turbomx5

What would everyone recommend to help eliminate the body roll while cornering. I guess I'm used to the firmer suspension of my Miata, which has no roll at all.

I was thinking about the Hotchkis (sp?) swaybars or a set of stiffer springs.

I wouldn't mind the box to be a little lower, maybe 1 1/2, but nothing more.

Another thing I'm hoping to accomplish is to make te car feel more stable/sure-footed in the turns. I'll probably take care of this when I eventually upgrade the tires to something stickier.

mikochu

Get the Hotchkis (hotchicks?) suspension kit. It comes with springs and swaybars...then tell us how you like it :D

dinkjs

Better Rubber

Sway Bars...Do you want more oversteer or do you want something safer for the streets...this also depends on how confident with yourself

Lowering Springs...This has to take some research because I dont think anyone knows what the roll center is on these cars

Front Lower Tie Brace....my personal thoughts is this is satisfactory enough instead of upgrading to a thicker front sway bar

Talk to KDanie....he found some front endlinks and rigged them to fit the front swaybar and that helped out too

turbomx5

I read that if only the rear sway was insalled then you would get oversteer. Not if both the front and rear were installed.

Some have posted that the roll was reduced with the springs, which is why I am considering them. But my past experience is that sway bars help reduce body roll.

I wasn't planning on adding any additional baraces at this point. I have the DC Sports front strut brace. It seems to help make the turn in sharper. Nothing dramatic, but noticeable.

The Hotchkis kit looks nice, but outside the budget. I'm hoping that one of the options will get the car where I want it.

Thanks for all the help though.

greenbox

hi all just installed kdawgs sway bars at work today and boy do they make the xb more stiff. cant wait to put tthe springs on. rear was easy but the front was alittle
pain.

dinkjs

You are right just adding a rear sway bar will cause some oversteer...which I feel is a must for the xB....or atleast to take away from the massive amount of understeer it has

Back_In_Black_xA

Sway bars help handling the most. It is true that installing only a rear sway bar will help more. You will want to keep your stock front but put on a big rear. On my Civic I had the stock 18mm front with 22mm rear and it handled awesome. I haven't seen anyone make an aftermarket rear sway bar for the xA that was more than 13mm which isn't very good at all.

TheScionicMan

I was amazed at the difference in cornering after installing the Gold-Line Springs. The stiffness combined with the lowered stance makes a great improvement, IMO. I'd start there, especially if you are budget-minded.

It's a 2 inch drop but is half an inch going to make that much difference?

thinkCooper

I added the goldlines, along with hotchkiss sways and sticky yokohamas on my xB and it has made a substantial difference in the box's handling capabilities. I wouldn't say it's at a sports car level, but it's really quite nice.

My benchmark for comparison? My 951 Porsche. It's running a beefy aftermarket swaybar front and rear, adjustable damping konis on all four corners, and heavier front springs, shod with sporty dunlops. That has a rail-like, track ready suspension.

My xB isn't nearly as stout as the Porsche, but considering how light the box is, the tires, sways and goldlines have made significant improvements.

turbomx5

thinkCooper,

Do you think the springs or the sway bars decreased the cars rolling over during hard turns?

Or did you instal both at the same time?

I know tires are going to give the greatest increase in handeling, but I'm not looking for that right now. I just want to control the rolling over.

thinkCooper

I first installed the front and rear sways. About two weeks later I installed the Goldline springs on all four corners.

My daily commute includes a fast, twisty 2-lane highway mountain pass with good steep ascents and descents, tight and decreasing radii corners, some that are banked to the outside, others that are banked perfectly. I had the box for several weeks with stock suspension, the only mod being the yokohama AVS es100 rubber on 17" wheels.

I noticed a lot of roll before suspension mods, especially during quick switchback transitions (left to right, right to left) in descents. I watched my hood angle through the corners and compared it to the concrete barriers in the center line to roughly gauge how much roll I was experiencing.

After installing the sways, the body roll decreased, but not as dramtically as I thought it would. The roll decrease WAS enough though to start feeling the stickiness of the tires though. The visible hood line angle during hard corners had decreasd, so the sways were certainly an improvement over stock.

The big increase came from installing the stiffer goldline spirngs. Jeff at Goldline told me their springs were 17% stiffer than stock, this is easy to feel. I like a tightly sprung vehicle, with the new springs, this made a big difference, much more noticable than the sways alone. It's stiff but not jarring, and minimal pogo-ing with the stock struts. The hood line angle change during cornering is almsost un-noticable now, and I can really feel the tires approaching their adhesion edge.

The stiffer springs and sways are a good combination, pretty well balanced. I think the next step for me will be to add the TRD struts with the goldlines. I rode in a box with this set-up last week, and was very impressed with the stiffness.

Good luck with the mods.

JdMBboFSD

good thread, i was about to ask this question.....thanks...

chewd0g

I was about to ask this, does the TRD Struts work with the goldline springs?

I am interested in lowering my xA, not too much but enough for the stock tires/15" wheels fit nice & evenly...

thinkCooper

I expect that the Goldlines fit fine on the TRD struts, that's how the box I rode in was set-up. The TRDs may be a better fit with Goldlines, as I assume they were designed to be paired with the TRD springs which, like Goldlines, are shorter than stock springs.

You should pm "monkeymaker" for his impressions, it was his xB I rode in, or you may want to pm "stylis" (gabe) who did the strut/spring install on monkeymaker's xB.

chewd0g

Ok thanks for the info!

turbomx5

I've pretty much made up my mind to go with the springs. I read the article on installing them in the tech section, and it dosen't say anything about using a spring compressor. Do you need to use one on these cars? There is a picture of a guy standing on the front strut/spring while taking off the bolt, dosen't seem very safe.

Any ideas as to wether the stock struts will hold up in the long run with a 2 inch drop? I may just go with the TRD springs, as they show up fairly cheap on ebay.

thinkCooper

You don't need a spring compressor in the xb, body weight is enough to compress the springs to disassemble the mac strut assembly. Dropped springs have even less need to be compressed, which lead me to believe that a stut designed for shorter spirngs would be a good thing.