Gauging Interest: Whiteline Front/Back Adjustable Sway Bars

[RaptorRacing]

Hey Folks;
I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules here; many months ago (pre-hack) I got the OK from YarisBueller to post this king of thread. I fully intend to become a vendor if this works out and even if it doesn't I intend to; have just been going nuts with other projects.

Enough about that, in the past I saw a hole in the adjustable sway bar market for 2nd and 3rd generation Supra's so I organized a test vehicle and a group buy to get them done. This was done back in 2006 and the response is insane, people love them and don't know how they've gone without them for so long. I've been dying to do this for the Yaris but the engineers at Whiteline have had a busy year so couldn't guarantee me a time frame.

I was contacted last week and they're very interested in this if there is a market for it. In order to make it work I'll need to place an order for 15 bars each (front and back). The have a couple Yarii available to them for the prototype so that saves me a step.

As far as I can see nobody else has adjustable sway bars done for the Yaris done yet, if I'm wrong please let me know. For those that haven't used/heard of adjustable sway bars here is some 'mild' theory on them:

THEORY
Unlike fixed factory and aftermarket sway bars, adjustable sway bars are one of the few was to actually tune over/under steer on any car 'on the fly'. We know that increasing the strength of the rear bar will 'reduce' traction on the rear tires which will make the car over steer. We also know that increasing the strength of the front bar will 'reduce' traction on the front tires which will make the car under steer.

With that understood one could easily conclude that decreasing the strength of the rear bar reduces over steer and doing the same to the front reduces under steer.

Increasing the strength of both the front and rear bars will theoretically reduce traction on all 4 tires enabling the car to drift more easily (not something you want on a street car but figured it was worth mentioning).

Adjustable sway bars let you test and tune the best balance for your car, something that's just not possible with non-adjustables as you're stuck with what the company thought is best.

PRICING & other SPECIFICS

Pricing will be roughly $185usd/bar. I have accounts with Whiteline Distributors in Australia and in between the North American Distributor and the Australia Distributor can virtually ship them anywhere in the world.

On a special note to Canadians: all my Canadian customers parts ship from Canada...no unknown duty/brokerage/shipping fee's. I import them through US/Canadian customs by myself to eliminate the brokerage fee.

As mentioned we'll need 15 to get this going and for now unless I see interest this will only be attempted with the 1.5L 1NZ-FE. Rear bars will be the same but there might be some differences need so without having the engineers look at the cars I can't say for now we can get this done for the 1.3L 2NZ-FE.

I'm going to put this up as a vote, please keep in mind that if this is going to go forward it takes a minimum of 3 month from go ahead to delivery time to get this done. I would require deposits simply because I wouldn't want to be stuck with 15 sets of bars if everyone changes their minds .

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know, I can appreciate coming from someone with 1 post this might look 'scary' so please feel free to check feedback on the other forums I sponsor. I just haven't' had all the time to come back to this forum ever since the hack.:

www.celicasupra.com
www.supramania.com
www.supraquebec.com
www.celica-gts.com
www.torontosupraclub.com
www.toyotacressida.net
www.toyotanation.com - don’t' sponsor them anymore but I did a few large Whiteline/Superpro group buys through them.

Thanks in advance for your time YW, hope we can get this done as personally I think it's an amazing product.

[blacksandiegovitz]

I would buy a set of front/rear sway bars, whiteline is the shit ! Most people just haven't heard about them cause its hard to get there products in the states .

[RaptorRacing]

Originally Posted by blacksandiegovitz

Most people just haven't heard about them cause its hard to get there products in the states .

That's what most people think but they're just dealing with the wrong vendor. You need to deal with vendors that specialize in the vehicle you need parts for. I'm usually FULLY stocked with adjustable swaybars for 2nd and 3rd gen Supra's so the wait is very minimal. I hope I can do the same for the Yaris, you hit the nail on the head: Whiteline makes some badass products and I personally feel the Yaris is in bad need of adjustable bars. Thanks for chiming in.

[jkuchta]

How would the rear bar be adjustable? I understand the idea behind changing the length of the leverarm of the bar by moving the endlinks towards or away from the end of the leverarm. My question is asked because the rear bar is not mounted to the car's chassis in the middle, but is instead mounted only at the ends, and acts more or less as a beam stiffener, not as a traditional swaybar.

[yarisugi]

I didn't understand the last polling option... What is a fitment bar?

[mikenacarato]

i had an adjustable rear swaybar from whiteline on my s40...awesome bar!

[1NZYaris1]

As mentioned we'll need 15 to get this going and for now unless I see interest this will only be attempted with the 1.5L 1NZ-FE. Rear bars will be the same but there might be some differences need so without having the engineers look at the cars I can't say for now we can get this done for the 1.3L 2NZ-FE.

Just to help you out with some useful info, the 1.3 has the same set up
on the arse end as the 1.5
My 1.3 yaris has a TRD sway bar made in the USA , for the 1.5.
Hope this helps you out ,and keep us enformed .

