I have a 92 protege LX and will be autocrossing this weekend (H stock).

I currently have both front and rear sway bars tightened down as far as they will go. As I have indicated in previous posts, I understeer a lot (especially around tighter corners, and when accelerating out of corners). Will loosening the front sway bar help? If so, how much should I loosen it. I've heard of people with VW Golfs taking the front bar off all together. Has anyone tried this with their G1 protege?

Also, do the G2 and G3 Proteges also have rubber end link bushing on the sway bars?

 

Jesse,
First of all, Congratulations on your 7th place finish. I can't believe that you've been autocrossing for less than a year! You must have a gift!

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize that the endlinks are supposed to be tightened to a specified setting. Currently, I've got the rubber bushings flat as a pancake! Just for you to know, however, adjusting the tightness of the endlinks makes a very noticable change in handling. Also, wouldn't your car have a higher propensity to spin out with a stiffer rear bar? I'm sure it's because you are a better driver since adding the bar.

Before I forget, what do "IIRC" and "lol" mean?

Finally, what would you recommend as starting tire pressures for Azenis tires in 195/60/14? I've been running about 50 front and 40 rear.

 

I agree with Jesse here. Let me reiterate something I've said when several previous novices have asked about reducing understeer for autocrossing: do NOT make the mistake of trying to dial all the understeer out of the chassis when you haven't been autocrossing for very long. You should LEARN TO DRIVE first.

Almost all "understeer problems" on novice-driven FWD cars are caused by a combination of excessively sudden steering input, trying to carry too much speed into corners, and excessive throttle application coming out of corners. Do not try to "fix" the problem by adding oversteer to the chassis. This will just make the car difficult to control in slaloms and fast offsets, slowing you down.

All stock DOHC Proteges (regardless of year) actually rotate *very* well for a FWD sedan, and the G1's are the best. IMHO you should forget about adjusting the endlinks and learn to make the car turn by *driving*, not by playing with the chassis.

Good luck!

 

I know this is a late reply but.... needed to add my two cents. Alot of front wheel drive cars in auto-x remove or disconnect the front sway bar for the sole reason of adding oversteer or getting rid od understeer, however in the past I learned that if you play with tire pressures enough you can get the car to come around real nice. Grassroots magazine removed the front sway bar on a 91 crx si ( test and tune day ) and the times they ran were not amazingly better but were about 2/10 of a second faster. Isn't the rule of thumb with front wheel drive cars small front bar huge rear bar ?

 

I think it's important to draw a line here between stock and non-stock (primarily STS or SP) car setup here.

Reducing front roll stiffness (i.e. smaller/no front bar) will usually only reduce understeer up to a point. On most vehicles (esp. those with McPherson struts) a certain amount of roll stiffness is necessary just to keep the suspension under control, and prevent the car's body from rolling so far that the geometry goes out of whack. Think about it this way: as you increase front roll stiffness, you will reduce understeer up to the point that body roll is controlled, and then understeer will begin to increase.

In my experience, a vast majority of *stock* FWD vehicles do not have enough front roll stiffness in the springs to keep body roll in check with the front swaybar disconnected. I would suspect that a Protege would fit this description because (by autox standards) it is a fairly tall, narrow car with soft springs. Most FWD cars I know of that fit this description (Nissan Sentra SE-R's, Civics, non-ACR Neons, etc.) do not respond positively to disconnecting the front swaybar. Many racers run *smaller* front swaybars, but stop short of disconnecting or removing the front bar completely.

Keep in mind that the GRM article you cited was about a *CSP* CRX that had some pretty hardcore springs (450 lb front and 600 lb rear or something like that). With springs like this, you don't need a front bar to keep body roll in check.

Also, there's more to autox than steady-state cornering. When I fooled around with disconnecting the front bar on a Stock-class FWD car (91 Honda CRX Si) it seemed to reduce front-end "bite"- the car felt a lot more vague going into offsets and slaloms, and it took a lot longer for the front end to take a set coming into corners. Connecting the front bar increased understeer, but made the car a lot more predictable and easier to drive- and faster.

Just my $0.02 (OK maybe more like $0.04)