Higher spring rate in front than rear?

[socorob]

I actually just got the sway bar in the mail today, but thinking about sending it back before I even open it. With the konis on full soft with 250f/300r, its fairly comfortable on the street. If I send the bar back, I was think about leaving the back 300 and swapping the bar for 350 fronts, but not sure how stiff that would be for the street. Watching some videos from the track, I was getting some body roll, with the konis on full hard all the way around. It seemed like the handling was fairly neutral as far as I could tell. I think I need to put some more negative camber and some more caster in though, as I'm only around -1.5 and 3.5 respectively. I only have 245 width tires so I need to try to get all the help elsewhere I can. The next track night is 3 weeks away, so I am going to try to improve what I can before then.

[RebekahsZ]

You can look at your tire wear or temps to determine if there is more traction to be had with camber. I would try to get johnc's alignment settings, then play with those shocks before throwing more money at the problem. There is so much to be learned from shock adjustment and even brake bias adjustment. Next time I go to the track, I know that I want to play with dropping the ass end of my car a good bit-lots of variables to play with other than just spending money.

[heavy85]

I ain't no expert, but for me, the rear swaybar was just a pain in the ass. And I just don't think you need it. With the torque of the V8, anything you can do to keep the rear wheels hooked up is an advantage. Anything that costs you traction in back is a liability and will land you in the grass in a heartbeat. In my limited experience, one of the hardest things about driving these cars is exercising restraint exiting corners-you can spin them at will, so you have to make sure you pay lots more attention about getting slowed before turning and getting the car straight before you pile on the right foot. If you did a lot of autocross with the L6 when you could floor it with little fear, its a whole new ballgame now-ya gotta be careful. Of course it's easy to remove or disconnect the swaybar at the track. So you can play with it and do some laps with it attached and then some with it off. I bet you can't tell a difference. So it then becomes an issue when doing maintenance, and that was when I really felt like it was in my way all the time. When you run CV axles, it gets really crowded back there.

This.

 

Many moons back I ran 225/250 (or other way around dont remember), st front and rear bar, well used Tokicos, and used FA slicks and with a better driver easily could take FTD locally. Was really easy to drive and if smooth was quite fast. Once graduated to track duty eventually removed rear bar, added aero, upped springrate, etc

Edited May 15, 2015 by heavy85

[johnc]

When you start going above 300 lb. in. (especially in the front) you have to think about stiffening the chassis on a 240Z.  Some of that higher rate gets absorbed by chassis flex so you're not getting the full benefit.  The car starts to feel vague and won't take a firm set.

[clarkspeed]

Nothing wrong with removing rear bar to help put power down, but it is typically combined with a reduction in front bar stiffness to reduce understeer.

[socorob]

I have a 78 280z with bad dog rails, and I put a pipe brace from the bottom of the door jamb angles up to near where the struts mount (outside inner fender I guess you would call it). I also stitch welded everything from strut tower to strut tower. Think that would be stiff enough for 300# up front, if not would a triangular strut bar help? I'm new to this, so mainly trying to find a starting point then experiment from there.

[socorob]

And my front sway bar is stock 280.