Seraphim118

Gotcha, I'm new to suspension mods so thanks for helping out! I'm looking to improve handling alot while keeping it reasonably daily driver friendly... Based off of the fact that i have no rear sway, i was leaning toward a kit that had everything with it. So, that is why I brought up the whiteline vs eibach. They both have everything I need. That being said, the whiteline is adjustable and the eibach does not seem to be..or atleast it does not say that it is.. Since the whiteline is adjustable Im thinking I will go with a front+rear whiteline setup. That way I will have the imput on how soft or firm my setup is. Does this sound like a reasonable route?

Norm Peterson

Perhaps more important than "soft or firm" taken by itself is how soft or firm you set the rear bar relative to the front. That affects the understeer/oversteer balance. I wouldn't, for example, set the front bar full soft and the rear bar full firm, as that'll likely get the tail a little too "loose" for driving confidence. Full stiff front and full soft rear will be "pushy" or more understeerish than it is now (although you would be cornering with less roll).

I'd start either full soft for both bars or only the first hole stiffer in each. Full soft is the holes out closest to the ends of the bar arms. You may like it well enough there to leave it, or you may want to experiment a little. Perhaps don't stagger the settings by more than one hole to begin with.


Norm

Norm Peterson

The Whiteline and other S197 rear bars are closer together in effectiveness than either is to your SN95 bar (which was very similar to the rear bar that Chevy used for the F41 Sport Suspension in the '79 Malibu I used to have).

The Whiteline bar appears to have slightly longer arms and a narrower span between the axle attachments than the rest of the S197 rear bars, which is likely why it's made from larger diameter stock. It's somewhat similar to the 3d & 4th gen F-body (Camaro/Firebird) rear bars.


The bar in your '98 is far less effective because the arm length of that design is the entire length of the LCAs that it is attached to. Just to put some numbers on it, say you had an OE S197-design rear bar with 10.6" long arms that gave 150 lb/in stiffness. If you could bolt that exact same bar up to LCAs that were 19" long, that bar's effective stiffness would drop way down to something like 43 lb/in.

The SN95/G-body bars also affect the rear suspension geometry in ways that the Whiteline and S197 rear bars do not, and they accomplish this by forcing the LCAs to take a larger share of the lateral force. By adding this lateral stabilizing effect to the LCAs, the effective rear roll center drops slightly and the amount of axle steer tends to go just a little more understeerish. Those two effects oppose what the bar directly does (reduce roll a tiny bit and transfer a little more load across the rear tires for better front tire grip and less understeer).

It is not unheard of for manufacturers to fit a thin (aka not effective) rear bar because consumer research had determined that the target customer expected to find one there. So one was added and made to have little effect so as to avoid taking the cars' handling balance outside corporate guidelines. A suspension engineer working at the OE level has made this point more than once. Your '98's bar and my Malibu's might not have been quite this ineffective, but they weren't much better.


Norm

Seraphim118

Makes sense, thanks for all of the help Norm!

Seraphim118

Personally do you think that the design of the rear whiteline offers anything more since it seems to be so different than other s197 sways? Im just curious because if the design is similar to the 4th gen f-bodies, then it just makes me curious as to why they went that direction when every other rear bar seems to be closer in design to the stock bars..does that make sense?

Red_Devil

There are a variety of reasons why we chose that design style. Primarily because it made the ability to adjust the bar far simpler. The design also splits the weight of the bar between sprung, and unsprung, and as noted also allows for more inboard wheel clearance.

One of the things I would like to address that I have seen in this thread is the subject of bar size. One thing I would like to instill is that SIZE is not a proper measurement for bar effectiveness. What you are actually looking for is BAR/SPRING RATE. Most bars are made out of hollow chromolly (which is about as far from a spring as you can get), our bars are made out of a solid high quality spring steel so comparing the sizes is apples and oranges.

That said, I am sure you will love the bars Seraphim! The people who use our bars swear by them and for the price it is hard to find a more noticeable upgrade.

Seraphim118

Thanks so much for the explanation of the design! I know one thing I already like about the whiteline kit is that it comes with everything, which is great for me because I have no rear bar from the factory. I will be ordering the bars from AM pretty soon!

Norm Peterson

I don't have any inside information as to why Whiteline went the way they did, but one of the end results is that their rear bar does not establish an inboard limit to rear wheel width and offset (backspacing) and tire size like the OE S197 designs do. Terry Fair of Vorschlag has a whole lot of experience with this and either is or is about to be another Whiteline dealer. The Whiteline rear bar may become the one to have at least in ESP if Terry and Amy manage to do well at the Solo Nationals


Norm

baddog671

I think AM should put their Whiteline line-up on the monthly sale page next month so they'll start rolling off the shelves. Cough cough, hint hint

I'm eye ballin quite a few of their items. Already have the panhard bar and chassis brace.

CMcNam

This. Looking for these suspension upgrades and would like to get them ASAP.