Best sway bar for autocross.
 

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If you run race tires definitely the Hotchkis. If you run in the street tire classes then the Eibach/Stillen might be the best compromise.

:iagree:

Chris, do you know if the Hotchkis front bar is available on its own or do you have the buy both?

OP, you might want to check the toe setting up front. My Z was toed out from the factory causing it to be a handful on course. Just fixing that alone made a noticeable difference.

You have to buy the Hotchkis as a set unfortunately.

The Stillen/Eibach you could get individually at one time, you would have to check to make sure that is still the case.

Forgot that the Whiteline is also available now and can be sold separately, so that is definitely up top of the list for a street tire setup.

Thanks Chris. I was hoping to the Hotchkis came separately so I could replace my eibach front bar now that I'm on A6's.

You can buy the front bar only from Hotchkis....

Right now I'm running Hotchkis Front bar only as my street tires suck. (Bridgestone RE760's) The front sway bar with stock rear bar feels amazing in cornering. When I had the rear on, even at softest setting, the rear was still way to stiff for the RE760's to hold at all so I was getting a lot of instant breaking traction instead of slow and controllable. Swapping back to the stock rear made a world of difference even though I have more roll now. I'm also running the Powertrix R/T Coilover set up and plain and simple, the hotchkis rear is super stiff! Even on soft. I'll be trying out my rear bar again once I switch to the new BFG Rivals when they drop.

Weird to me that everyone thinks the Hotchkiss are the stiffest there are for this car.. The Whitelines are, by far, the stiffest (retail) bars there are for the 370Z. They're larger than the Hotchkiss and they're solid, rather than tubular. So yes there's some unsprung weight added, but the stiffness is insane.

You might not want them with street tires I guess? But if you're going to run an R-Comp and want the stiffest, get the Whitelines.

I love my hotchkis sways. I haven't noticed any additional understeer. They're all almost close enough in performance to buy based on price IMO.

I use a hotchkis front on my unruly car....with no rear bar. That said, the car also has a whole lot of spring.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8240/8...35f91219_c.jpg

The Hotchkis does introduce some lower speed understeer on street tires (attacking sharp corners at < 40 mph for example). Camber corrects the issue but unfortunately you can't do that in stock class for our cars.

Can I ask why? Your advice on autox has been great, I just wanted to know what advantages the Whiteline provides over the Eibach?

And is this just on stock springs and shocks that you recommend it, or with something more aggressive?

sub'd

Yes I'm making the assumption of stock suspension for most amateurs. The Whiteline is somewhere inbetween the Eibach and the Hotchkis in terms of stiffness (both the Whiteline and the Eibach are adjustable). For a street tire stock suspension setup that is about as stiff as you would want to go. On race tires you'll want to go bigger, since there is more traction there is more weight transfer.

Chris, have you tested both bars? Whiteline and Hotckiss?

I don't see how a solid 28mm bar could possibly be less stiff than a 35mm tubular.

That's if they're made of the same alloy using the same process and are both tubular or solid.

That matrix doesn't say anything about going from tubular to solid or vice versa.

It depends on the wall thickness of the bar and the shape of the bar, it's not just about thickness (shape restricted by stock end-links). I haven't used the Whiteline so I'm just going by the spring rate data I could find which could be wrong.

A tubular design of 35mm roughly translates to 32mm solid.

I couldn't find any spring rate data on the Whitelines, unfortunately.. Did you find some?

Thanks for the info though, can never have too much knowledge.

The Whiteline is not between the Eibach and Hotchkis. The Eibach front bar is stiffer and lighter than the Whiteline.
http://www.the370z.com/attachments/b...ars-sways2.jpg

It is stiffer than the Stillen though.

The Eibach is much thicker than I first thought, thanks for the numbers.

The spring rates for the Hotchkis rear are:

930, 1160, 1490 lbs/in (based on the 28.5mm bar)
+70, 110, 170% stiffer than stock 370Z

The Eibach rear sounds crazy stiff if their numbers are accurate.

I tried the Eibach front bar for a few events last year. I'm running 285 RE-11s all around. The Eibach bar on the stiffest setting made the rear very squirrelly...lots of oversteer. I went back to the stock bar and have been happier and faster. Really, it's driver preference, most of us here can't drive the car to its capable limits and Whiteline, Eibach, or other won't "turn" us into a pro.:driving:

I'm on the fence between this and Eibach, mostly because Eibach is a trusted name.

Would you consider RE-11s to be a goo match for it, or should I look at something more aggressive? I'd like to fine tune the suspension through this current autox season, possibly adding springs into the mix.

I think the Eibach bars are meant to match with their springs as well. Not sure though.

If you are doing springs, you might as well do Coils since it will move you into ASP class either way. RE-11's will perform well once everything is dialed in. I'm on 18" wheels and the RE-11's only come in a 275 tire which I want more meat....

Let's just remember that in order to be competitive in ASP you're going to have to run something on par with Hoosier A6's.

Also I thought the non-Nismo Z's were able to run in STR now. Not sure what the STR rules allow for suspension changes and what the max tire widths are but it might be worth a look.

We have a 350z here that competes in STR but max tire width is 255 and max wheel width is 9.0". If running on Base wheels, it could be worth it. Looks like basically the only thing holdin us back is the skinny wheels and tires lol. Here in Hawaii, there's only 1 other car in ASP with me so its not tat big of a deal and hes running on Direzza's. I'll be fine on my RS3's lol.