middieman147

Figured I’d just throw my story up here for whoever is interested. Hopefully a few of you out there find this thread useful/ enjoyable. I am in the process of modifying my car to make it somewhat faster in a straight line, and substantially faster around an autocross course. To be honest, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way, and I figured I’d post my experiences somewhere, in the hopes that it may help a few who might be considering the same modifications. This is my story thus far.

I bought my 2014 GT in April of 2014. As we all know, the car is a pretty big handful straight out of the box. I autocrossed the car for the first time about 2 weeks after I got it, and was immediately hooked. Up until that point, I spent most of my seat time in karting at local arrive and drive indoor kart tracks. I karted roughly 1-3 times a week for around three years (I wouldn't consider myself the best driver, but like to think that I have the basics of car control pretty much figured out). I autocrossed the car for about a year and a half in stock form. I wanted to leave the car stock for as long as I could in order to work on my driving skills. Modifying the car to make it faster is fun, but modifying the driver is the most effective mod of all(at least in my opinion).




I held out for as long as I could, but eventually my inner gear head broke loose, and I decided to start modifying my car. After a few months of research, I ended up with the below list of modifications:

Koni Yellow struts and shocks
I wanted to keep the street manners of the car intact, but improve upon the factory suspension set up. At the time, I didn’t need all of the extra features such as ride height adjustability, or the ability to choose whatever spring rates I wanted. I simply wanted to get the shocks, adjust the rebound to suit my new lowering springs, and never think about it again.

Steeda Ultralite springs
I wanted a spring that would “level” the car, and I read great reviews on the springs. I figured that the Ultralites would lower my car enough to make it look good and handle well, but I was very wary of over lowering the car and losing too much suspension travel/ ground clearance. I ended up purchasing my springs and shocks as a package from Sam Strano(more on this guy later) for a very competitive price.

Whiteline Front and Rear swaybars
Everywhere I looked these swaybars were getting glowing reviews, and I really liked that Whiteline developed a whole suspension package for the s197 that was designed to work together.

Whiteline LCA relocation brackets
Again, I liked the idea that the brackets were developed to work with the swaybars I planned on buying. I also liked that there was no adjustment available, as I didn’t want to add too many points of suspension adjustment all at once. Tire pressure alone made a huge difference in the handling feel of my car when it was stock, and I was worried that too many points of adjustability in the suspension would overwhelm me. I was already planning on adding the Konis(adjustable rebound), swaybars, and camber plates(adjustable camber and caster), and I didn't want anything else to fiddle with at the time. Adjustability in a suspension is great, but at a certain point it gets easy to become lost in all the settings.

Whiteline Panhard bar
This I chose more for its resale value. Whiteline products are popular with mustang owners, and I planned on upgrading to a Whiteline watts link in the future.

Vorshlag Motorsports Camber plates
Autocrossing a mustant with stock alignment settings REALLY chews up the outside edges of the tire. adding camber will drastically reduce tire wear, as well as improve handling. I chose these plates as they seemed the most robust, and the easiest to adjust. I had also spent a ton of time reading the Vorshlag Mustang build thread, so I was biased towards what they used. I had a terrible time dealing with Vorshlag, but their plates are top notch.

18x 11 Forgeline f14s
A great set of lightweight wheels that are very affordable compared to any other custom wheel option out there. I wanted to jam as much tire as I could under the car, and Vorshlag had developed these wheels with proper offsets to fit the mustang. I was a bit concerned that these wheels couldn't be rotated front to back due to the custom offsets front and rear. I wasn't sure how quickly my front tires would wear wear with an aggressive alignment, but I figured if the wear was really bad that I could just have the tires dismounted and swapped to the rear wheels(and vice versa).

