I have a friend that knows alot about cars. He told me that if i get sway bars its gona creat alot of oversteer. Is this true? I wana eliminate the body roll i have thats why i ask?

 

Well, it depends. In general, for a FWD car, if you stiffen up the front, you're going to cause more understeer (which most car engineers do on purpose with its stock setup). If you have a properly balanced set of sways, it should have a neutral effect -- just improves handling. Period.

Some people will just add beefed up rear sways. The tendency to have less roll in the back may induce some oversteer (or more like reduce the amount of understeer built into the stock setup).

Hope that helps your question.

 

So Derrick,

I have the comptech sway bar set, can I just put on the rear sway and leave the front ones stock?

 

Yes. A lot of people just change out the rears. IIRC, the front sway is the same diameter but with thicker tubing.

 

The purpose of installing aftermarket sway bars is to reduce the car from tilting (rolling or swaying) during taking corners. If you only replace the rear sway bar, the rear end will sure sway less, but the front end will still sway as much as before when taking the same corners. The benefit of sway bars is greatly compromised here.

For someone who would like to reduce understeer or increase oversteer by installing just the rear sway bar, it is best to install adjustable shocks instead. This even applies to replacing both front and rear bars. Because the stiffness of the bars are fixed, so you cannot really tune the handling dynamics. On the other hand, with adj. shocks, you can dial in different hardness settings for front to rear balance. In this way, the car can be tuned anywhere along the line from heavy understeer to neutral to heavy oversteer, depending on your driving style and skill.

For the Comptech sways, the front bar is of the same diameter as OEM but thicker tubing. So it is stiffer than stock. The rear bar is of even bigger diameter than OEM, so it is much more stiffer than stock. So the overall effect is reduced overall swaying, and reduced understeering or increased oversteering. My car has stock suspension but with Comptech sways and 18" wheels. The car has much reduce body roll and still very mild understeering. If I was 10 years younger, I would throw in lowering springs and adj. shocks as well in order to tune for neutral handling or even a tad of oversteering. But I'm too old for that now, especiallly carrying my family.

For those who are not familiar with understeer/oversteering, don't be alarm by tuning for a little more oversteering. Keep in mind that increased oversteering for our stock car doesn't mean the car will oversteer. Because our car is factory tuned to heavy understeering, increasing some ('repeat' some, not too much) oversteering will make the car to approach more neutral handling. Just don't overdo it. Too much oversteering is dangerous unless you're a professional racing driver.

 

I wouldn't recommend it. Comptech made it a set for a reason. Edward'TLS did a great explanation on what one should do to minimize understeer in our cars. I did exactly what he described (ie sways, lowering springs & adj shocks and 235/40/18 tires) plus a little more (upper strut tower brace).

 

I dont get it. Both of you say the front sway OEM vs Comptech is the same diameter. When yall say thicker tubing do you mean that the OEM is hollow and the comptech a solid piece?

There was someone that snapped a comptech swaybar I heard!

 

Both the comptech and stock fronts are hollow, just the comptech has thicker walls.

 

Guys,
Understeer is when you go into a rt turn (example) and the car still goes straight and does not follow the path of the steering wheel. This is what most FWD cars do and it is a little safer and this is what the 2002 TLS does.

Oversteer is when you go in to the same rt turn and the car follows the streering wheel but the back end come out (loosing traction). This is tougher to control if you are not trained in evasive manueavering. When this occurs, most drivers have the tendecy to hit the brakes and this is cause you to spinout.

The best results is when all 4 wheels loose traction at the same time thus called this a 4 wheel drift (perfect balance).

I do not think most of us will have this occur unless you are drining on the edge and this should only occur on a deserted location and you should practice on a track.

After having my tls (2002) for this whole time, I now finally started to enjoy the ride with the following mods: CT sways (F and R), CT springs and Koni yellows. I would surly recommed these mods to all.