I have 350evo adjustable swaybars and I have them set at medium for the front and hard for the rear. I am going to go ahead and put the fronts to hard also. But I was wondering if thats how you guys are running yours for track and autoX use. And do you leave them like that for daily driving. Will it affect my daily driving that much also?

 

The answer to your question is: It depends...

On spring rates, wheel and tire sizes, tire compounds, air pressure, ARB rates, shock valving, track layout, weather, and driver preference. Adjustable ARBs are not a "set and forget" item. There's no one setting that's right for every track or the street.

 

Gotcha. I guess I was just trying to be lazy and set them and leave them. I guess I need to stop being lazy.

 

I've got Eibach sways and I leave them on full stiff on front & rear. No noticable negtative issues in the dry, the back end tends to break away a little quicker than I recall when accelerating around sharp up-hill corners in the wet. But that was only when I intentionally did it to find out where the new limit was. I think depending on how stiff your sways are you may find one of the ends stepping out faster in cases where you are at or near the limit.

 

Its not being lazy per se, but just not working hard at getting the most out of your car. When I was working with Erik Messley at EMI Racing we put $28,000 worth of Penske quad adjustable shocks, tubular blade ARBs, fully threaded, no preload coil overs on a Viper GTS. The owner then asked us to set all the adjustments to, "...the best setting for all the tracks in California" because he didn't want to bother with crawling under the car or opening the hood.

Adding adjustability to your suspension means you need to start adjusting it.

 

Hello,

Just in my opinion, but most folks (those with extensive track or auto-x experience probably don't fit this) won't feel their setup well enough to tune their suspensions differently for different tracks. Heck, I make dozens of fine-tuning changes for my race drivers for each track, depending on track conditions, weather, temperatures, etc., but my own personal (non-race) cars pretty much stay at one setup all the time, track, daily driving, or even snow driving. I can feel a difference in very minor setup changes, but I don't really care - it's my street car so who cares if it's not optimal, so long as it's enjoyable?

So, I think it's perfectly acceptable to set yourself up for track, and then just soften things for the street, if you're not happy driving your track setup every day. That is, if you just have bars, set them for track (through experimentation), and then if you need to, soften both ends (the same amount or more at the rear) for the street. If you have ride height changes, just lift the car the same amount at each corner, who cares if it slightly changes balance or handling. Of course, the caveat with ride height is the effect it has on toe and therefore tire-wear...

As for John's customer with the Penskes - I know most customers don't want to hear it (everyone wants the coolest coilovers in the world), but those are the guys that need, but will never agree to getting, a set of custom valved, non-adjustable shocks... or even decent off the shelf aftermarket non- or minimally-adjustable shocks. Something that works, but is far from perfect for a racecar. Meanwhile, it would cost WAY less and probably have a longer service life!

Hahah... Ahh well...

Joel

 

As Joel said, for most people, one setting is fine. On a race track a good driver can get one or two fast laps even with an ill handling car (and Joel, I've got in car video of Gary Sheehan driving the Flying Miata to prove that). But, to get many consecutive fast laps for a 20 lap sprint race or a 25 hour enduro, you need to have a car that is adjusted to suit the driver, the track, and the conditions. That's why the bucks are spent on stuff nobody sees.

Build the engine for flash, build the suspension for cash.