[DML] Re: The Resurrection of Vixen (#5927) continues...

[William T Wilson <fluffy@xxxx>]

On Tue, 21 Dec 1999, Dave Stragand wrote:

> 1) How does a rear sway bar affect handling? Anyone have one that
> could give me some insight?

A rear sway bar does two things. First, it provides sway stiffness.
Second, it adjusts the balance between oversteer and understeer. A
stiffer sway bar reduces body lean at the expense of more weight transfer. 
Body lean is evil and the less of it you have, the better off you are, in
general. The body is stiff, so less roll is pretty much less roll no
matter which end of the car you're changing the sway bar on. But the
weight transfer is changed only on the end of the car that the sway bar is
installed on.

The more weight transfer you have (stiffer sway bar = more weight
transfer) the less grip you have. This is because two evenly loaded tires
grip better than one heavily loaded tire and one lightly loaded tire.
Because a sway bar only affects weight transfer on one end of the car, it
also adjusts the balance of grip, front to rear. So it can adjust your
balance of oversteer and understeer.

The stock DeLorean has no rear sway bar. As a result, the front sway bar
does all the work. This adds a great deal of understeer, compensating
for the DeLorean's natural oversteer tendencies from the rear mounted
engine.

I think that an available rear sway bar, combined with a stiffer front
sway bar, would improve the handling greatly. But testing really ought to
be done. If the car is biased toward oversteer, it can spin in corners,
especially if you apply the brakes. I think that adding a rear bar
without stiffening the front would possibly be dangerous. It would all
depend on the skill and driving style of the driver, and just how stiff of
a rear bar you have.

How big of a sway bar (normally they are measured in millimeters) did you
get? I'm also curious how the sway bar mounts to the chassis.