BFG Rival S 315/30r18 tires all around
These were one of the few 200 treadwear tires that came in a size that would fit my wheels, and the standard Rival tire was really popular among autocrossers at the time. Despite being such a sticky compound, I read great reviews on their durability.

middieman147

It took me a while, but eventually I purchased everything listed, and installed it all at once. I did everything myself except the actual install of the shocks and springs, and was very surprised at how easy the s197 chassis is to work on. I ended up taking the car to a well respected local shop for the shock install/ alignment. During the alignment, I found out that in order to get maximum camber and caster out of my camber plates, that the hole in the top of the shock tower would have to be opened up. Not a big deal to me, but I'm not sure that everyone else would feel the same way about taking a grinder to a painted surface of their car. I believe that is the case for all s197 camber plates, but I haven't actually tested any others so I cant be sure. I also found out that the wheels I ordered were not as perfect as I had thought. Its a bit of a long story, but after contacting Vorshlag about the fitment, they confirmed that while the offsets allow for a 315 tire, they will not allow for EVERY 315 tire. I guess BFG Rival S 315s are wider than most, so they ended up rubbing the front strut body. I ended up having to order 3mm spacers for the front. Even with spacers in the front, under very hard cornering, the tires rub in front(even with the 3mm spacer) and back. At street speeds, the tires don't rub at all, even with the wheel turned to full lock in either direction. The only time that they seem to rub is under EXTREME corner loads, or when the suspension is at full droop(like on a hilly road at high speed, or when you raise the car on a 2 post lift). When the tires rub at full droop, its only in the rear, and it’s on a part of the car that Vorshlag highly recommended removing. Even when the tires do rub, its not hard enough for me to actually hear it. I can only tell when I pull the wheels off the car and see the scuff marks. Ok.. so on to actual driving impressions.

With the stock tires and suspension, the car essentially felt great, right up until it ran out of grip. The turn in was relatively sharp, but there was a decent amount of body roll that dulled the car down a bit. The stock tires also didn't let go very progressively. If you entered a corner too fast, or tried to add in more lock after the car was already set in the corner, it would break traction with no warning, and understeer. Same with oversteer at corner exit. The stock tires would inspire great confidence, and then completely let go with no real warning. I ended up teaching myself to enter the corner relatively slowly, and steering the car around the corner with the throttle (you can see me doing this in the above picture and video). I’m not saying it is the absolute fastest way to get through the course, but in all the times I've autocrossed and had instructors drive my car, only one time have I not bettered a time they set in my car. To be fair to them, they all just jumped into my car with no idea of how it was going to handle. To be fair to me though, every one of them were VERY experienced autocrossers(a few of them were national level competitors even). Enough gloating on my part, on to the NEW suspension driving impressions.

Shortly after installing all my new parts, I the car autocrossing. A fellow autocrosser let me borrow his go pro, so I was able to record my first ever runs with my new mods.


The car was MUCH faster, and behaved similarly to stock at/past the limit of adhesion, but approached that limit in a very different way. The BFGs have a softer sidewall than the stock pirellis, and that really threw me for a loop. the sharpness of initial turn in was gone, but there was much more available grip. The new tires also had a much bigger window between grip and no grip.Combined with the reduced body roll, I essentially would just fling the car into the corner, and sort out the grip as I went. The car still understeered if you tried to carry too much speed, and oversteered at corner exit, but every thing was easier to control, and happened at higher speeds. In the event prior to the one on video above (stock suspension/tires) I was 2-3 tenths out of first place in my class(CAM-C). In my first event with the modifications, I cleared of everyone by over 2 seconds. Where the stock tires would just let go, the BFGs were much more communicative. It was much easier to feel the tires letting go through the steering wheel, and the BFGs also start to make noise as they approach the upper limit of adhesion. When the BFGs did let go, they would do so in a way that was very progressive and easy to control. With the stock suspension, oversteer required ones full attention. My new setup allowed me to manage the oversteer while staying focused on my line. With the old setup, you just prayed that you could get everything gathered up in time to squeeze the car through the next set of cones. With the new setup, even when the car was sliding, I could still put it where I needed it.

Norm Peterson

I can't really see much camber in the video - what were they set to? Side note - alignment on these cars isn't beyond DIY'ing if you've got a flat driveway (or the patience to shim up any low spots). Though you might want to mark or otherwise note where things are set to right now, since you should know exactly what it is in case you get lost in your adjustments and have to start over.

Evidently even with wide 30-series tires, lateral tire distortion can still extend all the way around the tire circumference, and higher grip only exaggerates this effect. This distrtion is likely a player in steering response and how it "feels" to drive.

