Autocross is starting soon here in florida and to prepare I was going to buy myself a rear sway bar. I've been wanting it for awhile and I finnaly found a job so I can afford one. I've searched alot and found the the 19mm seems to be the bar of choice for most people, but I read that a 22mm could be better for autocrossing. I was nearly set on buying the ie adjustable bar until I heard of the rattling issues that are caused by the endlinks.

Which bar would best suit a daily driven autocrosser.
Im still strongly considering the ie bar so somebody convince me as to why I should buy it. I most likely will never be able to afford coilovers and lowering springs are likely to be the extent of my suspension work after a bar.

 

19mm set to stiffest setting

 

The 22mm on stiffest would be for autocross or a crazyman on the street. Setting it to softest or middle settings would be good for daily driving.


I run 22mm on full stiff all the time. Note that there are no twisties here, so 90º corners are everything to me, thus the autocross like set up.

 

yeah my only concern with the 22mm was high speed stability. If Im going around a sweeper at say 80-90 and let off a bit thats not going to make the back end want to come around is it? the 19 on stiffest compares to the 22 on softest?

 

Most 19mm bar is solid and the IE 22mm is hollow, both will give about the same performance.

 

My car is daily driven and autocrossed must every weekend during the summer. I use a solid 22mm bar (from Alta, three adjustment holes) set on the softest setting for day to day street use and the majority of autocrossing. There are certain conditions when I choose to stiffen the bar to adjust the handling of my setup. I feel that the 22mm solid bar is the best way to go for this setup, it allows me to have a very usable range of adjustability on the bar. Most clunking issues seem to come from the aftermarket endlinks that many people upgrade to when the install a bigger swaybar. I don't have any experience with the aftermarket endlinks, although I can tell you that the OEM endlinks are silent on my car (I've actually modified the OEM links to make them adjustable, but still retaining the stock ball joints at each end). Each car and each driver are different, but if I was running a softer bar than the 22mm solid one, I would not have enough stiffness for my setup.

Jason

 

Go for the 19mm and then when you get the springs go for a set of camber plates.

 

How does the softest setting on the 22mm compare to the setting on the 19mm?

softest 22mm = ? 19mm

 

Here's the chart from ALTA comparing their 19mm and 22mm bars to the stock 'S' swaybar:

OEM 17mm BAR SETTING #1 EFFECTIVE RATE 117 LBS/IN

ALTA 19mm BAR SETTING #1 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 115%
ALTA 19mm BAR SETTING #2 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 140%
ALTA 19mm BAR SETTING #3 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 177%

ALTA 22mm BAR SETTING #1 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 213%
ALTA 22mm BAR SETTING #2 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 260%
ALTA 22mm BAR SETTING #3 RATE INCREASE OVER STOCK 329%


So, even the softest setting on their 22 mm bar is stiffer than the stiffest setting on their 19 mm bar, but not by a huge margin.

As far as a bar's behaviour on the street goes, a lot of it has to do with the rest of your suspension setup. I have a hollow 25.5 mm bar (about equivalent to a 23 mm solid bar), and even on full-stiff, I still have a hard time getting the back end to "step out" when I lift throttle mid-corner. But that's with the car lowered on coilovers, camber plates, and having the car corner-balanced. That same bar on an otherwise-stock 'S' would probably be squirrely on the street.

 

I would get the 22 if your going to autoX, when I first installed mine I had it on the middle setting #2, but on the stiffest setting #3 the car rotated much better. With the stock sway bar or the Alta set at #2 the rear would come about, but on the stiff setting #3 the rear has yet to want to come about. Hope this helps.

Brad

 

hmm still on the fence. how much adjustability does the ie bar have?

 

Eggzactly. Don't get too caught up on the 19mm vs 22mm deal, since you can easily adjust car balance via other methods.

FWIW, my car's rear end comes out easily when lifting mid-corner with any sort of speed, and I question people who say theirs don't. -2.3 / -2 camber front / rear, 0 toe, coilovers, 22mm rear sway (softest setting).

 

Note the Alta 22MM bar numbers above are on a solid bar, not hollow like the IE bar.

The IE is on a slide system, so you are not locked into just 3 positions and the area to adjust is also larger giving you much more adjustment then any other bar on the market.

 

I am really happy with the R-Speed Swaybar. Adjustable too.

 

Does anyone have an estimate to the %stiff a ie bar can achieve? I dont think coilovers or camber plates are in my near future so Im not going to be able to adjust my suspension much. So maybe a 22mm. Im def not locked into these brands so if anyone knows the cheapest source for a sway bar speak up.

Anyone selling theirs?

 

The IE 22mm Hollow will be very much the same stiffness at the Alta 19mm listed above. IE is the lowest priced sway bar on the market and the only one with end links. Check the market place for used ones.

 

JSC Speed has the 19mm Eibach rear sway for $122.00

 

With end links? If so I didn't know about them and Thank You for the info.

 

No, the Eibach doesn't have end links but it is a very competitively priced bar.

 

If you are planning on getting springs at some time the camber plates would be the best thing you can do for your handling and no additional cost for the install.

 

I just installed mine (22mm), and by 'just installed' I mean yesterday. And OMG, it's awesome!! It makes my Fuzions feel like the Pirellis that I used to have. So far I haven't gotten the rear to step out...give me a little time, I'm sure I'll get there.
Anyway, I found this information regarding the Madness rear sway bar; "Rate increase over stock, Hole position 1: +228%, Hole position 2: +297% Hole position 3: +384%" I don't know how accurate this is but, I imagine other 22mm bars wouldn't be that much different...I dunno. Someone said the Madness bar weighs 20 pounds. All I know is how much the package that UPS delivered weighed....12 pounds.

 

I just installed mine (22mm), and by 'just installed' I mean yesterday. And OMG, it's awesome!! It makes my Fuzions feel like the Pirellis that I used to have. So far I haven't gotten the rear to step out...give me a little time, I'm sure I'll get there.
Anyway, I found this information regarding the Madness rear sway bar; "Rate increase over stock, Hole position 1: +228%, Hole position 2: +297% Hole position 3: +384%" I don't know how accurate this is but, I imagine other 22mm bars wouldn't be that much different...I dunno. Someone said the Madness bar weighs 20 pounds. All I know is how much the package that UPS delivered weighed....12 pounds.

 

I just installed the Alta 22mm rear sway bar on my new 2008 cooper S...Does anybody know the torque settings for the sway bar mounts? I think I may have over tighten the screws...thanks

 

I have the 19mm Alta as my only suspension mod other than nice tires/wheels and here is what I have found:

• middle setting: probably what I will run at the road course with stability control OFF until I am very comfortable with the car at which point I might go to the next level. The car feels stable, still understeers first, forgiving of mistakes, but will rotate slowly if pushed very hard.
• stiffest setting: car will rotate with a little coaxing. This is my favorite setting for the street with stability control ON as understeer is significantly reduced.

 

Yes. Depends on the sweeper, but you can't change the laws of physics.

There are times with the 19mm at full-stiff that it wants to come around a little - enough to make me evaluate my driving skill, but not enough to get me in trouble at the speeds I'm driving.

Also don't forget to subtract 100% from Alta's listed increases. They pad their numbers to sell more sway bars. When they say "115% increase" you can check the actual roll rate increase and see it is only 15% increase, but 115% of the stock number. Other vendors may do the same... but its hard to say without roll rate info.