[dradernh]

Originally Posted by msendit

I followed your explanation until the Bottom line, which (in my humble opinion) is off and doesn't follow from the rest. You had a handling problem, and the sway bar solved it pretty easily. Bonus point, now you have the adjustability for other tracks where exit speed from an off-camber corner is way less critical.

In the costs thread, you had your running costs at roughly $800 / track-hour. $400 in labor is ... half an hour of track time. Or one (1) track tire. Or repainting half a body panel after a ding in a parking lot. On a car that's so heavy on consumables usage, that's next to nothing for the improved handling.

(Though to be fair, I'd be surprised if a bigger front swaybar only generated a better-balanced car overall. I'm sure it solved that particular corner problem. But I've ran my car in a very similar config to yours for quite a while, and its defining handling characteristic over several tracks was corner entry understeer, to the point of really needing the brakes to get it turned. A bigger front bar is the opposite direction of how I'd try to balance it.)

Thanks, as this helps me to see that I left out what I intended to be my key point: the sway bar simply didn't make enough difference to me and my driving to make it worth the cost, keeping in mind that the car is developed for street/track, the emphasis being, by far, on street.

For example, as an alternative, more negative camber would have given me as much improvement and likely a fair amount more. As little as I drive the car, the increased tire wear from the additional camber wouldn't have been a consideration. (I'm happy to put fresh rubber on at the drop of a hat.) I heard TC tell another street/track driver who said he only drove 1K per year on the street to go full-out on negative camber; I should probably consider that, even though I'm not going to the track anymore.

Even with my street/track camber setup, I'm totally in love with how the car responds when I ask it to drive around roadway surface imperfections or dive down to the apex of a street or highway turn when sightlines permit that to be done safely.

My overall judgement is basically a bang-for-the-buck view. Did the sway bar help? Yes, it did. However, for my use case it made less of a difference than I expected. I understand that another driver might come to a different conclusion. As far as the cost goes...well, our hobby is what it is.

Now, if I had it to do over again, would I still install the sway bar? Yes, of course I would.

To your point regarding understeer: I continue to consider our cars' weights to be their most significant limiting factor. We can add as much power as we choose to, and that will help us on the straights, but when compared to lighter cars, wrestling our cars around turns will always be a test of patience.

With your lighter race car, I imagine that you can discuss this with greater insight than I can. My most satisfying experience in this regard was a car running a pit-out weight of 2,893#. The Miata guys weren't impressed.