Your F14 wheels are Forgestars, not $$$$ (that's per wheel) Forgelines. I have the same wheels as you do, also from the good folks at Vorshlag, and even with 285/35's I still did a little surgery on those rear tie-down brackets mainly to ease the matter of getting the wheels on and off (I didn't remove them entirely in order to continue using the OE bump stops).

It didn't take very long for me to hack up a little strip of 1/8" steel for a better Koni adjustment tool than the little plastic thingies that they come with. And there's a couple of gratuitous pictures showing about 1.2mm strut side clearance (needed to fab a very thin spacer - 0.025" - for one side to get that much . . . one of these days I might get around to making another one, more for symmetry than anything).


Norm

middieman147

I can't figure out how to edit my previous posts, so I guess I'll just keep making new ones...

In the video above you can hear the tires making noise before they start to let go. You can also hear that I am way late on the throttle at corner exit (very easy to tell right around the 0:24 mark in the video. With my old tires and suspension, getting on the power any sooner would've caused massive oversteer, possibly a spin. Towards the end of my first run, I start to figure out that it was possible to get on the power sooner, and actually drive the car through the slide (around the 0:42 second mark). You can also hear me steering with the throttle through the slalom. With my stock setup, this was the only way that I could get it through the gates at a decent speed. With the increased speeds of my new setup, you can see that technique cause problems for me in my second run. Typically, it is best to run through a slalom with constant throttle, and work the wheel to get through the gates, and at this stage it was starting to become possible for me.

I autocrossed a few times with this set up, but never really got comfortable with the way the car handled. I played with the tire pressures, swaybar stiffness, and rebound settings, all to no avail. It felt like the front of the car was a bit too soft, and the back of the car was a bit too loose. Eventually, I decided to run an event with my stock tires in an attempt to return to something familiar. After getting used to my big ole 315s, going back to my stock tires was like driving on ice. I started the day with the rear swaybar in its normal position(3/4). On the first run of the day I spun twice. The understeer was never ending, and the on throttle oversteer so bad that ANY throttle input would send the car sideways. It didn't matter if I was in a corner or a straight, the car was all over the place. I bled a bunch of air out of the rear tires, and lined up for my second run. I managed to not spin that time, but the car was still plowing/sideways through most of the course. I softened the sway bar one notch to 2/4, and tried again. The over steer was still crazy, but I picked up about 0.5 seconds on the run. For my last run, I disconnected the swaybar altogether, and pulled a bunch of rebound out of the rear shocks. The oversteer was mostly gone, but the understeer remained, and I ran my slowest time of the day(except for the double spin run). Though the event was a bit of a disaster for me, I did realize how much of a part the swaybars play in the cars behavior compared to tire pressure and rebound settings. I also learned that the BFGs 315s were so grippy that they masked the lackluster setup on the car.



Norm,
You are completely correct on the wheel brand. I typed forgeline by accident(wishful thinking I suppose ), and cannot go back and edit my post to correct it. Also I "don't have sufficient privileges" to view the pictures you posted. Im assuming its due to my low post count.

At the time of the video, i only had about 1.8 degrees of negative camber. Presently, I am running about 2.4. I have adjusted camber, and checked alignment specs myself, but I don't have the proper tools to align the car myself. I move fairly often, and am not sure I want to add alignment tools to the list of items that I have to drag around with me. You're also dead on about the tires causing the mushy feedback. Turns out Rival S tires have softer sidewalls(I'm told they feel similar to r comps) than most. If Bridgestone releases the RE71r in a 305/xxr19 I'll grab another set of forgestars and try them out. Supposedly the RE71r has a wonderfully stiff/responsive sidewall.

You bring up a good point on data gathering that I forgot to mention. When I run at an event, I record the following:

Location
Surface type/condition
ambient temperature
initial camber settings
initial swaybar settings
cold tire pressures
initial rebound settings


After each run i record:
Time + penalties
how the car felt
any mistakes I made driving
tire pressures(as soon as I get back to grid)
if I ran with a passenger in the car
any setup changes made before the next run

I need to get a pyrometer to get tire temps after each run, but I have yet to actually do it.

audioAl

I like where this thread is going, congrats on the suspension upgrade! Tracking these pony cars is my passion. I just installed Koni sports & J&M cc plates with a DSS 3.5" 1 piece drive shaft and Bassani exhaust. I have BMR lca's & adj. panhard on "stock springs" as Norm likes to say: "Still not lowered"! Let us know more on your setup as you discover more, thanks Alan

Norm Peterson

There should be a little 'Edit' button at the lower right of your post . . . unless that too is only activated above a certain post count.



