will have front adjustability as well. This is the package Carriage House will run on the American Iron Camaro.

Originally Posted by dms

Hey Doc, I think you mean Correcting understeer means more grip to the front and less to the back?

It is a challenge and a balancing act because the amount of body role and understeer is seriously excessive. Getting rid of it by replacing bars is, in my opinion, not the way go. Improving it, bars can help. If you break a corner into 3 sections, entering middle and exiting, the front bar will help a lot of the first 2 and for the novice, will work better. The rear bar will help on the exiting of the corner, potentially better for a professional driver.

To me a more balanced approach will be a bar and drop coils with higher rates. We have been able to get our Xa coil overs set up when dropping low, to a neutral position. That has been our goal since the start, and we have obtained it. We now have multiple Camaros that we have access to from a complete Track System with monster tires, the Pedders Camaro, to a Camaro that is stock and a Camaro that has our coil overs. So we will be able to come up with multiple options and recommendations. If the Camaro handling wasn;t so poor, we would not have these issues at all.

thanks
mike
dms

I agree drop springs or coil overs, poly c-arm bushings or spherical c-arm bearings, sub frame mounts and caster camber plates will make the car work much better. The OP asked about sway bars however and that is what HE wants. I do disagree with your logic however and I'll leave it at that.

A larger front bar is going to increase understeer; even with your square tire recommendations. That is something else I disagree with even for a beginner or novice. The car simply won't work and you'll be slower than the factory package if you just change bars. With the larger front bar you'll have to use very stiff rear springs or soft front springs to correct the understeer which will lead to poor ride quality on the street.

Originally Posted by JusticePete

A larger front bar does not reduce understeer. It improves turn in in a range or operation. Push a little more and we are back to understeer, worse understeer due to the front to rear bar ratio. It is a general feel that the Hotchkis solution is offering and one that for many drivers will be all they need. I can't speak for Pfadt in terms of knowing their front and rear bar diameters, but theirs is the technically correct solution that directly addresses understeer reduction. How loose the car is with Pfadt bars I don't know.

The question isn't which one is right by the book. The question is how do you want your car to drive?

A larger front bar will INCREASE understeer. I agree the car will be more responsive on initial turn in but it will understeer sooner because the front tire will be loaded faster and harder and mid corner/corner exit will suffer. Our sway bar packages provide neutral balance and you can create oversteer or understeer via the adjustments depending on what you want. We know every driver is different and that's why we have adjustability built into our packages. We do know about chassis set up; every Corvette on the ST1, ST2, TTS and TTU podium had our bars at NASA Nationals last year and we took home the ST1 National Championship. The TTU champion runs our bars and we finished 2nd.

Please feel free to call or email us anytime with questions. We've got a range of products that will suit everyone's needs from getting the stance you want to being the fastest car on the track. :flag2:

Kind regards,

[PfadtRacing]

Originally Posted by CGM2SSRS

Let me also say thank you to Jordan for his knowledge and quality product to us all. We as members here are lucky to have these two quality products here as well as personnel highly qualified to inform and assist down the line.
Kudo's!!

No problem! We're always happy to help!!

Originally Posted by Doc

"Originally Posted by Doc
It's very interesting to see 2 respected names with such totally different approaches to suspension setup.

Correcting understeer means either giving more grip to the front, or less grip to the rear or a slight combination of both."

LOL yeah that is indeed what I meant. I even went so far as to actually say it!

Thanks to all of you great people at these companies who respond on our forum, it's a great learning experience as well as very enjoyable to see things being developed for our cars and being able to have some actual input at times on what we want.

Very cool.

Doc,

That is what we're here for! Please feel free to call or email us anytime!

Originally Posted by jxmot

I think what I'll do is talk with other Camaro owners around me and see what solutions they've went with. Right now since I don't yet understand a lot about the specifics of the bars and how exactly they change the car I will wait until I can determine "how I want my car to drive/handle".

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and information, it's been a great help to me and I will continue to watch this thread.

Thanks!

:flag2:

[Aaron Pfadt]

Originally Posted by JusticePete

A larger front bar does not reduce understeer. It improves turn in in a range or operation. Push a little more and we are back to understeer, worse understeer due to the front to rear bar ratio. It is a general feel that the Hotchkis solution is offering and one that for many drivers will be all they need. I can't speak for Pfadt in terms of knowing their front and rear bar diameters, but theirs is the technically correct solution that directly addresses understeer reduction. How loose the car is with Pfadt bars I don't know.

