Not a fan of big anti roll bars, I am one of those nut jobs that believe that the big bars = less grip

 

Well mine is sell imposed, it is from heavy track sessions at Road America. The left front is chewed up from the Carousel and left hand turns.

 

Big bars do reduce traction but, if you set up your car softly sprung it will rob much more time while all that body roll and weight transfer tries to stabilize during cornering. As a matter of fact, during fast transitions, it actually destabilizes the car a great deal.

 

Well put. Stiffer bars sometimes require more driver skill or awareness, but make up for obvious issues with soft (or unbalanced) suspensions.

 

I purchased the base model C7 for the one reason; the 18&19" wheel/tire combo. I have a car with 20s and wheels bending due to potholes is always an issue.

Being an ex SCCA racer I put great emphasis on handling. So, very first thing was to purchase a rear swaybar. Result: nice improvement but, turn-in still felt soft with too much understeer.

Next purchased the Z51 Magnetic Ride swaybar setup with the bigger, 31mm rear bar. Result: even more pronounced improvement over the base + 26mm rear bar. Still, for my taste, too soft at the turn-in.

Finally, last week installed the significantly larger aFE bars with the dual front and triple rear adjustments. Started out with the big front bar in the soft position and the rear in the mid-position. Result: Turn in is definitely more precise while there is still a pronounced degree of understeer. However, by being agressive on the trottle on corner exits such understeer now can be easily neutralized.

I feel that the front is now fine where it is and I may experiment placing the rear links in the most aggressive, inside adjustment hole. A bit nervous about it as my primary use is over very narrow, very tight canyon roads where one slight loss of the rear-end could result flying off into the deep canyons below. The present degrees of understeer provide a good safety margin at the expense of a potentially killer, neutral handling setup that should be obtainable with the stiffest rear setup.

I am glad I got the aFE bars. In retrospect the base setup without the rear bar was simply sloppy handling, the setup with the Z51 Mag Ride bars is darn good and safe but, these bars from aFE place the handling much closer to what you might expect from a racing car, assuming the car is also properly lowered.

 

I hate to sound like a adj sway bar noob, but on the front bar, the hole towards the inside of the car is hard and the one closest to the wheel is soft? Please correct me if wrong.

 

Correct 👍

 

Sorry, but I'd HAVE to paint 'em!

 

I am thinking about getting these for my base 2019. I have a torque wrench but don't have one with degrees (I've never heard of the degrees until researching sway bars). Do I have to upgrade and get another torque wrench?