!!!rant!!!
Thread Starter
Haz l33t wheelz.
Joined: 09-14-07
Posts: 18,883
Likes: 3
From: Costa Mesa CA
!!!rant!!!
Ok, after reading a bunch of suspension posts, and seeing people go back and forth for months about a part that they say works wonders, and the other guy saying doesnt work at all.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
Senior Member
Joined: 04-20-08
Posts: 635
Likes: 0
From: Vancouver, BC
Ok, after reading a bunch of suspension posts, and seeing people go back and forth for months about a part that they say works wonders, and the other guy saying doesnt work at all.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
Senior Member
Joined: 02-03-08
Posts: 3,454
Likes: 1
From: Port Perry Ontario
Ok, after reading a bunch of suspension posts, and seeing people go back and forth for months about a part that they say works wonders, and the other guy saying doesnt work at all.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
Sway Bars/Anti-Roll Bars: increase the torsional rigidity of the suspesion setup, allowing more control when cornering, lessening body roll, and better lateral weight transfer
mounted on the supension arms, between the moving parts of both left and right supsension components.
Strut Braces/Bars: stiffen the chassis of the vehicle. allowing better, more responsive handling.
on the front, they are usually mounted at the tops of the strut towers. in the rear, there are many different places to mount.
i believe there are 4 options for rear sway bars
im pretty sure only Bwoody Performance makes a rear strut bar for our car.
correct me if im wrong. i just had to say this stuff, so hopefully we'll stop seeing stupid posts that go on forever, and would be avoided if people just read the first post carefully.
the rear twisting beam needs to be stiffer...you need to do the math and to do that you need to be an engineer...I am not, but can tell you the Cobalt time attack car used a stock twisting beam with a chrome moly tubular bar bolted to it much like the TTR one; the wall thickness tested was 1/8th, the diameters ranged from 3/4 od to 1.5 od.
I currently use a 1 inch 1/8 wall tubular bar on my Redline. ON the street, neglible difference, although it makes the car more stable on rough two lane roads when passing cars. On the track it makes a big difference, car handles better, towards neutral, but remember there are all sorts of different issues that aslo come into play here - tires, tire pressures, wheels, FLCA bushings, shock damping, weight overall weight front/rear etc. IN the rain with the stiffer rear twisting beam, the car can be a handful, it become a serious closed throttle/real loose car. Fun, controllable, slow.
The Grand Am Cobalt race cars use a twisting beam with the 5/8 solid bar inside the beam removed and a tubular humungous chrome moly tube welded in its place, and no external bar like the Time Attack car. See the GM Performance division build book.
At the rear,the issue is, however the rubber joint in the twisting beam. The Time Attack car and the Grand Am race cars all use spherical joints in this location, and until you stabalize the movement of the twisting beam much of what tuners do is wasted.
At the front the same thing applies. Until you fix the FLCA bushings, on track the car will chew the outer rib of the tire to heck and tend to push more...
At the rear there is no strut tower (twsiting beam) so no need to put a bar in there like ricer Hondas that have rear struts and poor structure. Cobalt is an excellent car structurally. Thats why the car is so tight to drive, compared to my Redline. I love it , but it is a rattle trap compared to the Cobalt...I am not sure that the idea of making the twisting beam a parallelogram like some do would work but I never tested it...good luck
for now thats all the advice I can provide. Seeing as most guys drive around with wrong tire pressures and dont cehck them monthly I am not sure fancy suspension bits mean much
Last edited by qwikredline; May 6, 2008 at 10:55 AM. Reason: addition
Senior Member
Joined: 04-11-04
Posts: 2,175
Likes: 0
From: patterson, ca
strut braces on a Cobalt with its strut towers tied into the firewall dont do diddly...thats the word from the structure guys at GM...if they did anything the racers would have them in Grand Am. They dont..
the rear twisting beam needs to be stiffer...you need to do the math and to do that you need to be an engineer...I am not, but can tell you the Cobalt time attack car used a stock twisting beam with a chrome moly tubular bar bolted to it much like the TTR one; the wall thickness tested was 1/8th, the diameters ranged from 3/4 od to 1.5 od.
I currently use a 1 inch 1/8 wall tubular bar on my Redline. ON the street, neglible difference, although it makes the car more stable on rough two lane roads when passing cars. On the track it makes a big difference, car handles better, towards neutral, but remember there are all sorts of different issues that aslo come into play here - tires, tire pressures, wheels, FLCA bushings, shock damping, weight overall weight front/rear etc. IN the rain with the stiffer rear twisting beam, the car can be a handful, it become a serious closed throttle/real loose car. Fun, controllable, slow.
The Grand Am Cobalt race cars use a twisting beam with the 5/8 solid bar inside the beam removed and a tubular humungous chrome moly tube welded in its place, and no external bar like the Time Attack car. See the GM Performance division build book.
At the rear,the issue is, however the rubber joint in the twisting beam. The Time Attack car and the Grand Am race cars all use spherical joints in this location, and until you stabalize the movement of the twisting beam much of what tuners do is wasted.