The question isn't which one is right by the book. The question is how do you want your car to drive?

I have to agree Pete. I think what you are trying to articulate in the first part of the post is that a stiffer front sway bar will make the car feel more responsive. It definitely will, and as you suggest it will also still have understeer at the limit. So the car will basically feel more responsive, but the cornering capability will not really improve in terms of lateral Gs.

The responsiveness is a function of the turning of the wheels going into lateral acceleration rather than body roll. With the Pfadt Balance bar we generate the roll resistance with the rear bar rather than the front (remember that the car chassis is essentially rigid for this discussion) and this still gives us the steering response. The added benefit is that we now have a car that has a more neutral attitude and will corner with a higher cornering force than with the stock bars. It is a great solution for any car.

For people that are trying to get even more roll stiffness (and some adjustability) we have our Sport bar package. It takes the same basic balance that we achieve with our Balance bar, but adds even more overall roll stiffness by increasing the rate on the front and rear bars together. You will notice that our Sport rear bar is mildly stiffer than our Balance bar.

Sway bars do two main thing for any car, they resist body roll which helps to increase steering responsiveness and mechanical grip (the tire contact patch is better). The second and maybe more important thing is that they are the major determinant of cornering balance (oversteer/understeer). You can also control both of those things with spring rate, but the consequences to ride quality are much more dramatic. Also, even with the factory setup, the majority of the roll resistance comes from the sway package, not the springs. What that means is that the swaybars are a more effective tool for controlling balance than springs. You can double or even triple the sway bar rate without a major ride quality change, but try that with the springs and you'll have to hold on to your fillings.

That is why at Pfadt we solve the balance issues first with the swaybars and then we can do most anything with the springs. It allows us to offer a drop spring package that has a firmer than stock ride, but without having to do something dramatic just to try to balance out the car. The same goes for our coilover package. We will have a nice set of springs that will be a good all-around package, but we will have some options with increased spring rates for more dedicated track use. All of those packages will build on the basic balance achieved with our sway bars.

-Aaron

[speedster]

Thank You Aaron and Jordan. Ordering a set of your coil overs for the Camaro today. Nick from RedLine Chassis spoke to you today and we looked at Penske's but yours are the ones that I feel can handle the vast variation between street, road and drag situations the best. Can't wait to get them on the car. We will be pushing them hard so when they come in please send them along !!

Thanks Again.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by Aaron Pfadt

I have to agree Pete. I think what you are trying to articulate in the first part of the post is that a stiffer front sway bar will make the car feel more responsive. It definitely will, and as you suggest it will also still have understeer at the limit. So the car will basically feel more responsive, but the cornering capability will not really improve in terms of lateral Gs.

The responsiveness is a function of the turning of the wheels going into lateral acceleration rather than body roll. With the Pfadt Balance bar we generate the roll resistance with the rear bar rather than the front (remember that the car chassis is essentially rigid for this discussion) and this still gives us the steering response. The added benefit is that we now have a car that has a more neutral attitude and will corner with a higher cornering force than with the stock bars. It is a great solution for any car.

For people that are trying to get even more roll stiffness (and some adjustability) we have our Sport bar package. It takes the same basic balance that we achieve with our Balance bar, but adds even more overall roll stiffness by increasing the rate on the front and rear bars together. You will notice that our Sport rear bar is mildly stiffer than our Balance bar.

Sway bars do two main thing for any car, they resist body roll which helps to increase steering responsiveness and mechanical grip (the tire contact patch is better). The second and maybe more important thing is that they are the major determinant of cornering balance (oversteer/understeer). You can also control both of those things with spring rate, but the consequences to ride quality are much more dramatic. Also, even with the factory setup, the majority of the roll resistance comes from the sway package, not the springs. What that means is that the swaybars are a more effective tool for controlling balance than springs. You can double or even triple the sway bar rate without a major ride quality change, but try that with the springs and you'll have to hold on to your fillings.

That is why at Pfadt we solve the balance issues first with the swaybars and then we can do most anything with the springs. It allows us to offer a drop spring package that has a firmer than stock ride, but without having to do something dramatic just to try to balance out the car. The same goes for our coilover package. We will have a nice set of springs that will be a good all-around package, but we will have some options with increased spring rates for more dedicated track use. All of those packages will build on the basic balance achieved with our sway bars.

