See & learn jvanquish, this is a worthwhile post!

Cusco sways are fine with close to OEM spring rates. But they are WAY too stiff for track rated springs. I learned the hard way......I'm now much happier with my Hotchkis sways. Roll should be controlled with spring rates, with the anti-sway bars used for fine tuning oversteer/understeer.

 

Hotchkis for sure.

 

I'd completely disagree with EnthuZ - and we offer hotchkis as well. I've been using the Cusco sways with now 2 different sets of coilovers, and have been nothing short of amazed at what my car will do both in street and track driving. Controlling roll of the car is not the sole job of the spring - inf act too stiff of a rate on a damper not set up for it makes the car handle like its on a washboard. The key is balance....as with every other mod you do.

How on earth anyone could claim the Cusco are "too stiff" for anything but OE rates is beyond me.

Front Cusco sway is 2 way adjustable, and is either 20% or 37% stiffer than stock.
The Cusco rear is non adjustable and is 73% stiffer than stock

Hotchkis front is adjustable to 9% stiffer, 32% stiffer or 63% stiffe than stock
Hotchkis rear is 54% stiffer, 92% stiffer or 146% stiffer than stock

All these figures are on our website in the product descriptions. Based on the above, the Cusco falls squarely in the middle of the Hotchkis adjustability range

The primary advantage the Hotchkis has over Cusco is cost - as the Hotchkis are hollow bars, they are not nearly as costly to manufacture, nor to ship. As far as adjustability, no doubt it is nice to have a front and rear bar that can be tailored to the driver style. I am sure I could get Cusco to ammend the rear bar to make it an adjustable design as well without hesitation. However, I've now had my own car on 3 different tracks with 2 different sets of tires and 2 different coilovers, and have not found the need to touch the swaybar settings at all (my front is at max stiffness, rear is a fixed design). I've only adjusted dampening and camber settings at the track to fine tune.

 

You had different experiences than I did. I was very happy for about 25 HPDE events on the Cusco bars with OEM springs (except in the rain). After I installed my Unitech/Truechoice Koni coilovers with 500 + 425 LB spring rates, I had HUGE bump steer issues. After switching to the Hotchkis sways, set at full soft F & R, it has almost totally disappeared. I'm now contemplating putting the OEM rear sway bar back on to better put the power down on corner exit.

 

Well, I certainly don't have to tell you that there are LOTS of factors that affect bump steer beyond simply the sway bars. Offset, tire size, castor, camber, rideheight, valving all play a huge role. You might not have eliminated it by going to softer sways, you may have just dampened it enough not to notice....two totally different things. I had horrendous bumper steer after having a local shop do an alignment (to my specs) on the car. The printout showed my before and after results, but the car would literally hop mid turn as soon as an imperfection was presented. What I came to find out though was that their machine was not properly calibrated, and as such, the before and after readings were completely off. I had the alignment re-done, and the car re-cornerweighted at a friends race shop, and the difference was beyond belief. It was a completely, and I mean completely different car. Swaybars remained unchanged, as did swaybar settings.

The spring rates on your coilovers at 500 lbs front, 425 lbs rear, translates into very comparable rates than my Cusco Zero 2's had (10kg/mm front = 559lbs, 7 kg/mm rear = 392 lbs). My current coilovers are HKS RS and have rates of 8 kg/mm front and rear (449 lbs front and rear). Overall very comparable as well. It took me some time to get the Cusco's dialed in properly for my needs, but once they were, it rewarded me with a car that literally turned in as quick as an Evo, and was second in "neutrality" only to my brothers FC3S RX7 (to this day the absolute sickest handling car I have ever driven - it was fully modded).

Reading in a book how suspension "should" be done is one thing...executing those changes in fixed conditions, over time, and taking careful notes of each change is another. The books, such as "How to Make a Car Handle", are great to get a conceptualized understanding of how things all inter-relate, and how general changes to one aspect affect another. It's the applying those changes over time in fixed conditions to a car that allows you to truly fine tune the setup to match the driver. So far we have logged about 25 hours of test time on my setup, with each change being done on the same track, with the same tires, monitering tire temps each time. While it takes alot longer to do this than seat of the pants, it's given me the opportunity to know what works for my driving style and what doesn't. I'm now blessed with a suspension setup that I can drive everyday on even rough roads without killing myself, and then when I go to the track, it's simply a tire change and front camber change away from having a setup that runs with the quickest street cars out there at our home track. Granted I am no expert, and I learn something every time we head to the track with any car, but I've been racing since I was 17, and have a good general working knowledge of what works for my driving and what doesn't. If I could justify it to myself, I'd love to strip my Z down and try going head to head with our E30 BMW, which runs high 1:01's at Lime Rock. The problem is, I'd have ALOT to do, and it would ruin the streetability in the process...so I have to live with a car that's a bit porky, but that is amazingly easy to drive quickly.

Remember guys, no mod operates in a vacuum - especially suspension mods.

 

I'm well aware of the interactions of the multitude of variables, and testing is the best way of sorting things out. I will be corner cornerweighted before next season. Also going to install adjustable sway bar links. Hope to get the shocks dyno'd too. My alignment seems fine as my tire temps all look very good.

Which alignment spec was off that correcting it made the most difference for your car? I will guess toe. I'm running 1/16" toe out front, and zero in the rear.

Hope to see you at The Glen in July! (Haven't picked a date yet.)

 

it was the toe yes, as well as the camber which was 1.5 degrees off from what they said it was! With that much of a difference when the tire is sitting on the ground, imagine how much different it is when it hits a bump!

 

this is a great thread with two high quality posters ...
Grand Master J approves this thread !

 

Guys, this is a great post...I too am in the market for sway bars.

NISMO actually makes two products. The first is the basic non-adjustable regualr S-Tune sway bar ($413 from Performance Nissan) and the second is the R-Tune $875 SCCA Class FULLY adjustable sway bar (front and rear).

I guess $875 sounds expensive until you look closer and see that the $875 package includes front and rear NISMO HEIM jointed drop links, which can be bought seperately for $310, making the net price of the fully adjustable Sway Bars $565...not the $1,000 you stated.

I want to do my suspension at the same time...that will be NISMO too...

I am not associated with Performance Nissan in any way...I just read this stuff off their web site.

No flames please...