A digital angle finder, some string, a small scale graduated 1/32" or finer. four jackstands to stretch the string over, a steel tape to confirm the parallelism of your strings, and maybe a calculator with trig functions is all you need. In a pinch, you can work with even simpler angle measuring "equipment" . . . I've used a carpenter's combination square with the bubble level in it on several occasions. The jackstands are the only 'big' things, which you'll likely need for other work anyway.

Haven't watched the video yet, but will later.


Norm

middieman147

I've been eyeballing a DDS 1 piece for a while now. How do you like yours so far? Ive never tracked my car, but I will some day down the road. Right now I'm pretty hooked on autocross! I have a few more posts before I am up to date on my build so far. I also don't seem to have any self control when it comes to buying car parts, so I will probably be updating this regularly!

Norm,
At the present moment I don't have the option to edit anything.

I've done alignments before with the string method, but right now thats not the best option for me. There are too many things standing in the way of me doing a good job in a reasonable amount of time for my specific application. I would need a set of scales to corner balance the car(ride height adjustability will be added soon), and those are definitely 'big' items. For as often as I align the car, it makes more sense for me to just have it done at a reputable shop.

middieman147

Eventually I settled on the front swaybar at 4/4(full stiff), and the rear swaybar at 2/4 after a few months of fiddling(I started with them set at 3/4 and 2/4 respectively). At this point I had put 4-5000 miles on the new mods(except for the tires), and realized that the street manners of the car were no worse than when the car was stock. In my opinion the trackpack cars don't come with enough damper from the factory. There were a few instances with the stock suspension where I thought I was riding a pogo stick instead of driving my car down the road. With the Konis properly adjusted, the ride is noticeably better than stock. Im sure all the guys running around on Konis with stock-ish spring rates would agree with me on that. The Whiteline swaybars felt like stock swaybars on steroids. The car pretty had basically the same balance to it, but with the whitelines, the the grip thresholds were simply higher. The alignment I had (-1.8 deg of camber, 0.1 deg of toe in) made the car MUCH more stable on the highway. The camber contributed to the increased grip the car had, and the toe killed the "curious" nature that my car seemed to have. The stock alignment would cause the car to tramline on EVERY crack in the road(i suspect I may have had a bit of toe out in my factory alignment). With the added toe in, the car tracked dead straight over all road imperfections, though it did increase tire wear noticeably. Im not sure if it was just the lca relocation brackets, or a combination of things, but the axle hop was effectively gone, and the rear of the car was much more settled. Though I had purchased the mods with performance in mind, I inadvertently made my car much less of a handful(and much more fun) on the street as well.

I figured that taking the autocross build a bit more seriously couldn't make the street manners THAT bad, since up to this point I'd pretty much only made the car easier to live with. I knew that I wanted to either do a watts link or freshen up the brakes next, but I wasn't sure which would be more beneficial. I ended up contacting Sam Strano, and talking to him at length about my car. I mentioned that the car was a bit too tail happy, and wondered if a watts link would solve the issue. He confirmed that a watts would settle the rear down, but told me that my issues were mostly due to my swaybars. He claimed that a set of his sway bars would instantly improve the feel of my car, and would free up the room for me to run a Fays2 watts link instead of a Whiteline. I’m sure all of you have seen pictures of the Fays2, and agree that it looks terrible and poorly designed when compared to the Whiteline watts. It was at that moment I realized that this guy was just trying to sell me a bunch of stuff I didn't need, so told him I had decided to just to the brakes for now. He Recommended that I buy a set of HP+ pads for the front HPS 5.0 Pads in the rear, Goodridge stainless lines, and Motul RBF600 fluid. I told him that I had found a few cheaper options for stainless lines, but he assured me that the Goodridge stainless lines were the only set with OEM style mounting brackets installed. I decided to check up on his claims, and found out that Russel makes a pair of braided lines that also has OEM style brackets installed. Goodridge just happened to be the only kind of lines that Sam had on his website. All the other items he recommended had great reviews everywhere I looked, but I was so fed up that I ended up buying the pads and lines from someplace else. I did end up buying brake fluid from Sam at the last minute, as most places wont overnight brake fluid, and Sams shop is only a few hours away from me(I tried to find RBF600 at different local stores, but had no luck).

