NA8 - rear swaybar opinions on going without

[shirtz]

hi all, im setting up my NA8 clubman for some track days and wondering what the opinion is of the racers.

ive switched from the 11mm RSB that came with it to the 12mm NA6 item, but have heard in several places to ditch the RSB and just run a fat hollow front bar. would this dramatically alter the handling making it very tail happy?

im new to the track so don't want to go too deep too soon, but open to ideas to improve handling/the experience. current setup is pretty low with MCA blues and 15s with Re003's and a A+ rollbar

cheers

[RS2000]

Removing the rear arb, or going smaller, will reduce oversteer, not increase it. A fat front bar will increase understeer.
I'd initially run with what's fitted & see how the car behaves, then make changes as required.
Cheers

[plohl]

Yeah, as RS2000 said - removing the bar is going to move the car towards understeer

It's really going to come down to your spring rates (I assume you're running at least 9 and 6 kg/mm, front and rear respectively) on what sway bars you need. Be careful what you get from the american forums, as a lot of the stuff is for autocross, which is very different to driving around the track - and the autocrossers are usually removing the rear bar in a bandaid attempt to stop their inside rear wheel unloading and making the torsen LSD act like an open diff (spin the inside rear wheel) - nothing to do with car balance.

Regardless - the standard sway bar is very much a fine tuning tool, that can be connected or disconnected depending on track conditions. It wont make much different unless you're pushing the car to its traction limit.

So leave it in there, and test it - you might find you like the car a little more tail happy, or if you find it a bit too much, you can just remove an end link.

[shirtz]

fantastic info guys, much appreciated. will test out the current setup at marulan on the 9th