Sway Bar Recommendatoin

[trusaleen1]

Hi Guys,

I am looking for a sway bar kit recommendation for the street (little to no track use) for my 2016 GT premium Cali Special, no performance package.

I have the following mods:

Ford Power Pack 2
255/40/19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
BMR SP89 Front Springs, BMR SP082 Rear Springs
BMR BK081 Bearing Kit
BMR ELK012 End link kit for sway bars (not installed yet)
BRM Cradle Bushing lock out kit.

Sponsored

 

[Roadway 5.0]

Consider prioritizing a strut tower and K-member brace before you dive into sway bars. You may get all you need from stiffening the chassis. If you are 100% ready to pull the trigger on bars, I'm a fan of the PP front with Steeda rear combo.

 

[VinnAY]

I ran the Steeda drag bar (non-adjustable) on my GT/PP and loved it but might be too much for your car.

 

[trusaleen1]

Thanks guys, my car came stock with the strut tower brace, it's park of the cali special.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Hi Guys,

I am looking for a sway bar kit recommendation for the street (little to no track use) for my 2016 GT premium Cali Special, no performance package.

I have the following mods:

BMR SP89 Front Springs, BMR SP082 Rear Springs

What sort of end result are you looking for here?

If it's mainly to get rid of the 'floatiness' you mentioned in your FP Street Pack?? thread, sta-bars really aren't the solution (better shocks & struts are, for which the need got greater with your slightly firmer BMR springs, and would with new sta-bars as well - assuming that they're stiffer than the OE bars).

If it's to shift the understeer-oversteer handling balance, what you really want in bars is both of them to be adjustable. Start with both bars at full-soft or at most one hole firmer from full soft. Experiment from there until you find what you like. Feel free to "stagger" the front vs rear settings here; that's how you shift the handling balance around. Leave them alone after that unless down the road a bit you make some other change that affects the handling balance enough to notice.

If you solve the 'composure' issue with the dampers, you won't need to focus on reducing the amount of roll. When the car feels like its roll is under control, you tend to stop noticing it as much.


FWIW on your friend's Charger RT, I suspect the shocks & struts on that car were still fairly new and still had some extra seal friction/stiction that was effectively increasing the damping he was able to use.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

Thanks guys, my car came stock with the strut tower brace, it's park of the cali special.

Check to see if your car has a K-member brace as OE. If it does, there's no need to replace it because the Ford OE brace will be strong enough in the one direction that it has to be strong in. My '08 came with a Ford OE K-member brace, and it's hard to believe that Ford would have eliminated it, particularly on a clearly non-base-level car.


Norm

 

[JOKER M1]

I installed the GT350 front and rear, I’m very pleased with the feel

 

[trusaleen1]

What sort of end result are you looking for here?

If it's mainly to get rid of the 'floatiness' you mentioned in your FP Street Pack?? thread, sta-bars really aren't the solution (better shocks & struts are, for which the need got greater with your slightly firmer BMR springs, and would with new sta-bars as well - assuming that they're stiffer than the OE bars).

If it's to shift the understeer-oversteer handling balance, what you really want in bars is both of them to be adjustable. Start with both bars at full-soft or at most one hole firmer from full soft. Experiment from there until you find what you like. Feel free to "stagger" the front vs rear settings here; that's how you shift the handling balance around. Leave them alone after that unless down the road a bit you make some other change that affects the handling balance enough to notice.

If you solve the 'composure' issue with the dampers, you won't need to focus on reducing the amount of roll. When the car feels like its roll is under control, you tend to stop noticing it as much.


FWIW on your friend's Charger RT, I suspect the shocks & struts on that car were still fairly new and still had some extra seal friction/stiction that was effectively increasing the damping he was able to use.


Norm

Basically just trying to flatten out the handling and give it more confidence. I feel like the car is much better, but I still dont have that "like driving on rails" experience. I had a BMW 435i 6 speed coupe previously (I enjoy the mustang a lot more), but I still dont have the handling confidence like I did in that car. Do you think the dampers would solve this?

 

[Norm Peterson]

Dampers is exactly what I'd do next. That, and learning to be a bit smoother with your steering inputs, if that's perhaps applicable.

With the car more composed, you'll be in a somewhat better position to determine whether you need relatively more rear bar stiffness (to loosen or free up the handling a little) or relatively more front bar to quiet any tailhappiness. I'm also a fan of adjustable dampers for a similar reason.

FWIW, here's one of my faster laps at my home track. Still on stock springs at the time, but with about 50% more total bar stiffness and Koni yellows adjusted to more track-able settings. You'll see a little nose dive under braking at the end of the main straight and a little bump as I rolled over the turn 1 curb, but those make up most of the visible chassis movements, and your eyes and mental gyroscope would have to be a whole lot better than mine to see much roll anywhere. Subjectively, that lap felt more like a brisk drive in the country than the 9+/10ths race pace (relative to that stage of development) that it probably was.




Norm

 

[NightmareMoon]

+1 to this. Norm knows his stuff.

Shocks first, then you can fine tune with adjustable swaybars. If you don’t have shocks to control things, you really can’t go very stiff with the bars. I ran a very mild Strano rear bar on medium and the car would skip sideways suddenly when transitioning to full lateral load. Added some Koni yellows and I was able to run the swaybar on the same setting without any drama. I’ve since added a BMR front bar and run both bars on medium, but it’s the Konis that are doing the real work. The bars just fine tune the balance, the shocks slow and flatten the body roll in high speed transitions and tighten up the feel of the suspension.

 

[codesx100]

Also agree with Norm and NightmareMoon, go with some dampers first. I've heard the steeda pro-action shocks and struts are good and mix well with BMR springs. If you really need anti-roll bars for street use i would go with the GT350R bars,

If you think your going to do racing later get adjustable bars along with a good set of coilovers but that is the most extreme case scenario..

 

[trusaleen1]

Thanks for the info guys. Looks like I almost made a wrong decision. Looks like shocks and struts for me. Would you recommended Koni, Steeda, or would a used set of PP shocks and struts work?

 

[wildcatgoal]

Doesn't the Cali Special have the PP suspension?

 

[trusaleen1]

No it does not. Has the regular setup.

 

[tj@steeda]

Recommend the Steeda Pro Actions

Sponsored