>From my experience with stock & aftermarket sway bars, I have the following
to share with the list. There is a great book about suspensions written by
Fred Puhn. I'd suggest browsing through this book before making any radical
changes to your suspension.
Sway bars work to control body roll, keeping your outside tires "square" to
the road. As a car body rolls it tends to cause the suspension, and tires,
to roll too. Swaybars are also used to fine-tune a suspension as they
transfer weight from the inside wheel to the outside wheel in a turn.
A larger bar will transfer more weight than a smaller bar. A good handling
car is one that is balanced and neutral (IMHO). A stock Triumph (or at least
a stock TR6) is set-up to understeer . This means that the front tires lose
traction faster than the rears causing the car to plow. This is safe for the
road, I believe. One reason the front tires lose traction faster than the
rears is because the TR6's front swaybar is transferring the car's weight to
the outside front tire faster than to the outside rear tire. The result is
that the front tires load-up more than the rears and lose traction faster -
causing the front tires to lose traction much sooner than the rears.
By just installing a thicker front bar (or even just replacing the rubber
end-link bushings with polyurethane), you're causing the front tires to lose
traction even faster than before. The car will understeer even worse. The
right approach is to add a rear bar to balance-out a thicker-than-stock front
swaybar. Both bars will work to keep body-roll in check, while not allowing
too much transferred weight to be borne by just one end of the car. (Causing
understeer in the front, or oversteer in the rear.)
IMHO, the best approach to adding a thicker front bar is to also add a
smaller diameter rear bar at the same time. To do otherwise will just
frustrate the situation.
Oh, regarding tires: Any good-quality sporty tire will probably work well.
But no street tire compares to all-out race tires as far as response or
grip. It's amazing.
Finally, I wouldn't change any set-up before rebuilding the suspension first.
All play or looseness must be taken out of the suspension before the fun can
begin.
Sincerely,
Kevin D. O'Connor
no expert.
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