So I have a 00 on stock suspension which is the most rear-biased stock setup there is with stock wheels. The car will be autocrossed and eventually hit HPDEs once I have a rollbar, but no plans for seats, harnesses, time attacks, or W2W racing. Also, I have no plans to go buy a bigger staggered set of wheels/tires in the next 2-3 years, but will still be participating in the above activities.

I currently have a set of 16x7s with 225/50/16 RS-3s on them from my old car that are only like 20% used that I would prefer not to throw out.

Now I had the idea that If i threw a smaller rear bar on the car it might make some difference, like the regular AP2 bar. So what does the hive mind think of these 3 sub-$300 options in my shoes? FYI I get $8 tire mounting/balancing using the military auto hobby shop.

1. Run the 225 square RS3s as they sit now(This size is at least as wide as the stockers on the rear of my car now) and put on an AP2 rear sway to tame the rear a bit. Add a bigger front sway if it's still too snappy.

2. Move a pair of the RS3s to the stock rears, save the other pair for when they die, and buy a pair of the new 205/55/16s to throw on the front wheels. Sways stay the same. Throw the staggered All season tires on my stock wheels now on the 16x7 set to use as winter wheels.

3. Same as #2 but with the Ap2 rear sway to keep it less snappy.

At the end of the day what I care about most is having fun and having a car that's not trying to kill me. I've only had it a month and I don't feel like that yet, but I haven't pushed it that hard yet either.

 

I added an 06 AP2 rear sway and some AP2V1 rims plus a UK spec alignment on my MY00 and viola, perfectly neutral. Giver a try.

 

With how undersized most rear tires are (when compared to OEM) I just disconnected one end of my sway bar and zip tied it up. Works great and car is much better balanced. Mine is an 02

 

I also have MY 00, I have read so much about the spring rates, sway bar rates, suspension geomotrey and on and on. MY 00-01 front sway is almost identical to the 08-09 CR but the rear in our car is substantially larger. I swapped out the rear sway for a 09 CR, it is the only upgrade I have made to car except for the exhaust and it made my car a ton more fun to drive. The car use to feel like the rear was shoving the front out of the way, the rear end would come out on ya with very little effort. Presently the car is more balanced, I can get on the gas sooner and harder in the turns without saying "oh sht oh sht oh sht" over and over again

 

Thanks for the info, it looks like a 04 rear sway is in my future.

 

im tossing some eibach front and rear sways on today, gonna set the front on stiff and the rear on soft to maintain similar to stock ratios but with less body roll. The eibach front bar on stiff is about 17lbs/in stiffer than the stock MY00-01 bar, the rear on the other hand is about 88 lbs/in stiffer on the soft setting, but then again Ive got bilstein coils which are biased towards the front, so hopefully everything will pan out. THe car already handled pretty neutral at the track though with slight understeer, hopefully that stiffer eibach rear on the soft setting will lessen the push.

 

Ultimately, adding a stiffer rear bar will not be what you want. I would find a way to create more front traction before I take traction away from the rear.

I think it all comes down to your tire choices. If you have to go the sway bar route, don't put the front on full stiff right away. Keeping the same roll resistance will do nothing for your slight understeer.

 

If ur rear end is loose on steady state cornering, u don't want a stiffer rear sway typically. Stiffer front is more like it. Ur shock settings r more for maximizing grip and if u add a stiffer rear sway, but not a grippyer tire, u actually Loose total grip. If u have a lot of body role u have to be more careful in transitions.

On a different note, put a zip tie around the shaft of ur rear shocks to see if u hit ur bump stops. If u do. Cut them down. Hitting bump stops can cause erratic behavior and in my experience it causes sudden loss of rear traction in a hard transition or steady state.

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thanks for the info Robinson! Another reason why I got the eibach sway bars was to help with quick transitions, I already like the current ride but dont want any stiffer springs (at the moment) since the car is mainly a weekender that will see a track/autox event about 2-3 times a year if that. What I didnt like was that during quick transitions the body would slightly roll more than I would like it to and would take a bit to settle in to transfer weight. I was under the impression that adding sway bars would create the same tire loading as running stiffer springs but only with left to right motions?? I dont plan on switching to bigger tires/non stag and will be keeping my stock sized ap1 tires, Ill probably run star specs/re11's the next time around once these continental DW's wear out. The front eibach bar is only about 23 lb/in stiffer than the stiffest ap1 bar, and the rear bar on soft is about 88 lbs/in stiffer than the MY00 sway.