Motorsport Wheel Alignment: Anti-Roll Bars
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Anti-Roll Bars
02.36
| 00:00 | - We've already briefly discussed anti roll bars and their purpose and as I mentioned, they can be a powerful tuning tool to help alter the handling balance of the car. |
| 00:09 | Of course in stock form, the anti roll bars aren't likely to offer any adjustability so our options are a little limited. |
| 00:16 | Even in stock form though, we do still have the option of removing a link from one of the anti roll bars to render it inoperable. |
| 00:24 | This however is a relatively coarse adjustment and may easily result in a change that goes too far. |
| 00:30 | Removing an anti roll bar will also result in the car feeling less responsive to the driver input since the car will now tend to body roll more. |
| 00:38 | This is much more noticeable if you're disabling a front anti roll bar. |
| 00:42 | Beyond the factory anti roll bars, you're likely to have the option for a range of aftermarket products that give you a lot more flexibility to fine tune the handling. |
| 00:51 | The simplest of these are non adjustable bars that are larger in diameter to offer more resistance to body roll. |
| 00:58 | Depending on your particular car, you may find there are several options available and usually they're not overly expensive. |
| 01:05 | By mixing and matching the diameter of the front and rear anti roll bars, you can make quite subtle changes to the handling balance. |
| 01:12 | My personal preference where possible is to use adjustable anti roll bars which may offer three or more attachment points on each arm of the bar. |
| 01:21 | By moving the linkage further out on the anti roll bar, it becomes softer and vice versa. |
| 01:26 | If we have adjustable bars fitted to the front and rear of the car, this provides a wide range of adjustability. |
| 01:33 | One key consideration when making adjustments to the anti roll bars, is to make sure that the linkages aren't preloaded at normal ride height. |
| 01:41 | It's very easy to get into this situation if you've jacked up one side of the car to adjust the linkage while the other's on the ground. |
| 01:49 | We now have one side of the suspension compressed and the other at full extension. |
| 01:54 | If we adjust the linkage in this manner, we can guarantee that when we lower the car to the ground, the anti roll bar will be preloading the suspension, affecting its performance. |
| 02:03 | The easy solution here is to make sure that any changes to the anti roll bar linkages are made either at normal ride height or with both wheels in the air and the suspension at full extension. |
| 02:14 | We will discuss in more detail the changes to our anti rolls bars later in the course, but in general, if we have a car that's suffering from understeer, this can be addressed by softening the front bar or stiffening the rear. |
| 02:26 | Conversely, if the car is suffering from oversteer, softening the rear bar, or stiffening the front can help. |
