I tested the OTTP Hardcore rear sway bar during an event today at Tri City Raceway. This was my first time driving my car with the new suspension setup in a competitive driving environment, so the reactions you see in the video below are the unfiltered truth about what I and my driving instructor thought. I hope you enjoy the video.


Hardcore Sway Bar Test and Discussion During Competitive Driving - YouTube

 

Subd for later

 

Great video... Looks like so much fun... And what did the gte runcompared to you

 

Great video... Looks like so much fun... And what did the gtr runcompared to you

 

informative video

good conversation about car reaching limits and such

 

a good set of tires will help you aswell...

 

The GTR was much faster than me. That thing is a beast!

What kind of tires would you recommend?

Lawrence is a fantastic instructor. His advice was 100% correct. I can't wait to learn more from him.

 

tires all depend on you....is this spirited auto crossing or are you trying to race a class after you learn.... thats something you need to look into as it will dictate what you can and cant do.

 

I don't make enough events to care about season points, but I want to learn to drive my car as fast as possible and be very competitive when I do race. So, I do want race tires with a dedicated set of wheels that I can put on before the races. But, I like the Pirelli tires for their versatility with the varying weather that we have in the Northwest for normal street driving.

 

Correctable with driver training. Also some Konis in the rear will keep it under control better.

 

How would you setup the Koni's to improve the control? Does it need more or less dampening at the rear of the car? For compression or rebound?

I noticed a huge difference after this video by lowering the rear tire pressures by 3 psi. The car now feels neutral to oversteer-ish under braking (less tendency for oversteer), but near neutral the rest of the time (which I like).

 

The rear shocks lack low speed rebound, so the springs/swaybar want to release too quickly. The car is easier to handle with additional low speed rebound when you increase the spring (swaybar) rates.

 

that ^^ has nothing to do with pressure or bars, car likes to dance under heavy braking no matter what get used to it :P, if you to lower your rear pressure so the car understeers more.... pump rear your tires back up and remove rear sway bar lol

you should actually put your rears up higher than the front..

33-34 daily
40-44 track

your all-season will get destroyed after doing this a few times, and you don't need "race tires" just a decent pair of summer tires..despite what everyone says + considering your just starting out you do one nice slide at speed with 'race tires" those race tires are gone

also take off your front tower strut bar lol.. also watch wangspeeds videos of him driving in **** poor rain with a hardcore bar on.. and how neutral the car really is with a good driver

 

Can't say this enough

 

haha nice!

 

sub'd for vid and commentary when i get home.

 

Why would I want to take off the front strut tower bar? There is no way I could drive the car with higher tire pressures in the rear compared to the front with my current setup. Even having them equal resulted in much more oversteer than I desire.

 

I asked one of my friends in the sports car club about what I could do to improve. The following are his comments/suggestions:

It's a good thing you have a loud exhaust

Turning into the infield from Turn 1, you lifted off the gas (or braked, I can't tell), weight transfers to the front, you turn, the rear tires have no grip, and you get oversteer. What you could have done was brake earlier, to get on the throttle, so you could put some weight on the rear to help the tires grip as your turn.

A couple things contributed to the spin at the slalom. First, it was sort of a decreasing slalom, which are tough. Lawrence says, "Stay wide." Reason is to get a good line into the slalom. You might have been too close to the second slalom cone, so you had to steer harder to get around it, it made you late for the third cone, forcing you to turn even more to make it. Combined with the off-camber turn and being off-throttle, the car spun.

It was the first run on a cold, dirty track on a off-camber turn in a decreasing slalom. That's why the chance for a spin was so high. Changing your line and car inputs could have helped, but the conditions gave everyone a hard time that day. There was a blue honda civic hatchback that was spinning on practically every run

 

Your causing the oversteer not that car, don't lift off thorttle and you won't have that problem.. this car is so easy to predict, and if it does oversteer for the most part requires a very small adjustment to get in back in line..,

You don't understand what you are doing makes no sense..

1. the front of the car is pretty damn solid, there is no need for a strut bar + would cause understeer
2. your rear sway causes oversteer
3. lower tires in the rear causes understeer

What are you trying to do exactly? Do you want under or over?

Maybe you should remove all that crap from you car... pump your rear tires up a bit, when your confident with that...... lower them back down.. grab a street bar or w/e OTTP calls, get comfortable with that, then once again raise up your rears... and when you actual have some track time put back on the hardcore

the main reason i'm telling you that you shouldn't lower rear tires.. is because when your at the track if you set it for 30-30... after a few session it will be 35-41 "example"

so you bump up your rears, in the start so that after a few session it will be balanced...

what your doing would give you something like 32-41? what is the point of the hardcore bar then.. if your promoting understeer?

 

I used 38 psi front and 35 rear to get a perfect (for me) balance. I like how the car is setup now, but I need much more seat time to train myself how to drive it now that it is a neutral handling car.

I will take your advice and experiment with different setups.

 

this thread is making me think i should stay away from the XXX bar and go with the hard core bar... the car handled almost like i wanted when i had NT05's up front at 35lbs and stock conti's out back at 38 with stock springs... now the car is way faster on Pedders on PS2's but it doenst rotate like it did with the sticky up front and stock out back...

 

The real hardcore bars are made by me. The OTT copies are a different, heavier wall thickness. And attach with delrin spacers. Dont work the same.

So be careful in your choices. Pedders have lower trim height than the stock TC spring but less rate.... fyi... and the stock TC rear spring is a very good spring, it just trims higher, and most people want low trim height.

 

Not many people need the xxx bar.... you should start out with the hardcore bar imho and when your ready move up

 

Would you say that the OTTP "hardcore" bar with the thicker walls is somewhere between the Powell hardcore and XXX for stiffness?

 

I would be getting a PRS Hardcore bar, not an OTTP knockoff. Am i correct to assume that trim means ride height? The pedders set the car to where it should have come from the factory for appearance, and handling, in my opinion.