I just had the TRD struts and springs installed on my TC and I was wondering what adding the sway bars will do for the ride. This is my daily driver (90 miles round trip daily on freeway)...and I do not plan to race or anything like that.

If I do need them are the TRd's good enough or will the Hotchkis be be better and why.

thanks for any help you can give

 

a sway bar is going to stabilize your chassis when you corner by connecting your left & right suspension. It will affect the oversteer/understeer characteristics of your car.

Since most late model cars tend to lean more toward understeer (because it is safer), beefier/stiffer sway bars will reduce understeer (or increase oversteer).

If you're not taking turns really aggressively, I wouldn't worry about it.

Turning Dynamics

Understeer-A common condition with most late model vehicles. As a vehicle goes into a corner, the front tires begin to lose traction and the vehicle "pushes" through the corner causing the driver to turn the steering wheel even more to compensate for the vehicle not following the turn.

Oversteer-This happens when the rear tire loses traction in a turn and the rear end of the vehicle comes around causing the driver to steer in the opposite direction to avoid a spin-out.

Neutral Steer-The ideal cornering situation where both front and rear tires have equal traction and the driver does not have to compensate with steering wheel corrections to complete the turn. Performance Suspension Components front and rear Anti-Sway Bar Kits, with properly maintained suspension and steering systems, can achieve this ideal situation.

 

The hotchkis one works fairly well... I have it on my tc and can make sharp turns a 40+ with no problems.

 

FYI - make sure you have nice sticky tires before you put in a sway bar and start tearing up the roads.

 

cool thaks for the info..looks like these will wait till I get new tires and rims ;)

 

I just ordered the TRD Rear Sway Bar..any good????

 

Thats the first suspension upgrage I do is the swaybars...
Its a huge improvement for such a low price and its the easiest to install. Tremendous reduction of body roll.
IMHO understeer seems to me to be far mor dangerous the over steer,. My old big block muscle cars understeered (plowed) terribly.. Porsches over steer... so you can compensate... not much you can do when you turn the wheel and it goes straight..( understeer)

 

That is not entirely accurate.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/2769
other sources that confirm that understeer is safer than oversteer
http://www.rogerkrausracing.com/overundr.html
http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.g.bower/PoM/pom/node31.html
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_1479/article.html
http://www.e-paranoids.com/o/ov/oversteer.html

Granted, you may be more accustomed to oversteer than understeer...

 

/\ Agree with him.

 

Yup. Good resources too. Interesting articles. TY

 

I have both sway & strut bars. IMO and experiance, the sway bar IS definately worth the $$$, the Hotchkis strut bar is totally useless, it's for looks only. I am running the stock struts so your ride might be stiffer than mine ( the sway bar stiffens the ride a bit).

 

doesn't the car come with a stock sway bar ?? what is the difference between the sotck sway bars and the TRD sway bars ?

 

I have the TRD sway bar ("street" setup) and have noticed less understeer, which is great. I even sometimes get oversteer on slippery roads. I was wondering if I had my sway bar set up on the track setting, would it do this more...?

 

It's posted on another forum, but the TRD swaybar is a larger diameter bar than the stock one. The larger bar reduces body roll.
Also, it turns out that the stock bar on an auto trans tC is larger than the stock bar on a 5spd. So... some have surmised that a 5spd tC gets a greater (or more noticable) benefit from the TRD bar than a auto-trans tC would. (?) Mine is an auto and the TRD bar made a huge difference (race position).

 

I'm not sure about the tC in PARTICULAR, but most aftermarket/upgrade sway bars will be thicker/stiffer than stock sway bars. Many of the aftermarket ones will be adjustable too, offering different settings.

 

I'm not sure about the tC in PARTICULAR, but most aftermarket/upgrade sway bars will be thicker/stiffer than stock sway bars. Many of the aftermarket ones will be adjustable too, offering different settings.

 

why ask why ?

 

good discussion of handling dynamics in this thread.

Has anyone tried playing with tire pressures to see what difference you can get without adding a sway bar? If you look at one of the links previously mentioned above, ( http://www.rogerkrausracing.com/overundr.html ) you can see it is a chart recommending adjustments you can make to affect the handling. You're supposed to work your way down the list, generally do the easier things first before resorting to adding/changing parts.

So for instance stock recommended pressures are 29F / 33R right? If you bring up the fronts to 33 will that make the car handle more neutrally and dial out some of the understeer? Tire pressure made a dramatic difference in how my MR2 handled so I may try adjusting them in the tC... it's free and it's easier than changing sways.

 

so if the "race" setting is so much better than the "street", why would they even put the street on there?

 

Better depends on the drivers opinion so instead of making 2 seperate bars one street and one race, they made it adjustable to save money and to satisfy all different types of consumers and drivers.