Let me show you my O Bar! (will give FWD guys the O face)

[Vreihenmotor6]

insert O face jokes here:

but serously, you FWD guys should look into this

as a very real, and much less expensive alternative to the Neuspeed bar

compared to the Neuspeed bar, you loose no ground clearance and have no bushings to wear or need lube

installed on my 1997 FWD:





this bar lets you bring classic "tuned VW FWD" handling characteristics to your Audi

gone is the plowing tendency to understeer in turns

the wheel seems more responsive now as less steering input is needed to achieve the same degree of turn

in normal driving/ sporty driving the bar is very transparent, it doesn't affect ride qualitly, nor does the car become twitchy or nervous


also for drivers looking to push their cars a bit harder you can introduce throttle lift oversteer at will letting you rotate the rear of the car very easily


I highly recommend for all FWD drivers to get the spring/ shock combo of your choice and buy this sway bar, I do not suggest changing out the stock front bar as that will only increase understeer


as far as fitment , O bars doesn't directly say it fits the B5 A4, I however talked with them and measured my bar up, and I can assure you it does fit, I chose to grind the powdercoat off the ends of the bar to allow for a bit easier fitment to my beam, but thats not nessisary, I also had asked for longer bolts because the ebrake cable guide tubes and a reinforcement made me think that their stock length thru bolts were not going to be long enough, that ended up not being the case and the stock bolts would have been plenty long


http://www.o-bars.com/

serously, at 1/3 the price of the neuspeed, you can't go wrong with this, bang for the buck you won't find a better FWD mod :thumbup:


oh, and for all you O face needs, see min 2.10 and onward of this vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-w7aYK5asA

[Ado]

wow. i have the neuspeed rear sway bar and love it. it really dose help but for the price of this it looks like it will do the trick.

ps. dose any one know the size of the front say bar on a FWD B5 A4?

[sixfiveoh]

I think the sport package front sway is like 22mm. I have the Neuspeed rear sway, is this better? Or a cheaper alternative?

[Vreihenmotor6]

I think the sport package front sway is like 22mm. I have the Neuspeed rear sway, is this better? Or a cheaper alternative?

this is just an alternative product, its a bit harder to install, but you don't loose any ground clearance, you don't gain as much unsprung weight and you save a whole bunch of cash compared to the Neuspeed

I have a 97, so I did't get the sport suspension, I'll have to measure my front sway sometime, but remember, the larger your front sway, the more understeer

[Ado]

its definitely a cheaper alternative. the think i like about the neuspeed rear sway bar that we have is that we can adjust them to 3 different settings.

[Vreihenmotor6]

thats true, but honestly how often do you do it?

this has one setting, but trust me its just right

[Ado]

if its just right then yea its worth the money to spend on. well at least for the FWD guys.

[Mawhitey]

I wonder if they ship to the UK????

[jm121189]

Is that bar even connected to the suspension? A sway bar connects to the control arms via the end links and that helps reduce body roll and stiffen up in cornering. Looks like all that would do is stop that crossbar from twisting. I can't argue about it too much since I've never used one but I don't think you get the same results as a real sway bar.

Are you a sales person for them? Looks like your car isn't even on the ground yet and your talking about how it drives.

[audimeister]

I had one on a Passat. It worked really well, but I had problems with the bolts fatiguing and breaking (even grade 8 or 10 replacements) when torqued to the prescribed settings.

[Vreihenmotor6]

Are you a sales person for them? Looks like your car isn't even on the ground yet and your talking about how it drives.

nope, I paid full retail

the car is indeed off the ground as I had to fix a melted ABS wire due to a crummy exaust install from a NJ shop not to be named...., I forgot my camera when I was putting it in, so I took pics when I had to get back under the car again as you really can't see it when the suspension is compressed

as far as I know I'm the first B5 guy to install this, so I figure I'd post up my results, I've got a few hundred miles on it already...


as far as how it works, the FWD syspension is a semi independant trailing arm setup linked by a torsion beam, the bar mounts inside that torsion beam increasing its torsional rigidity thereby reducing the tendicy for differential wheel movement and increasing roll stiffness

[ILoveT]

That solid rear axle connects the suspension, so in essence it is connected.