I decided at the last minute to run my car at nationals, and only had about a week to get the car ready and drive 1000 miles to get there(hence my rush to get the brakes done). I got to Sam’s shop, and he basically gave me the same few lines about his bars, and a Fays2 watts link. He was very polite/friendly, but insisted that dumoing my Whiteline bars would give the car the feel that I was looking for. Knowing that I now lived fairly close, he even offered to let me try out a set of his bars before I bought them. Needless to say, I bought the brake fluid, chatted a bit about nationals (he was also competing in nationals), and got the heck out of there. I ended up getting the brakes done just in time, and had the car realigned for more camber(-2.4deg) and less toe(for better turn in and less road wear). I loaded my race tires in the back seat, drove 1000 miles, checked out as many different mustangs as I could, met up with friends from the different regions that I have competed in(shout out to NY region, Steel Cities Region, and Kansas City region!), and generally had a blast!









The surface at nationals is said to be one of the best surfaces for autocross, and I agree wholeheartedly. Before competing, I purchased a few practice runs on the practice course they had set up, in order to feel out my setup on a really well prepped surface. Immediately I noticed that with the front bar at full stiff, that the car had more tendency to understeer. The front stiffness felt about right, but the grip just wasn't there. After about 2 hours of practice runs(didn't get as many runs in as one would think). I set the front bar back to 3/4. The front grip returned, and the car was back to its tail happy status. In prior testing, I tried the rear bar at 1/4, and it just felt to floppy, so I left the rear bar at 2/4. I fought the car through both days of competition, and came away determined to find a solution. While at nationals, one class that I made certain to check out was ESP. This class is essentially all heavily modified mustangs, and I learned a TON by looking at peoples set ups(after each day of competition the drivers are required to jack up the cars and take the wheels off to allow other competitors to see what they are running and protest some part of the car if they feel that it violates the rules), and talking to any drivers that were willing to talk shop.

Turns out, very few drivers are willing to talk about their setups, or even give me advice on mine. I figured that they would be fairly guarded, so I made sure to mention that I was running in a different class, point to my car which was in grid with said other class, try to butter them up with compliments, and ask very broad general questions very politely. One guy, running a Boss 302, was very friendly and chatted openly about whatever I asked. He even chatted to me about a few of the other ESP cars, and what he knew about them. Most of the drivers looked very busy when I approached, so i just took a quick peek at their cars, and left them alone. The last guy I talked to(running a different boss 302) ended up just lying about his set up. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey man, I really like your car. You looked pretty quick out there, what kind of times are you running?

Boss Guy: XX.XX was my fastest time.

Me: **** man, thats quick. I ran my mustang this morning on this course and wasn't even close to that. How long have you been autocrossing for?

Boss Guy: This is my X year.

Me: No wonder why you're so fast. This is my first year at nationals, and my second year autocrossing. I'm struggling with the setup on my car right now, but I'm still having a blast. Do you mind if I ask what brand suspension you are running?

Boss Guy: I have Konis in the front...

Me: Really?! thats what I'm running right now!

I chatted to him a little bit longer about what spring rates I had on my car, and what springs I was planning on switching to. After that I wished him good luck, and wandered off to go look at a different mustang. About 20 minutes later during the mandatory inspection period, I eagerly walked over to see his front suspension, as he was the only guy I talked to in ESP running Konis. and I was really interested to see what springs he was running. Turns he had a high dollar set of custom built coilovers, but for whatever reason decided to lie about it.
That experience is part of the reason why I decided to make this thread. I ran into MUCH more hostility than I felt like I should've, and decided to take a different route myself. I'm not saying that any of the info I provide will be worth much, but I'd rather put as much info out there as I can to help out anyone else who wants to take one of these cars to the autocross course. I always love seeing other mustang guys at an autocross event, and always make it a point to go up and talk to them. BUT, thats enough of that, on to what I learned from poking around the ESP class at nationals.