[RaptorRacing]

Originally Posted by jkuchta

How would the rear bar be adjustable? I understand the idea behind changing the length of the leverarm of the bar by moving the endlinks towards or away from the end of the leverarm. My question is asked because the rear bar is not mounted to the car's chassis in the middle, but is instead mounted only at the ends, and acts more or less as a beam stiffener, not as a traditional swaybar.

I'll have a chat with the engineer's there and see what they say

Originally Posted by yarisugi

I didn't understand the last polling option... What is a fitment bar?

Simply means a bar that fits the 2NZ-FE...but seeing I received the response below that option can now be removed.

Originally Posted by 1NZYaris1

As mentioned we'll need 15 to get this going and for now unless I see interest this will only be attempted with the 1.5L 1NZ-FE. Rear bars will be the same but there might be some differences need so without having the engineers look at the cars I can't say for now we can get this done for the 1.3L 2NZ-FE.

Just to help you out with some useful info, the 1.3 has the same set up
on the arse end as the 1.5
My 1.3 yaris has a TRD sway bar made in the USA , for the 1.5.
Hope this helps you out ,and keep us enformed .

Thanks so much for this info, I wasn't sure of this as there are many platforms that have different bars depending on the motor.

[jkuchta]

Thanks Raptor...looking forward to hearing back!

[anonymous user]

Don't get me wrong, i love whiteline! Quality, strength for tracking cars!
But after i switched out to cusco on one of my subies, i don't know if it would go on another of my car's again. They are strong b/c they are heavy, and the front on my legacy gt caused my steering pump failure. If there were no other adjustable options, then you can bet that I'd be a 4x (4 car) repeat customer.

People who haven't heard of whiteline, they are GREAT Quality, and i've never heard of someone breaking an endlink, mount, or a swaybar.

[YarisSedan]

Originally Posted by anonymous user

Don't get me wrong, i love whiteline! Quality, strength for tracking cars!
But after i switched out to cusco on one of my subies, i don't know if it would go on another of my car's again. They are strong b/c they are heavy, and the front on my legacy gt caused my steering pump failure. If there were no other adjustable options, then you can bet that I'd be a 4x (4 car) repeat customer.

People who haven't heard of whiteline, they are GREAT Quality, and i've never heard of someone breaking an endlink, mount, or a swaybar.

I had a cusco front and rear on my 240sx. Was taking a extremly sharp turn one day and it ripped the bolt strait out of the frame. Had to have a hole cut in to the frame and a bolt and nut installed to put the control arm back in place. I think it was due to the heavy duty thick bar =). My car never handled the same after that.

[cali yaris]

+1 to jkuchta's question. I'm not sure how they would make the rear bar adjustable, as it's not technically a "sway bar".

Also in terms of stiffness, what range will the stiffness be? For example, compared to the 22mm rear TRD sway bar.

[Loren]

Generally speaking, you don't need both front AND rear bars to be adjustable. Gross suspension tuning should be done with spring rate. Swaybars are for fine-tuning the balance of the car, and having that adjustment at EITHER end is sufficient.

Of course... 99% of the people who buy such a thing for a Yaris are just doing it so that they can say that they did... so having both front and rear adjustable is "twice as good" in that regard.

It would be possible to mount a more traditional rear swaybar to the Yaris. The Sentra rear suspension is nearly the same, and we installed a bar on my buddy's SE-R a couple years ago. (It was even a Whiteline kit) That would be the only way to make it adjustable. The design that TRD uses is completely non-adjustable.

Best bet: TRD in the rear (or same design, but even stiffer), and a nearly stock stiffness front bar made adjustable.

[cali yaris]

Loren, the TRD rear is 22mm, I think. What would be your preferred thickness for a rear sway bar? 24mm or more?

(This information exchange should be useful for Whiteline, so don't call me on a hijack just yet )

[Loren]

I thought the TRD was 19mm, but I could be wrong... probably never measured it.

For what it is, the TRD is fine. You don't want to get on the bleeding edge of oversteer without having some means to easily adjust for it. So, if you went say 1-2mm larger on the rear bar... as long as you could balance it with an adjustable front bar, you'd be fine.

So, if I had an unlimited development budget, I'd probably do something like a 2mm larger than TRD rear bar, and a front bar that is adjustable. Make the adjustment range from stock stiffness and up. This could easily be done with the same diameter bar (or even a modified stock bar) by adding adjustment holes in the end of the bar. Shortening the lever arm of the bar makes it effectively stiffer.

Of course, this isn't the "on the fly" adjustment that the OP implied (whether it's what he really meant or not). A cockpit adjustable bar typically uses a trick "blade" adjuster on the end of the swaybar arm... very cool. Very expensive. You won't get that kind of thing for the $185 he's talking about. Multiply by 4 and start there.

[MUSKOKA800]

I'd be interested in an adjustable front. Mines already fitted with the TRD rear bar.

[cali yaris]

This could easily be done with the same diameter bar (or even a modified stock bar) by adding adjustment holes in the end of the bar. Shortening the lever arm of the bar makes it effectively stiffer.

This is exactly how it's done on the Hotchkis bars for the tC.

[whooppee777]

cali have u put on your front sway bar yet?