-Aaron

Thank you for the info!! Just for information's sake, what setup would you recommend that you guys offer, for a serious street setup? Consider the probability of HPDE and maybe autocross. Can your street setup be adjusted for track use when necessary?

[CGM2SSRS]

I can answer you Doc in one word. YES.

[PfadtRacing]

Originally Posted by jxmot

Thank you for the response and the information. I've learned something new today, thanks!

In regards to installation this probably not something I would install myself. Who or what kind of shop should I look for to install swaybars?

Thanks again!

jxmot,

I totally missed this question! I apologize!

The sway bars are extremely easy to install but I have several dealers in your area. If and when you're ready to do sway bars please let me know and I'll get you set up!

Kind regards,

[Aaron Pfadt]

Originally Posted by Doc

Thank you for the info!! Just for information's sake, what setup would you recommend that you guys offer, for a serious street setup? Consider the probability of HPDE and maybe autocross. Can your street setup be adjusted for track use when necessary?

Doc,

We will have several packages available for these Camaros, but I do not have names for them yet. What I would suggest for an agressive street setup with the possibility of some HPDE would be our coilovers, Sport sways, poly control arm bushings and solid subframe mounts.

The sways will dial in the balance of the car and give you some rate adjustment to account for different track conditions, tire sizes and driving styles. The coilovers will give you some additional spring rate to reduce roll further and give you more control under braking and acceleration. The damping adjustments in these will also allow you to have a 'track' setup and a 'street' setup that is easy to switch between. The poly control arm bushings will remove the deflection in your control arms and allow you to maintain better alignment as will the solid subframe mounts.

Our coilover package will be set up with springs that are still very much streetable (just like our Corvette offerings). The marginal gains from super high spring rates are not worth it on cars that are used primarily on the street. If you ever get really into HPDE, the option is there to upgrade to more spring rate. This is the philosophy that we have used successfully in the Corvette market.

Let me know if you have more questions.

-Aaron

[Info@PeddersUSA.com]

We have finished corner balancing the Camaro today. All is done. We have one of potential 3 sets of sway bars that we have tested. With the initial testing we have done, our Pedders Camaro will will outperform a Z06 easily and have 4 people in it. And we do not even have all the hp that we will have when we document this with videos, and witnesses at Gingerman. So we are heading in the right direction. It is interesting with our custom wheels, the front track is 2 inches wider than a stock SS. Add 305 tires to all for corners, 600hp rear power, suspension properly set up, the Z06 is easy prey, even with 4 people in the car. We still have a tune, oil coolers, electric water pump and a hd clutch to do before we do the documentation test.

We have upgraded brake pads so the stopping is outstanding and far exceeeds the OE, especially when hot. But we are looking into 2 piece racing rotors. The corner balancing turned out great. will keep this one a secret for a while. But the car came in light at 3885. We are under 8lbs difference side to side and diagnal as well . We were successful in reducing front %, even with the extra weight of the blower. More on this later.
We know we need to post more pictures. We have them, but Pete and the family are down in Chicago. Pete needs to finish all the loose ends, so he can get some at home computer time

thanks
mike
dms

[jxmot]

Originally Posted by Jordan

First of all to the needs of the OP jxmot. He was asking about sways and that was the only mod he planned so I was providing him with the information HE wanted. We're now talking about springs, coil overs, tires and so on. I aplogize if your thread has been hi-jacked! Please feel free to call us anytime and we'd be happy to find the correct sway bar package for YOU.

I don't feel that the thread was hijacked.... I've learned a lot from everyone who's posted here. And I'm sure I'll be asking more "noob" questions in the future.

[jxmot]

Originally Posted by Jordan

jxmot,

I totally missed this question! I apologize!

The sway bars are extremely easy to install but I have several dealers in your area. If and when you're ready to do sway bars please let me know and I'll get you set up!

Kind regards,

No problem Jordan. I asked because I'm a "noob" when it comes to things like this. And I realize that it's better to trust the experts rather than attempting it myself.

Right now I'm thinking that I will probably wait until next spring and have the swaybars done then. So until then I'll learn as much as I can.

Thank You!