I have a few handling questions for the tC in general. Car is an everyday driver, no racing. Any help is appreciated.

I've been reading all the million posts on the TRD sway bar and I'm considering getting one. It seems people are happy with it. I'm looking for ways to make the car's handling more precise, such as when doing lane changes and taking corners. Kind of feeling more connected to the road. I know springs and such would help, but that's out of my price range for now and the roads are crap around here and I'm concerned about scraping my bumper. I've already scraped a bit at stock height. Anyway, here's what I was wondering...

1. In my case, is the TRD sway the best bet to make the car handle more precisely?

2. Does the addition of the bar make the car tend to oversteer a lot more than understeer (like stock)? I'd kind of prefer a bit more on the understeer side because it seems to be safer for average drivers to correct. Therefore, I was thinking of putting the bar on the "street" setting b/c some were saying the "track" setting does tend to oversteer more.

Oh yeah, I will be getting tires soon too, probably the Proxes 4.

Thanks

 

put it on the race setting, the street setting is barely any stiffer than stock.

 

Bang for the buck, the TRD rear sway is the best handling upgrade you can do to your tC for the least amount of money. Plus it's fairly easy to install on your own. And definitely go with the 'race'setting.'

 

Thanks for the responses. I did see a lot of people recommend the "race" setting. I guess another thing I was kind of getting at was....
Does using the "race" setting make the car oversteer a lot more so that it can be more dangerous to a normal driver? I think that's what's making me hesitate on getting this.

 

no, the car isn't more dangerous to drive. the it's a front wheel drive car, it is very hard to get it to oversteer. the only way to do that is called "throttle-lift oversteer, which is when you lift off the gas pedal while taking a turn. that wil cause the car to oversteer. but i have full trd suspension, and the car isn't any harder to drive. infact it is easier because it is so nice and tight.

barring doing something really stupid, and have average driving skills, oversteer shouldn't even be in the equation.

 

It can oversteer without throttle lift, but not too easilly. Auto-xing it last sunday, I felt the rear end try to come around just a tad once or twice, but nothing dramatic at all. Mostly, you will deal with understeer. With the TRD rear sway on race setting, it is much more balanced overall. I only lost it once that day (in the rain :D ), and it slid fairly straight (sideways), but understeered a bit first. So I wouldnt worry about it being hard to handle. I actually wish it oversteered more than it does.

I agree that bang for buck, overall in any performance category, the sway is the way to go. Very noticeable improvement for little dough and very little install effort.

But if you want more response as well, look at tires and springs. I will always say on this car, in order of handling impact, it is tires --> sway --> springs --> strut bar. The sway and springs are very close.

 

I disagree. Partly because the street setting is 39% stiffer than stock, but also because I've had mine on that setting for about 2 weeks since installing it, and I notice a big difference over stock. Much of the body roll is now gone and it doesn't feel as 'floaty'.

The race setting may be preferred by most people, but I think the TRD RSB is still a nice improvment over stock and well worth the cost, even when used on the street setting.

 

39% stiffer than some small number isn't that stiff at all

 

^ Regardless of the percentage, the point is there's an easily noticable difference between the stock bar and the TRD on street setting, and the improvement is worth the cost.

 

That's sounds good that tires and the sway will help response. I was reading that the strut tie bar doesn't really do too much, as you have it noted, but will the tie bar in addition to the sway really add anything NOTICEABLE to the response of the car in handling? Or is it just basically spending over $100 for not much in return.

Thanks for the help guys, think I'm going to go with the sway for sure.

 

I put my sway on street for the first couple months its pretty tight then i said oh wth ill put it on race. Lemme tell you it makes you feel invincible. Taking corners really fast it sticks really well. My only complaint is the stock Bridgestone RE92s are alil on the hard side. Get something with alittle more stick and i cant imagine the funn that can be had.

 

with the full trd suspension i have, right now the weakest point in my handling are the all-season tires i have. someday i'll have to see what i can do with some summer performance tires.

 

Don't know if you've already ordered your sway so hope I don't throw a monkey wrench in your plans. But let me put in my 0.02. Most people put in their springs and rear sway at the same time, and I was planning to also. But due to a mixup with my springs vendor my TRD sway came in first and so I drove around for 3 weeks with it on stock springs. I can tell you I felt no noticeable difference. Body roll on turns - interstate ramp @ 50 mph, neighborhood streets @ 20mph, ride quality on uneven pavement or not hitting speedbumps dead-on - all the instances where the sway should have made a difference - for me it didn't. Maybe at the track it would have shown up in the numbers, but not in my daily driving. I even wondered if I should have gone with the Progress bar after all, but dismissed them because they didn't return my e-mails asking what %stiffness I could expect with their product.

Now once I put on my springs (Tien H-tech's) - yes, HUGE difference. Much improved handling/less roll on turns (along with the rougher ride on uneven surfaces). And some benefits I didn't expect - no nose-lifting on acceleration, no nose-dives on hard braking. And I'm sure the sway bar helps on turns, I just believe it needs to be paired with stiffer springs to be noticed on a daily driver.

Got my springs for $153, TRD sway on sale for $130 shipped, so prices are comparable. The spring install is more difficult & time-consuming, but if given the choice I would go for the springs. (Actually I would say get both if you can swing it.) If you're concerned with lowering too much, go with TRD on springs - only a 1.25" drop.

Maybe it's just me - maybe I'm "sway-impaired". . (gothemi8, are you running sway on stock springs?) But IMO you WILL feel a GREAT difference with springs, you might be disappointed with just the sway, as I was.

Whatever you do make sure you post back & tell us how it worked out for you.

 

Yeah, right now I was just going to go with the sway bar. Springs are kind of out of the question now as I would want to do a spring/shock install at the same time. I guess I'll go through all the sway bar posts again and see what others are saying about it on stock springs/shocks. I'll let you know though what happens. Thanks

 

That is the first person I have heard say that the sway made no improvement. Are you sure it was on the stiffer setting?

And when you mention ride quality, were you saying you thought it should have improved it? It was hard to tell by your post. But stiffer sways do not improve ride quality over uneven surfaces. They make ride quality worse to some degree due to removing independence from the suspension.

 

Yes, on the race setting. Should have felt a difference on either one.

I feel like the only guy in the room that didn't get the joke - before I bought it I had read all these posts about how great the TRD rear sway was, and expected a night/day difference. Didn't happen with sway only, but with the springs (+ sway) was a night/3-days difference.

The ride quality - yes I know it gets bumpier on uneven roads, I meant to say that in the first paragraph like I did in the second.

I had intended to install springs + sway at the same time, like most do, so I think my situation might be somewhat unique. That's why I wanted to hear from others who may have run the TRD sway/stock springs setup and get their impressions.

 

Understeer is what you're fighting. Oversteer would be nice, no? If people knew how to handle it.

 

Well I just bought the Hotchkis kit (springs & sways) from trdsparks and once I get them installed ( as well as get my car running ) ill let you know how it is as a combo

 

I am basically in the same situation as moosey and I appreciate everyones input. I will order trd springs and sway tomorrow

 

Think I may have found a reason for my "TRD swaybar deficiency". From the "MUST READ" sticky on the tC home page:

Mine's an automatic. Could the already-beefier stock bar be why I didn't notice much of a difference with the TRD bar (on stock springs) which was only 2mm thicker? Or should I have noticed the extra 2mm anyway?

And why would Scion give the manual the skinnier bar when stick is the version you'd want for autox? (Oliver Stone says it's a Toyo conspiracy to make stick drivers cough up $$ to TRD. )