This is from the book "How To Make Your Car Handle". It's just an excerpt and there's much more relevant information in there and it's worth finding a copy.
Most anti-roll bars are used on the front suspension, except on front-wheel drive cars. It adds more roll stiffness to the front, which reduces rear suspension weight transfer in a turn. This delays or eliminates lifting one of the driving wheels , and may create an understeering tendency by increasing the loading on the outside front tire.
The steer characteristics resulting from a stiffer front anti-roll bar are unpredictable. On cars with similar front and rear suspension designs the tendency is for a stiffer front anti-roll bar to cause more understeer, due to increased weight transfer in the front.
If you install an anti-roll bar on the rear, or if you stiffen an existing one, the effect is to create oversteer. This is not a desirable modification unless the car understeers heavily under all conditions. (or if you want oversteer for drifting???)
So, there that is. Hope you find it useful. |