Re: 5kTQ swaybar upgrade???

[OorQue@aol.com]

> Than please enlighten us with what makes the books wrong.

They're not wrong, they're just written in general terms for a general 
audience.  For instance, if your car has a *really* lousy camber curve (i.e., 
a graph plotting camber change against suspension travel) -- and most 
strut-based designs do -- then it's sometimes better to limit roll, which in 
turn limits suspension travel, and keep the suspension operating within its 
most linear range.  The 1st generation Rabbit and 3rd generation Mustang come 
to mind as good examples of this.  Also, you need to balance the a/r bar rate 
against the wheel rate ... sometimes stiffer bars and softer springs works 
better than a softer bar and stiffer springs.  Like I said, it all depends, 
especially if you factor ride comfort into the equation....  

Mind you, I'm not claiming the 30mm bar *will* work wonders for the car's 
handling (although I have been told this by somebody whose judgment on 
handling matters I tend to trust) but my hunch is that it will be an 
improvement.  Until I've actually had the opportunity to drive the car 
instead of pushing it around on the driveway, though, I'll have to defer 
judgment as to whether this is a worthwhile upgrade or not.  

As for adding a rear a/r bar, this works up to the point where the inside 
rear wheel lifts off the ground ... once this has happened, your lateral 
weight transfer has maxed out and the bar no longer serves any purpose.  
Since I've been able to lift the inside rear wheel under hard cornering of 
*every* Audi I have ever driven, FWD and AWD, this means the car has a 
strange sort of "two-stage" feel that I find disconcerting ... IME, of 
course, since I know others will disagree with me about this.

JG