C-One Front Sway Bar

[bearda]

Originally Posted by Shijima

For someone like me who knows nothing about sway bars, or how they affect understeer ect.. it is nice to have real answers.

OK, sway bars 101 as I understand it (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong on this, I'm by no means an expert)

Sway bars are basically springs. Funny shaped springs, but springs all the same. By replacing your stock sway bars with thicker ones you increase the spring rate. This is good for reducing body roll, when you're turning at speed and the weight in the car shifts to one side. The thicker sway bar resists weight transfer, stays flatter, and you stay in the center of your seat.

There are downsides to really thick sway bars, though. The Yaris is a FWD car, and to make a long story short putting a really big bar in the back without balancing it out with a bigger bar in the front can induce oversteer. You try to take a corner and the rear end whips around. Put a big bar on the front without a balanced bar on the back, you induce understeer. You try to turn and the car keeps going straight.

I don't know anything about aftermarket suspension parts available for the Yaris. Generally you don't want to put a thick front sway bar on your car unless your having problems with oversteer. Most of the time that happens because you've put on a rear bar that's too large. As a result, most of the time front and rear bars come as a set.

The same isn't necessarily true of rear bars. For other FWD cars (I have no idea what the Yaris aftermarket is like) you'll see a lot of rear sway bars sold alone that are slightly thicker than stock. You can generally get away with stiffening up the rear sway a bit without inducing so much oversteer you need a front sway.

So, the front sway doesn't tend to be useful without a thick rear sway to go with it. If there isn't a really thick rear sway on the market yet all it'll do is induce a bunch of understeer and plant you firmly into the barrier when you take an offramp.

That help at all?