sagrea

hello vetters..
I have C5 with LG G2 Coilovers..
I wanna go with aftermarket sway bars for better handeling in race track.
should I go with wider sway bars front and rear or you suggest to go with narrower for race track
Rear tires 345/30/19
front tires 275/35/18
please your recommendations so appreciated..

chaase

Autocross/Road Racing or Drag Racing?

Johnz02Z06

This is an honest question, why would one be worried about a sway bar upgrade for drag racing.

sagrea

well.. it is not for drag race.. actually this upgrade to make the handeling much better in autocross and GT race track.

sagrea

Autocross..

chaase

You wouldn't which is why I asked what he is going to use the car for. Some people run without or disconnect them to save weight and alter weight transfer characteristics.

You will want bigger bars. I believe people are upgrading to C6Z06 front and rear sway bars. You can get the T1 bars from GM but some complain those are a bit rough for street use.

123sugey

I believe the stiffer/wider are best for handling twisties. And the rear sway being heavy/thicker for drag racing is a good thing too

WKMCD

I ran LG GT2 coilovers and PFADT 3 piece track sway bars. I recently changed out the LG coilovers for the PFADT Feather Lights.

I'm extremely happy with the new setup. I run 275x35x18 and 345x30x19 PS2's with L5 flares. I highly recommend the PFADT sway bars but I think a very important consideration when deciding on sways is to be sure they are adjustable. Before the 345's on the back my car was neutral with a little oversteer. When I did the 345's the car picked up quite a bit of understeer. With the adjustable sways I was able to tune the car back to neutral/oversteer by stiffening up the rear sway. Simple rule of thumb, stiffen up the end with too much traction. GM T1's, LG T1 spec, PFADT Track Light or the Johnny O'Connel bars are all very good bars. Make sure you get the good links that are lined and they won't get noisy.

In answer to the question "wider or narrower" - you want to run a "stronger" sway bar. It can either larger diameter or thicker wall tubing.

Just my $.02

My car has a comfortable ride but is pancake flat when bent hard and stable to the limits of the tires at speed.

sagrea

what exactly did you do to make it back to oversteering? i mean how did you stiffen the rear sway bar..

123sugey

I thinks he's talking about the adjustment holes. I believe the tightest setting is when using the holes closest to the rear

WKMCD

Exactly!

That's why I suggested adjustable sway bars. After talking with Aaaron at PFADT, I moved the link from the outermost hole to the middle hole. It changed the car much more dramatically than I thought it would.

I can run corners - on a closed course - that resemble "long beltway like exits" at speed until the tires start seriously complaining (90-110) and the car is neutral, solid and confident.

sagrea

thank you sooo much that was really helpful.. I am gonna follow your recommendations.. appreciated so much

sagrea

thanks for everybody.. you are real VETTERS

Pfadt Racing

It's already been touched on a little bit, but your front sway bar really isn't doing you many favors for drag race specific RWD cars. However, with a RWD IRS car there definitely is something to be said for running a really stiff rear bar. By limiting the amount of independent movement between the rear wheels when you increase the rear roll stiffness your attempting to make your IRS drag car work more like a solid axle, this can help even out the loads between the rear wheels when launching the car.

Our suggestions for a dedicated drag car?

No front sway, and as stiff a rear sway as you can get. We have a sway bar package designed specifically around this. Just keep in mind that if you're driving the car on the street it's going to limit your cornering ability. To a dedicated drag racer this may not be a big deal.

Great post, especially the section in bold. There are a couple different ways to increase roll stiffness, whether it be through design, material strength, OD and wall thickness of the bars. When you're comparing sway bars don't just look at the Outside Diameter of the bar because it's likely only telling part of the story.

Here is our sway bar comparison chart. This is a pretty accurate representation of where your car is starting, and where you car will be after installing one of our sway bar packages.



Our Johnny O'Connell sway bars are great for street cars who don't need much adjustability... however if you are going to spend a lot of time on track and need both an adjustable front and rear sway bar you should take a look at our Heavy Duty - Light Rate sways. They will allow you to adjust your sway bars to help you achieve the handling your looking for. They are easily adjusted by sliding the provided endlink into a different hole in the orange sway bar end. For instance, if you install our sway bars and you find the car is heavily understeering with your particular wheel and tire combination you can stiffen the rear sway to help balance the car out. If the car is oversteering you can soften the rear sway, or stiffen the front sway to balance the car out. Included in all of our sway bar instruction sheets is a quick sway bar tuning guideline to help you get started.

Sway bars are a great first mod for these cars! We absolutely recommend them for any car seeing track time, or for folks who want to make their cars more fun to drive on the street!