At the front the same thing applies. Until you fix the FLCA bushings, on track the car will chew the outer rib of the tire to heck and tend to push more...
At the rear there is no strut tower (twsiting beam) so no need to put a bar in there like ricer Hondas that have rear struts and poor structure. Cobalt is an excellent car structurally. Thats why the car is so tight to drive, compared to my Redline. I love it , but it is a rattle trap compared to the Cobalt...I am not sure that the idea of making the twisting beam a parallelogram like some do would work but I never tested it...good luck
for now thats all the advice I can provide. Seeing as most guys drive around with wrong tire pressures and dont cehck them monthly I am not sure fancy suspension bits mean much
the rear twisting beam needs to be stiffer...you need to do the math and to do that you need to be an engineer...I am not, but can tell you the Cobalt time attack car used a stock twisting beam with a chrome moly tubular bar bolted to it much like the TTR one; the wall thickness tested was 1/8th, the diameters ranged from 3/4 od to 1.5 od.
I currently use a 1 inch 1/8 wall tubular bar on my Redline. ON the street, neglible difference, although it makes the car more stable on rough two lane roads when passing cars. On the track it makes a big difference, car handles better, towards neutral, but remember there are all sorts of different issues that aslo come into play here - tires, tire pressures, wheels, FLCA bushings, shock damping, weight overall weight front/rear etc. IN the rain with the stiffer rear twisting beam, the car can be a handful, it become a serious closed throttle/real loose car. Fun, controllable, slow.
The Grand Am Cobalt race cars use a twisting beam with the 5/8 solid bar inside the beam removed and a tubular humungous chrome moly tube welded in its place, and no external bar like the Time Attack car. See the GM Performance division build book.
At the rear,the issue is, however the rubber joint in the twisting beam. The Time Attack car and the Grand Am race cars all use spherical joints in this location, and until you stabalize the movement of the twisting beam much of what tuners do is wasted.
At the front the same thing applies. Until you fix the FLCA bushings, on track the car will chew the outer rib of the tire to heck and tend to push more...
At the rear there is no strut tower (twsiting beam) so no need to put a bar in there like ricer Hondas that have rear struts and poor structure. Cobalt is an excellent car structurally. Thats why the car is so tight to drive, compared to my Redline. I love it , but it is a rattle trap compared to the Cobalt...I am not sure that the idea of making the twisting beam a parallelogram like some do would work but I never tested it...good luck
for now thats all the advice I can provide. Seeing as most guys drive around with wrong tire pressures and dont cehck them monthly I am not sure fancy suspension bits mean much
Senior Member
Joined: 02-03-08
Posts: 3,454
Likes: 1
From: Port Perry Ontario
just cuz its twist beam doesnt mean theres no strut tower, cavaliers were twist beams and they had strut towers. i know cuz i had one, and they were accessible through the trunk. i had both front and rear strutbars on that car as well as rear sway bar 25.4mm kyb agx shox and B+G 1.6" drop springs, and my car handled beautifully. and i did all them at seperate times and i noticed better handling with each item. not so much front strut bar though, but rear strut bar inoticed, it worked well with the rear sway bar, also poly endlinks bushings helped significantly.
A strut is called a Macpherson Strut at the front, after the Scots GM engineer who invented it. A strut at the rear, (basically a coilover, a shock with a spring around it ) is called a Chapman strut, after Colin Chapman who adapted the Macpherson Strut to the rear of the car for his Lotus Elan cars...back in the day.
If you didnt measure the response of your changes,(A-B-A) your data is purely anecdotal, which is a fancy way of saying, with respect, that it dont mean S**T...
New Member
Joined: 04-17-07
Posts: 192
Likes: 0
From: Kitchener, Ontario
Thanks for the facts OP, however describing all these independent components doesn't really tell the whole story - it is a suspension system after all.
I don't believe you can put on some sway bars here and strut braces there and achieve desirable effects. At some point the bigger sway bar will be too much for the springs then you'll upgrade to some stiffer ones. Then the shocks/dampers won't be able to cope with the increased spring rates, and they will have to be replaced. See where I'm going? It's a system, and everything has to be in harmony.
Sure it all might improve track handling, but now you've got a car thats a complete chore to drive on the streets and probably unsafe too... since track tuned suspension setups don't account for the wild road variety you'll find on the streets. You might not have enough suspension travel to deal with that next big dip on an onramp and end up in a ditch.
Engineers have already designed the suspension of the car to be responsive, safe, and reliable. You can attempt to out-do their work, but you'll either have to be a suspension engineer yourself or pay alot of money for something that might not be worth it in the end for a daily driver.
Sergio
I don't believe you can put on some sway bars here and strut braces there and achieve desirable effects. At some point the bigger sway bar will be too much for the springs then you'll upgrade to some stiffer ones. Then the shocks/dampers won't be able to cope with the increased spring rates, and they will have to be replaced. See where I'm going? It's a system, and everything has to be in harmony.
Sure it all might improve track handling, but now you've got a car thats a complete chore to drive on the streets and probably unsafe too... since track tuned suspension setups don't account for the wild road variety you'll find on the streets. You might not have enough suspension travel to deal with that next big dip on an onramp and end up in a ditch.
