I took a chance and deleted my rear sway bar awhile ago. This was during my weight reduction campaign. I asked...do I REALLY need a rear sway bar? The thinking was I could remove a couple of lbs and get more rear grip when getting back on throttle although I knew I did not fully understand what would happen. It has been a couple of years complicated by many other changes.
First time out, you will notice the rear will sit down and rotate when you get on the gas. Get the nose the car in with steering, throttle to steer the car, go through a turn with the steering wheel straight. It really is an amazing feeling when I get it right. I can pull on just about any car out of a low speed turn and then on most straights I can keep much higher HP cars off my bumper. For example at my home track, MSR Houston, the straights are not long enough to where drag overcomes my excellent WT:HP ratio. For example, at COTA's back straight between T11 and T12, I can maintain a gap to a GT3 for the first 1/8 mile or so - the GT3 is slowly reeling me in. At about 1/4 mile, GT3 starts closing. At about 1/2 way they zoom by or put a ton of distance on me.
The downside is you get low speed understeer which causes accelerated front tire wear. At first, I noticed the car was GREAT on fresh tires everywhere! The understeer increased as the heat cycles increased and on longer sessions the front tires would start to fall off. I always had even tire wear and the tires get to the point where they are just garbage with rubber. I think I've only corded 1 tire in the past 5 years and that was probably from understeer scrub. I never had to rotate tires. I thought that was a trait of the tire (mostly Toyo RRs and one set of NT01s) and didn't think much of it.
Then I reduced the rear wing angle and I feel like this exacerbated the tire grip falling off as heat cycles increased.
Then I upgraded to a ground control front bar (full soft) and threw on some RT660s. The RT660s were really grippy for 2 to 4 heat cycles and then descends into understeer city. After 20 heat cycles I was really surprised to see the fronts are significantly more worn. I'm pretty sure adding the GC front bar exacerbated the front tire wear.
Now I am in the process of the FCM consultation and Jalal pointed out that no rear bar will cause low speed understeer which is what make this all kind of click in my head.
I think no rear sway bar can produce a faster lap at the expense of front tire life (grippy heat cycles and/or wear). Great for a time trial, not so great for longer races. I am making some aero significant improvements and I hope that can help mitigate the front tires falling off. Trying to find a win-win.
At this point, there is no turning back to a rear swaybar. Of course I cut off the sway bar brackets on the subframe to save some weight. It is me...would you expect anything less? lol...may need to figure out an option to put the sway bar back in.
For a rear sway bar to work, you really have to be an aggressive trail braker, turn in earlier than what most are comfortable with and be very willing to slide the car. No rear bar is definitely not for someone who turns in later and prefers a later apex. Most will likely not prefer to delete the rear bar.
First time out, you will notice the rear will sit down and rotate when you get on the gas. Get the nose the car in with steering, throttle to steer the car, go through a turn with the steering wheel straight. It really is an amazing feeling when I get it right. I can pull on just about any car out of a low speed turn and then on most straights I can keep much higher HP cars off my bumper. For example at my home track, MSR Houston, the straights are not long enough to where drag overcomes my excellent WT:HP ratio. For example, at COTA's back straight between T11 and T12, I can maintain a gap to a GT3 for the first 1/8 mile or so - the GT3 is slowly reeling me in. At about 1/4 mile, GT3 starts closing. At about 1/2 way they zoom by or put a ton of distance on me.
The downside is you get low speed understeer which causes accelerated front tire wear. At first, I noticed the car was GREAT on fresh tires everywhere! The understeer increased as the heat cycles increased and on longer sessions the front tires would start to fall off. I always had even tire wear and the tires get to the point where they are just garbage with rubber. I think I've only corded 1 tire in the past 5 years and that was probably from understeer scrub. I never had to rotate tires. I thought that was a trait of the tire (mostly Toyo RRs and one set of NT01s) and didn't think much of it.
Then I reduced the rear wing angle and I feel like this exacerbated the tire grip falling off as heat cycles increased.
Then I upgraded to a ground control front bar (full soft) and threw on some RT660s. The RT660s were really grippy for 2 to 4 heat cycles and then descends into understeer city. After 20 heat cycles I was really surprised to see the fronts are significantly more worn. I'm pretty sure adding the GC front bar exacerbated the front tire wear.
Now I am in the process of the FCM consultation and Jalal pointed out that no rear bar will cause low speed understeer which is what make this all kind of click in my head.
I think no rear sway bar can produce a faster lap at the expense of front tire life (grippy heat cycles and/or wear). Great for a time trial, not so great for longer races. I am making some aero significant improvements and I hope that can help mitigate the front tires falling off. Trying to find a win-win.
At this point, there is no turning back to a rear swaybar. Of course I cut off the sway bar brackets on the subframe to save some weight. It is me...would you expect anything less? lol...may need to figure out an option to put the sway bar back in.
For a rear sway bar to work, you really have to be an aggressive trail braker, turn in earlier than what most are comfortable with and be very willing to slide the car. No rear bar is definitely not for someone who turns in later and prefers a later apex. Most will likely not prefer to delete the rear bar.
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