Reminder, if your going to be driving in snow and ice this Winter you may want to set your sway bar to the end setting on the bar ( softest setting ).
This may help you stay on the road.

 

that's a good suggestion for safety.

 

...and, soften up the dampers if they're adjustable.

 

... and, run snow tires... or at least all seasons.

 

I run mine on the middle setting all year - my h-sport springs/competition bar give me only a hint of oversteer (but you really have to make it step out) and it's very easy to control with counter steer and throttle. I think the amount of speed you carry makes a bigger difference and quality of winter tires to give you traction.

Adjust your brain before your swaybar :P

phil.

 

I'm under the (probably incorrect) assumption that when driving in snow, you won't be going fast enough while turning to put much of a load on the suspension, so the rear swaybar isn't doing much at all anyway.

But it would still make sense to go to the softest swaybar setting you can get anyway, just in case.

 

When grip is all but gone, - no mechanical keying - the slightest transfer of weight will cause a slide. This is certainly relative to how big the bar is and how stiff the springs and dampers are.

I can attest to softening the suspension from personal experience. I have a Honda sitting outside with 400in/lbs springs front and rear with Konis and a 25mm rear bar. The difference between full soft and full hard on the dampers is enough to create a somewhat stable condition in the snow, or an absolutley white knuckled experience. I always softened up the bar too. Remember, you're not always in control of what happens in front of you.

I remember a very well set up 1981 Ford Fiesta and a guy who decided that trial and error was better than taking advise; after three 360s in a row I adjusted the bar.

Trust what you're reading here; big bars and stiff springs and dampers transfer lots of load to the tires - tire compliance is part of the equation. There is zero compliance on ice and very little more in snow. Compliance is what causes mechanical keying - grip. A solid hard rubber wheel, for example, will have very little compliance.

 

snid- please undo one of your endlinks and let us know what happens
in the snow. you might actually like it better...although you may need
more input to go straight.

meb is right-on about the damper settings. huge difference on the
high performance dampers/coilover kits from soft to firm settings
and how it would affect in the wet/snow/ice.

 

My swaybar is on it's softest setting. But, that's where it always is. It's the RDR bar which is pretty honkin big.

I guess my point is that I corner very slowly in the snow. Over three winters, I haven't had any problems with the car oversteering in the snow. It still makes sense in my uninformed mind that if you're cornering so slowly as to barely compress the outside springs, a swaybar, even a giant one, isn't going to make that much of a difference - since it only does anything when one rear spring gets compressed more than the other.

I do completely agree with the recomendation to run swaybars on full soft in the winter, though.

 

Snid,

You are absolutely correct. However, if the dampers are softened up, they'll allow more roll. Then, a large swaybar will come on-line faster. The two are always tied together.

The reverse is also true, a very important consideration when settting the car up for warmer temps; Heavy springs do not allow the bar to work until you've really cranked in some steering. This is a big subject full of lots of detail, but this is how a bar should work - the springs and dampers should perform the major role in roll control. The swaybar is a fine tuning mechanism.

...just keep in mind, that a swaybar works by transfering weight. With regard to a big rear bar on the Mini, this rotation comes at the expense of rear tire grip - IT IS REDUCED. That's why the bulk of suspension tuning should be done with springs and dampers. Collin Chapmin believed that a properly set up car had no rear swaybar. Most of the desired rotation came from tuning roll center migration. And, he is correct, from the perspective of developing a race car from the ground up. Still, too many road cars are waaaaaay over swaybared. Yes, big bars can achieve much of what big springs and dampers do without a crushing ride. But if you spend lots of time on the track, begin with a proper spring and damper combo.

 

Thanks guys for your input
When I posted this I had just come in from changing over to Winter setup, wheels and sway bar adjustment.
Had a thought that most likely a few of our members have added aftermarket sway bars but don't completely understand the impact they can have on slippery surfaces.

Sorry I posted in the wrong forum, could you move this over to the Suspension Forum

 

This thread has been moved from Tires and Wheels forum to Suspension Forum.

Whenever I drove in the winter in Colorado or Illinois I'd make sure my speed was appropriately slower to maintain control over some very unpredictably slippery road surfaces. It's still pretty easy to get into trouble. Be careful out there. Same goes for rain.

 

yah yah, thanks for reminding us frozen salted ***** that you are in
toasty Hawaii.

 

No snow or cold problems here either. The sway bar can stay nice and stiff all year.

 

yeh, but you're in texas.

 

Do you guys ever get those ice storms like they do in Dallas??
I was in Dallas at the time when a plane crashed into the Potomac River & 14 St. bridge in Washington DC.The Dallas area had a bad ice storm at the same time. You could have put on ice skates, gone anywhere you liked and never nicked or dulled the blades. People just got out of thier cars whereever they were and walked or slid to the nearest shelter.
We had our fist snow here so I spent half an hour sliding around in a High School parking lot, great fun. DSC on DSC off, to the left to the right mainly working on slide recovery. Mother nature provided skid pad.

 

Hey, that sounds like fun in that parking lot.

We did get that ice storm they got in Dallas, but it was no where near as bad. The only time it was a little dangerous was overnight, but most of it was gone the next morning. I went to school in upstate New York and they had some serious ice storms and snow storms up there. Nothing like they here usually.

The beach is only a couple of hours away too!