Not a single car had a Whiteline watts link. One guy had a Cortex setup but EVERY other car in the class had a Fays2 on it.
The Fays2 set up really tucks up under the car well, and is nearly invisible unless the car is up on a lift. The whole set up looked much cleaner in person than it does in pictures.
The guy with the cortex had Whiteline bars, but he was the only one. This was possibly due to the fact that EVERYONE HAD A FAYS2 WATTS LINK, and I don't think one can run a Whiteline rear bar with a Fays2.
Roughly 60% of the ESP mustangs had Strano swaybars on them. I think I saw a few cars with Eibach bars, and the rest I didn't recognize.
I needed to seriously reconsider my build plans, because based on what I was seeing, everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Norm Peterson

Pretty sure that most of the ESP entrants with the Fays2 Watts link already had them before the differential-mounted main pivot style was class-legal, which I think was a change for 2015. So to some extent it's an artifact caused by the previous ST*/ESP rulesets.

Other than physical compatibility with the rest of the rear suspension's locating linkage, there isn't going to be anything magic about one vendor's rear sta-bar set to, say, 140 lb/in, over the same setting on another vendor's bar. I am assuming that they all choose an appropriate steel and have adequate heat treatment done to it.

I do happen to have one of Sam's early bar sets, it being one of maybe two that offered rear bar adjustability at the time when I was in the market for them. Full disclosure, I've known Sam since the early 2000's and CamaroZ28.com and met him a couple of times at autocrosses . . . and we don't necessarily agree on everything either.


Norm

middieman147

Norm,

I thought I remembered all watts links being outlawed at some point. I definitely don't remember for sure though, so I will have to defer to you on that one. I just know what everyone was running, and how fast they were going with it! I also thought that all swaybars were essentially similar. Boy was I wrong (Ill get into it more below).

After getting home, and mulling over the whole nationals experience, I came away with major lesson: Sam Strano is king. As much as I didn't want to admit it, basically everything he had told me up to this point was true. I did go against his advice on the brake lines and, ordered a Russel stainless braided line kit. The Russel kit did come with OEM brackets, but one of the lines had rust inside it when I pulled it out of the package. Not the exact reason why Sam recommended against them, but at this point I was feeling a bit superstitious! I didn't discover the rust until I was midway through the install, so I just cleaned out the rust as best I could(there wasn't a ton of rust anyways), and used the line. I made sure to bleed that caliper really well, and haven't had a single problem. Besides being right about every single part that he recommended(the brake pads and fluid he recommended gave me exactly what I was looking for in terms of pedal feel and modulation), not a single person had a bad thing to say about him at nationals. It didn't matter what kind of car people were competing with, it seemed like they all had called Sam Strano for advice at some point. Most didn't end up buying parts from him, but still called him to discuss setups for their cars. I decided to try a set of his bars, since I had decided to go with a Fays2 watts link anyways, and there was a chance that it wouldn’t work with my whiteline rear bar anyway. I called Sam, and told him that I was looking to buy a set of his bars, and that I would just come pick them up to avoid paying shipping charges. He confirmed that He had a set in stock, and that he would be there late that night(I later learned that he did have plans, but cancelled them to stay at his shop and wait for me). I got to his shop, Sam grabbed the bars, and started pointing out the best way to negotiate the hump in front of his garage bay. Sam had just assumed that I would want to install the bars as fast as possible(he was right), figured I didn't have access to a lift(right again), and decided to let me use his. It was about 7pm when I pulled in his garage, and I didn't end up heading home until after midnight. After helping me install the bars(and letting me use all his tools), Sam offered to show me a few good driving roads near his shop. I told him to drive, as I wanted to see what he thought of the setup on my car. The man can drive….end of story. Thats all I have to say about that. While riding along, I tried to feel the difference in the swaybars. To be honest, from the passenger seat, it felt pretty mush the same. I was a bit disappointed, but didn't want to tell Sam that, after he just spent the whole night helping me install the bars. I thanked him for letting me use his lift, and started to load my Whiteline bars in the trunk. Sam told me to leave the bars, go drive for a few days, and if I didn't like the bars, he would help me reinstall my old bars. I figured what the heck, thanked him again, and headed for home. Most of my drive home was on highways, so I didn't have much chance to feel out the bars until I got closer to home. When I finally did get closer to home, I headed straight to my favorite driving road to get a real feel for the bars….

