Track alignment spec

Originally Posted by wutfun

Although it is true that a stiffer swaybar will prevent body roll and thus reduce the camber gain on the outside wheel, because the car rolls more you need more camber gain...so it is really not about the reduction in camber gain.

A stiffer swaybar actually transfers more vertical load on the outside wheel and reduce the vertical load on the inside tire. This is the nature of a swaybar as the outside tire gets pushed up, the bar will start to put some of that upward force onto the inside tire...thus decreasing the vertical load on the inside tire.

This increase in the difference between the outside and inside tire vertical load means the overall lateral grip will be less. The reason for this is something called the tire performance curve. I added is a picture of a tire performance curve from my app below. Basically as you increase the vertical load on a tire it does increase it's lateral grip, but the increase in lateral grip is not linear. In other words for each 10lbs of vertical load you add to the outside tire you will get a smaller amount of incremental lateral grip. Conversely as you reduce vertical load on a tire, it looses a greater amount of lateral grip for every 10lbs of vertical load it looses.

This is a key reason why stiffer swaybars reduce lateral grip. This is why the end of the car you add a stiffer swaybar to will have less lateral grip.

So you might ask...why run swaybars at all? They are there to make the car handle more consistently and predictably and also to help with achieving the balance of the car you like.

I hope this helps.

Cheers
Martin Crisp
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