Engineers have already designed the suspension of the car to be responsive, safe, and reliable. You can attempt to out-do their work, but you'll either have to be a suspension engineer yourself or pay alot of money for something that might not be worth it in the end for a daily driver.
Sergio
Last edited by Sergio; May 7, 2008 at 03:27 PM.
Thread Starter
Haz l33t wheelz.
Joined: 09-14-07
Posts: 18,883
Likes: 3
From: Costa Mesa CA
well, for you guys that went crazy with the technicalities (not that i don't appreciate the info, cuz some of that stuff is new to me) i totally understand that the suspension is a complete system, and no one upgrade will result in perfect handling.
i just wanted to clarify the difference between strut bars and sway bars. it seems like too often people confuse them for the other or don't realize they are in fact two very different animals.
i just wanted to clarify the difference between strut bars and sway bars. it seems like too often people confuse them for the other or don't realize they are in fact two very different animals.
New Member
Joined: 04-17-07
Posts: 192
Likes: 0
From: Kitchener, Ontario
well, for you guys that went crazy with the technicalities (not that i don't appreciate the info, cuz some of that stuff is new to me) i totally understand that the suspension is a complete system, and no one upgrade will result in perfect handling.
i just wanted to clarify the difference between strut bars and sway bars. it seems like too often people confuse them for the other or don't realize they are in fact two very different animals.
i just wanted to clarify the difference between strut bars and sway bars. it seems like too often people confuse them for the other or don't realize they are in fact two very different animals.
Senior Member
Joined: 04-11-04
Posts: 2,175
Likes: 0
From: patterson, ca
With respect you are dreaming. The Cobalt rear does not have struts it has shocks and fender wells. The piddly ass shock puts no serious load into the structure. You can spend your money crossing the rear fender wells with a strut all day long if it makes you feel good. It wont make any difference. Cavalier did not have rear struts either, but the structure is not as good as a Cobalt... so to specifically answer your statement "just cuz its twist beam doesnt mean theres no strut tower, cavaliers were twist beams and they had strut towers" you are incorrect.
A strut is called a Macpherson Strut at the front, after the Scots GM engineer who invented it. A strut at the rear, (basically a coilover, a shock with a spring around it ) is called a Chapman strut, after Colin Chapman who adapted the Macpherson Strut to the rear of the car for his Lotus Elan cars...back in the day.
If you didnt measure the response of your changes,(A-B-A) your data is purely anecdotal, which is a fancy way of saying, with respect, that it dont mean S**T...
A strut is called a Macpherson Strut at the front, after the Scots GM engineer who invented it. A strut at the rear, (basically a coilover, a shock with a spring around it ) is called a Chapman strut, after Colin Chapman who adapted the Macpherson Strut to the rear of the car for his Lotus Elan cars...back in the day.
If you didnt measure the response of your changes,(A-B-A) your data is purely anecdotal, which is a fancy way of saying, with respect, that it dont mean S**T...
all i stated was that "just cuz its twist beam doesnt mean theres no strut tower" and yet you come on and tell everyone the whole history of shocks and struts? thanks for education.
also informed you of my experience with the mods I did.
Senior Member
Joined: 02-03-08
Posts: 3,454
Likes: 1
From: Port Perry Ontario
Thanks for the facts OP, however describing all these independent components doesn't really tell the whole story - it is a suspension system after all.
I don't believe you can put on some sway bars here and strut braces there and achieve desirable effects. At some point the bigger sway bar will be too much for the springs then you'll upgrade to some stiffer ones. Then the shocks/dampers won't be able to cope with the increased spring rates, and they will have to be replaced. See where I'm going? It's a system, and everything has to be in harmony.
Sure it all might improve track handling, but now you've got a car thats a complete chore to drive on the streets and probably unsafe too... since track tuned suspension setups don't account for the wild road variety you'll find on the streets. You might not have enough suspension travel to deal with that next big dip on an onramp and end up in a ditch.
Engineers have already designed the suspension of the car to be responsive, safe, and reliable. You can attempt to out-do their work, but you'll either have to be a suspension engineer yourself or pay alot of money for something that might not be worth it in the end for a daily driver.
Sergio
I don't believe you can put on some sway bars here and strut braces there and achieve desirable effects. At some point the bigger sway bar will be too much for the springs then you'll upgrade to some stiffer ones. Then the shocks/dampers won't be able to cope with the increased spring rates, and they will have to be replaced. See where I'm going? It's a system, and everything has to be in harmony.
Sure it all might improve track handling, but now you've got a car thats a complete chore to drive on the streets and probably unsafe too... since track tuned suspension setups don't account for the wild road variety you'll find on the streets. You might not have enough suspension travel to deal with that next big dip on an onramp and end up in a ditch.
Engineers have already designed the suspension of the car to be responsive, safe, and reliable. You can attempt to out-do their work, but you'll either have to be a suspension engineer yourself or pay alot of money for something that might not be worth it in the end for a daily driver.
Sergio
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