sway bars

Sorry, what I meant to say was;
....in some way and wouldn't impact the suspension as much....

As in because the chassis is less rigid than other zeds, the impact on the springs wouldn't be as great.

Might just look at a custom hardtop instead.....s2000 style.

 

Try it and see Erik. It's your car. When I had my stiff Teins though, I didn't need sway bars. Only after going to soft Powertrixs.

 

Your discription to me indicates you are useing the wrong tyer compounds

 

Larger sway bar and stiffer springs on a race car is good because of ideal road surface, on a road car it can be a disarster waiting to happen because you loose independent supention movment, makes the handling very slick and skatey ,takes the wait of inside wheels when cornering,so people tend to fit sticky tyers to make the car more user friendly.Set the car up with a good set of gas shocks with 4 inches min road clearence at front dam ,eg. King springs, standard sway bars ,strut brace and good tyers is ideal for road use.Thats my finding.

 

Dont ever forget when messing with Z32's. Excessive lowering the car RAISES the roll center!!!!!! Its the way the suspension geometry works on these cars.

Its been mentioned before but.

Swaybar rate is additional to spring weight on individual corners.
Basically, heavier springs require less rollbar and vice versa

Altho overall spring rate affects ride, the single biggest influence on ride quality is shock dampening, especially rebound.
Lower end adjustables often only adjust extension which give the most apparent change in ride "hardness" usually with little if any positive change in actual handling and grip.

As spring weights increase, damper rates must be changed to effectively control the wheel assembly.
Increase spring rate = decreased bump and increased rebound.
Youll never see a race team change out just a spring, they will change a spring/shock combination dynoed together.

Know this, any rate increase in any component will result in a harsher/less compliant/noiser ride. Its the way it is.

Any changes you make to your car suspension setup, unless done scientifically as an entire package taking into consideration fundamental suspension and chassis resonant frequencies against the individual and combined spring/swaybar rates, is just basically stabbing in the dark.
Altho eastCoastZ is being a dickhead, hes actually quite close to the money as far as getting an optimised suspension package.

Whenever a suspension package is optimised for ride quality, grip levels and handling overall will drop when pushed hard. Its just the nature of the beast.

Rock hard suspension setup, even well chosen and matched, usually results in something that steers like its on rails far above the speeds it would be happy with on stock suspension, BUT the loss of traction is usually violent and uncontrollable.

Soft compliant suspension is usually far more forgiving to loss of grip but loss of grip often occurs fairly early.

To the OP, honestly M8, if your Zed 32, with your modest suspension setup feels disconnnected then you either have a serious mechanical issue such as really bad alignment or gross suspension corner weight discrepencies.
Z32 is a fine handling car even with rubbish worn out stock suspension and bushes so id be looking much further than simply advice on how to improve its handling alone.

E

 

This is exactly what I have always thought, but never found.

In my case, I got a FWD TX3 laser. has rock hard coilovers and only a aftermarket swaybar. Its drives flat and handles like on rails. Where i knew if i reach the limit and break the corner traction it will let go... and it will go hard. :br:

Is there any good books, articals, reading on all this stuff?

 

slightly off topic but worth asking i think, would the factory sway bars in our cars show any wear and tear after 20 odd years of use? they do alot of flexing and are put under alot of strain......

or is a swaybay not going to "fatigue"" over time like other components?

 

I would imagine there would be some form of metal fatigue EVENTUALLY, but it is a component that is designed to flex.

 

We all know springs sag. A sway bar is a spring. What's the difference?

 

I run no swaybar on the front and a solid white line on the rear with new bushes and swaybar links.

 

my point is that maybe fitting new oem items might tighten up the handling nicely, without the possible complications being discussed here.

 

The movement of the swaybar arms relative to one another is very small. Unlike a spring that spends its entire life in a compressed state, the swaybar is only deflected much occasionally.
Breakages happen occasionally.

E

 

This is very useable info.

Kudos to all for input

PO boy racer style hard coilovers and HD sway bars + strut braces.
Might swap the sway bars back to stock and compare