Eibach sway bar settings for the track, anybody have experience?

[StingertimeNC]

Team, getting ready to head back to the track and I'm thinking about switching the Eibach sways from the soft setting to the firm setting. Wanted peoples thoughts and opinions. I'm running Pilot Sport 4s tires, 275's in the back and 245's in the front. 19 inch. still on stock dampers but have Ark GTF Springs. When I was last at the track I was running the 275's on the rear but had OEM 225 pilot sport 4 on the front. I'm now back to essentially the same ratio front to back as stock on tires, although more width. I experienced some understeer, but attribute some of that to my lack of driving skill, as well as the rear tires being larger and a better spec. Now that I have larger tires on the front, I'm thinking I'll tighten things up even more. I was no where near oversteer at any point, but again, likely because I wasn't getting on the throttle as hard as I could. I'm pretty sure I should have both sway bars on either firm or soft, vs. say only the front on firm for instance. I get the tendency of the sways in general, rear on firm, likely to oversteer, etc. Thoughts? Anybody have experience on a road course with sways set both ways?

 

[ElChanclo]

Curious what your experience has been with the sway bar settings and running wider tires front and rear at the track. Is that on the OEM rims?

 

[StingertimeNC]

I'm running Eibach sways both on stiff setting for track and street. they are great for both in my opinion. I'm running a bit wider wheel tire setup both front and rear and more rubber as noted above. happy with the setup. Honestly I think even more rubber would be good for the track.

 

[NS_Stinger]

I'd 100% switch them to hard. If you will be at the track all day doing laps you can always switch it back after a couple laps if you don't like running them on hard. Just pack the tools to adjust them, you dont need much its super easy.

 

[ElChanclo]

I'm running Eibach sways both on stiff setting for track and street. they are great for both in my opinion.

I'd 100% switch them to hard.

Do you feel a noticeable difference? Or do y'all just figure harder is better for the track?

Honestly I think even more rubber would be good for the track.

What would you throw on there next time?

 

[Scorpion24]

Do you feel a noticeable difference? Or do y'all just figure harder is better for the track?

It’s a noticeable difference. I had the hard setting F&R for a year and switched them to soft few months ago . I miss the stiffness coming out of turns, but the comfort is much better now for every day driving.

 

[StingertimeNC]

Yes, you will feel a noticeable difference in my opinion. Much tighter feel overall. just try it, even on the street, I think it's perfect.

As far as tires and wheels I would go to 9" wide rims in front and 255 tires, 10 inch wide rear with 295's. I would stay 19" though.

 

[ElChanclo]

As far as tires and wheels I would go to 9" wide rims in front and 255 tires, 10 inch wide rear with 295's. I would stay 19" though.

So pretty much using the stock rear tires on the front and adding 40mm to rear width.

That's quite a jump, but I'm guessing with all your mods it makes sense.

I'd bet a stock AWD GT2 could use wider tires too if not quite that much.

 

[StingertimeNC]

Yes, for the track especially. It's really the only place you can fully exploit a performance tire.
For street driving you really don't need that wide, especially with AWD, but it looks cool.

 

[Volfy]

Team, getting ready to head back to the track and I'm thinking about switching the Eibach sways from the soft setting to the firm setting. Wanted peoples thoughts and opinions. I'm running Pilot Sport 4s tires, 275's in the back and 245's in the front. 19 inch. still on stock dampers but have Ark GTF Springs. When I was last at the track I was running the 275's on the rear but had OEM 225 pilot sport 4 on the front. I'm now back to essentially the same ratio front to back as stock on tires, although more width. I experienced some understeer, but attribute some of that to my lack of driving skill, as well as the rear tires being larger and a better spec. Now that I have larger tires on the front, I'm thinking I'll tighten things up even more. I was no where near oversteer at any point, but again, likely because I wasn't getting on the throttle as hard as I could. I'm pretty sure I should have both sway bars on either firm or soft, vs. say only the front on firm for instance. I get the tendency of the sways in general, rear on firm, likely to oversteer, etc. Thoughts? Anybody have experience on a road course with sways set both ways?

Quite honestly, if you are new to the track, you should just go out there and run your car... and have fun with it, warts and all. Regardless of how your car is setup, initially, the slowest part of the whole equation is still gonna be the lump of noodles between the driver's ears. Get that up to snuff, to a point where you're sharp enough to feel what the car is doing going into, thru, and out of the turn. Then - and only then - is it time to dink with the suspension settings.

While anti-roll bars can be used to adjust cornering attitude, that should ideally be done for "fine tuning". If your car is understeering because you are running 225 front and 275 rear, then you should get that sorted first.

IMO, tires should always be sorted out first, spring stiffness and ride height should be decided on next, followed by camber settings, then compression/rebound damping adjustments, then anti-roll bar.

That said. I currently lack camber and damping controls, so front cambers are locked at the stock 1deg-ish. So... I did set the Whiteline bars at front soft and rear firm to reduce terminal understeer, but that is really only because currently I have no way of adjusting If and when I go coilovers, I would reset the bars to soft on both ends, before redoing track alignment with more front camber. Probably start with 2.5deg and see how that goes. then adjust damping to suit track conditions. Only after that would I fine-tune the bars.

We run our Stinger/G70 with square tires and quite happy with the currently 245/40R18 on 18x8.5 Enkei's. I do plan on switching to lower profile 245/35R18 or 255/35R18 to reduce tire squirm and sharpen turn-in.