RexNuts Subaru Forums

This might sound weird but i want to get the back end of my car to slide out around corners ive been told swaybars will help me do this any info would be greatly appreciated

Firstly, what you are after is known as oversteer as opposed to the factory understeer. Most cars come from the factory with 'understeer' as its generally considered the 'safer' of the two. A quick jab on the brakes and the front wheels can stop slidding making the car more managable for people who can't drive

Oversteer will make the cars rear end slide out instead of the front simply not turning, this becomes harder to recover as too much countersteer and your off the road in the direction of the spin. Not enough and you spin inwards and probably into oncoming traffic.

Now assuming you know this, then I would suggest not making the car 'Oversteer' at all. You want to find a balance. To make the car finds its equalibrium. You can do this several ways.

Now the rollbars, aka Sway Bars, directly control understeer and oversteer, and on subaru's the 'link' from the rollbar to the rear control arms is made from plastic, and so it flex's under any sort of cornering. Not the best solution for a car that you want to track or drive spiritedly. Also the mount is made from stamped SPC tins and also flexes with uprated links. And so what you would want to do is;

1) Upgrade the front and rear swaybar links
2) Upgrade rear mounts and make sure you use polyurathane bushes on all links and swaybar mounts
3) Get a 22mm or 25mm adjustable rear swaybar, mess around with the settings, start on the lowest setting and work your way up.
4) get a 22mm front adjustable swaybar and try to equal the car out.
5) Never underestimate the importance of firmer bushes for your suspension components, Under high stress loadings the factory rubber bushings will flex causing your Toe/Camber/Castor settings to change mid corner, Get those poly bushes IMHO.

For example I used a 25mm Adj Rear with a 22mm Adj front, I had the front set on the lowest setting and the rear set on the middle setting, it created a pretty decent balance in the car, treat that as a guide more than fact.

It gets very complicated and very detailed the further we go in, And I dont pretend to know it all.

But I can tell you this, You do NOT want a car that oversteers. Its bad. It slows down your lap times, wastes tyres, and can cause you to spin if you dont handle the situation properly. You want it to be a 'Neutral' car. That way you'll get around corners alot faster without having ur tail end going nuts and trying to come out on you.

Btw Drifting is not cool, its so 90's.

Hope that helps.

Oh ask anyone who went on the cruise with me, They all said my car was almost on rails. Just a good setup, it can be done by anyone.

X2 on the oversteer. My tail end can get happy enough with to much gas on the stock suspension.
But if you are looking to drift you might want to consider losing the front wheel driving componets and make it RWD.

We're also talking about a 2.0i here.. Even with a 30mm rear sway bar, and no front sway, it wont have the power to keep the back out. It will require high speeds and tight corners to step the back out, and then it will either spin out, or will grip and correct itself.

Without power, you cant keep the back spinning to ensue a drift.

Once you break traction, through using the cars enertia to slide, you'll find you don't need much power @ all to keep them spinning, so long as your speed doesnt drop too much.

But we are talking about sway bars here. I don't think he intends to drift, I just said that

I think he is just sick of the car understeering when he goes into those corners, and wants to get the car to be more biased towards oversteer. Understeer sucks.

Thanks for the info it actually is very helpfull and no i dont intend on drifting (its so lame) but trying to find a solution to the understeer problem. i want it to handle as subaru intended it to .

If im not mistaken, the 2.0i doesnt have a swaybar from factory. So you will require mounts and endlinks, regardless of which swaybar you choose.

It does already. Really you want it handle like Subaru should have made it