HOLY ****.. The first time I turned the wheel I nearly swerved off the road. The Turn in was so sharp I had to yank the wheel the other way to keep from running the car into the ditch. I could spend days talking about how insane the turn in and front end grip is. I genuinely don't understand how changing swaybars can make that much of a difference. Sam made me promise to tell him what I thought of his bars compared to the Whitelines. I have attached what I sent him below:

My reactions to your swaybars, as promised.

The car Behaves COMPLETELY differently now. I'm struggling to comprehend how just changing bars can make this much of a difference. I think some of the difference is due to the way the rear swaybar mounts(and applies force) compared with the whiteline bar. I spent the last 15 minutes typing and erasing explanations of the specific differences in the bars, and have decided it's impossible to explain without actually speaking about it. I'll just give you the cliff notes now, and tell you all the little things next time I speak with you. Overall I would describe the whiteline bars as "street car" bars, while yours are definitely "autocross bars". Before, the car was pretty fun to toss around in the street, and a bit of a chore to squeeze through the cones. I'm not used to the bars yet, so I'm not comfortable playing around on the street as much, but I can tell that the car will be MUCH faster around an autocross course if I can learn to handle the new bars.



Front:
Grip/turn-in is greatly improved, and I am exceedingly happy with how the front of the car feels. The front bar feels(stiffness-wise) very similar to the whiteline bar, so I'm assuming that most of the improvements are due to the rear bar.

Rear:
I really struggling to explain the differences here, but there are many. The whiteline and stock rear bars did pretty much the same thing in every situation, and consequently were pretty predictable/ easy to drive. Your rear bar is definitely not as easy to drive in the 8/10s speed range(I think they will really come alive at 10/10s on the autocross course), but the car can carry MUCH more speed now.Your bar also doesn't seem to react the same in every situation. Let me break it down by activity, to try to explain myself better.

Slaloming: I don't even understand how the car can slalom as well as it does now. The car is absolutely PERFECT for slaloming now. SO HAPPY with this.

Initial turn in: The car settles in to the corner faster. With the whiteline bars, you really had to wait for the car to catch up. You would have to scrub a bunch of speed, throw the car in, wait for it to settle down, and then build speed on the way out. Your bars take much less time to settle in, and the car really wants to carry a lot more speed into the corner.

Mid corner: The car really rotates well around a corner. Its hard to explain, but it feels like the whole car is trying to negotiate the corner now. With the whiteline bar, it felt like the only things trying to get the car around the corner were the front tires, and everything was just being dragged along behind them. Now, when you get on the power, it really feels like the rear is pushing the car around the corner.

Corner exit: The car is pretty loose on corner exit. The stability control absoluteIy freaks because of this, and starts braking individual wheels, which is really a confidence killer. It really upsets the car and catches me off guard most times. I really haven't enjoyed this so far, but it feels to me like once I re-learn how to drive the car, this problem will go away.


I really like the new bars now, but i think once I get some more seat time, and get on top of them, that I am going to absolutely love them. I can't wait to get the car on the autocross course and feel what the car is like at the limit.

Thanks,

I don't know about setting up an s197 for the track(I haven't ever done it), but when it comes to setting up a car for autocross, Sam is the guy to talk to. When I was struggling to get a proper setup on my car, I emailed Vorshlag, and Maximum Motorsports to see what they thought about my setup. Both companies strongly recommended that I double the spring rates that I currently had in the car, and insisted that the car would never handle well with such soft spring rates. I could've probably gotten the car to feel somewhat close to the way it does now with the Whiteline bars and harder springs, but having fiddled with them on my car for around 5 months, I don't think I would eve be able to get them to feel as good as the Strano bars do now. Eventually I will up the spring rates slightly, since I plan to have a trunk spoiler built for more rear end grip(I'm looking at you Vorshlag!), but With my strano bars I will probably run about 200lb less spring than I would've needed with my Whiteline bars.