Adding a rear sway bar to ED civic

[string]

wouldnt it be a bit wacky though? Id be moving from 18mm front no rear to 18mm front 24mm rear (if i went ASR rear swaybar aswell)

In my opinion, the stock handling of virtually every front wheel drive is wacky and also dangerous. The reduciton of relentless understeer is what I call sanity. Put your swaybar on and prepare for your steering wheel to actually do something for once!

[markismaximus]

wouldnt it be a bit wacky though? Id be moving from 18mm front no rear to 18mm front 24mm rear (if i went ASR rear swaybar aswell)

increasing the diameter of both would mean you are almost going backwards. Adding a rear bar and leaving the front "as is" will reduce understeer. which is what you want.

if you add a 24mm rear, and 24mm front you may as well leave it as it is.

[90civicGL]

ok so the ED civics understeer a bit do they? and by adding a rear sway bar will lessen the amount they under steer. So a 19mm wont reduce the understeer as much as a 24mm bar? but if i go to much it will start to oversteer?

[string]

If you have no rear swaybar then to say it understeers "a bit" is a massive understatement. It takes far more than just a rear swaybar to get a FWD into steady state oversteer territory. While you still have the OEM springs (or aftermarket lowering springs) there is no rear swaybar big enough to pull you out of understeer.

The "oversteer" that people report with big swaybars is (IMO of course) usually due to driver error combined with a poor setup (fiddling with the dampers when they don't know what they do, for example).

To grossly simplify, you add stiffness to the rear to reduce understeer, and add stiffness to the front to add understeer. To put things in perspective, your front springs are at least 200% as stiff as the rears. Mine are only 80% as stiff as the rear and I have absolutely no problems with "oversteer" in the sense that most people understand it (or, IMO again, misunderstand it).

Adding rear stiffness will certainly give you the capabilities to get into deeper trouble, but it won't make what you are currently capable of more dangerous (I believe the reverse it true, hence why I called stock handling dangerous a few posts up).

[90civicGL]

ok, im learning so much about everything from you, really great advice. + rep for you, i noticed with the skunk 2 coilovers they come in 3 forms, is this what you mean by spring stiffness? they got regular which is front 8kg and rear 6kg then race which is front 10 and rear 8 (probs the one ill get cause its a bit stiffer for track use (am i right?) and then drag which is 10 front and 28 rear (im guessing this would make the rear as stiff as a rock and bad for daily driving)?

So a 18mm front and 24mm rear sway bar seems to be the easyest way for me to go so do you think they would work well/suit the ED civic?

[trism]

I got the skunk proC wih the 8 6 springs when I had my ed. It wasn't too bad. I didnt have a rear sway bar, and it was pretty under steery. But I learnt to deal with it.

[90civicGL]

ok, is the only difference between the skunk 2 sports and proC's the $300-400 and 32 dampener settings instead of 15? Also when i lower the car i need a new camber kit right so i can get the tyres all even?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HONDA-CIV...ht_4436wt_1139

Is this the right thing, after a quick search customers seem to like it and so on, but its a different shape for the front camber then most. Like the skunk 2 front camber looks completely different.

[TheSaint]

with skunk2 shocks and tein s-tech springs i got hardly any camber on my EG sedan
and the little bit that i did get helped performance anyway =)

[90civicGL]

with skunk2 shocks and tein s-tech springs i got hardly any camber on my EG sedan
and the little bit that i did get helped performance anyway =)

I guess i get the shocks first, adjust them to something i like and then go from there with the camber angles and what not.

[TheSaint]

the skunk2 sport shocks arnt adjustable - just so you know =)

[90civicGL]

oh ok, so you can lower them but then they only have one hardness level?

[90civicGL]

i found a guy on ebay in america that sells both koni yellows and ground control coilovers, so if thats still around when it come time to buy coilovers i might go for that since everyone who has them seems to really like them.