Has anyone tried the stiff setting on the Hotchkis Sway Bars? I plan on installing mine sometime this week, and I can't decide on which setting.

 

The install manual suggests stiffest up front and lightest in the back. I dunno why...does anyone know why?

 

They recommend full stiff front and full soft rear because that setup will yield the most understeer. They dont want people swinging their rear ends into lamp posts shortly after installation .

 

Yeah I started at the Full hard/hard and drove that, then changing the settings every week or so until I find a happy median.

The Hard front, hard rear was a real @ss happy setting and wanted to swing out all the time under hard acceleration turns. Damn near kissed a guard rail but ended up with a great mini-drift comming out of the mall. The hard/medium is much more stable but wants to kick a little still. I can feal it noseing into the turns more.

Closer where I want it to be but not quite there. Once I get it in the ball park I'll adjust the spring preload and dampening to get the feal I want. It's gonna take a while

 

I think that is the safest setting...generating the most understeer. (already stated) A good starting point. From there you can bring the rear up in stiffness to the desired level or neutrality or oversteer, then if that is not enough or for further fine tuning, you can start bringing down the front.

 

where has this thread been moved to?

 

What setting do you guys recommend for daily driving?

 

I would say hard/soft as Hotchkis recomends. Its the safest and most predictable for daily driving.

 

+1, hands down.

 

Okay cool. That's what I'm going to start out with.

 

I started with the front on medium and the rear on soft, and with my RSR Ti2000 springs that generated a little bit of understeer, but was otherwise quite nice. I now have both on medium and am much happier. On those really tight, decreasing radius turns, I used to get understeer towards the tight parts at the end, but now (with the medium/medium config) it seems to stay stuck a bit better and be a bit more balanced (aka: the wheels all seem to start to slide at the same time). Your results will vary greatly depending on what springs you're using, though, so I'd say start with a safe understeer config and then slowly make it more aggressive as you go (as everyone has already stated here).

 

High front bar level's just might maximize front tire contact patch on a camber challenged car such as this. Low rear bar level's allow maximum traction for corner exit. As alway's be willing to make changes to get the car's at the limit behavior the way you like it. Many people in autocross purposely seek out the absolute most front bar power they can get their hands on for a reason, has to do with leveraging the front tires to keep them in the game as much as possible.