[BrokeDown[20V]]

^^ Hit the nail on the head.( so to speak)

And about the sport front swaybar. Mine is 29mm stock sport.(01' FWD)

[ILoveT]

We FWD guys have to stick together.

[mysman]

FYI, the torsional beam is a compromise at best. The "twist" on that beam also sets the geometry of the rear wheels under cornering loads. The O-bar solution assumes that geometry (primarily toe) is unaffected when you stiffen the center portion. I believe it is adversely affected, ie, the O-bar induces more toe-out on the outside rear wheel. This can create dangerous rear wheel steering, and in fact, B5 people using the O-bar have observed twitchiness and a tendency for the rear end to snap around. A much better solution is an independent sway bar, preferably anchored to the chassis rather than the beam. This guarantees that the geometry curve is, at least, maintained per OEM spec.

[Vreihenmotor6]

FYI, the torsional beam is a compromise at best. The "twist" on that beam also sets the geometry of the rear wheels under cornering loads. The O-bar solution assumes that geometry (primarily toe) is unaffected when you stiffen the center portion. I believe it is adversely affected, ie, the O-bar induces more toe-out on the outside rear wheel. This can create dangerous rear wheel steering, and in fact, B5 people using the O-bar have observed twitchiness and a tendency for the rear end to snap around. A much better solution is an independent sway bar, preferably anchored to the chassis rather than the beam. This guarantees that the geometry curve is, at least, maintained per OEM spec.

I don't belive the neuspeed design has any more or less of a positive or negative effect on the toe control of the rear end, they simply use the trailing arms as a lever to impart torsional flex on the center part of their bar, the bar is connected via double heim joints to the sock mounting bolt, so its deffinatly not helping to locate the arm under side loads

if you look at other VAG vehicles there are a few exampled that have stock torsion based sway bars located in the same area as this o bar

the twist beam rear axle has always been a compromise between beign able to handle various loads, minimalistic packaging, and cost, I do find however it works pretty decent

as far as twitchyness, perhaps the other B5 guys were using it with different spring and shock combos

this bar is almost identical to the bar used in the famed Shine real street suspension for VWs, and I belive that if used with the right combo of parts it can produce similar levels of grip and control

I assume by B5 you mean passat, which does not have the same rear suspension as the B5 Audi FWD, its similar, but no parts are interchangeable

for the last 7 years I've driven modified VAG fwd cars with stiff rear bars, and even partialy boxed in rear beams, my car now feels no different than any of those cars, and deffinatly not twitchy, perhaps the guys saying that the cars felt twitchy weren't used to a sway bar, inherent in the concept of putting a stiff rear sway on these cars is the ability to induce throttle lift oversteer at will, I think being aware of this is the key, if I'm driving hard and expect to being cornering hard, I'll be down a gear or 2 from where I normaly would be at that speed so that I can press on the throttle is need be and be in the TQ band for nessisary corrections

rule of thumb with this type of suspension setup is when in doubt, mash the gass and transfer some weight back to the rear end, its a bit counter intuitive, but thats how it goes

[crono35]

how difficult was it to drill the holes to mount that thing?

[Vreihenmotor6]

thats the only thing, its not super hard, but not super easy either, a small pilot hole, and a good cobalt drill bit and they all went thru in under 10 min, a small bit of lube helps, O bars recomends the use of an air drill, but I had no problems with an electric drill

[djwimbo]

FYI, the torsional beam is a compromise at best.

Any rear suspension that's not fully independent (short of the sway bar itself) is a COMPROMISE. If it were really intended to be on a race car, there would be factory backed FWD race cars with that suspension in the rear.

As far as the geometry of the suspension you're really not changing anything. All that's happening is stiffening the factory setup.
Oversteer in a FWD isn't a completely bad thing. By all means I'd rather oversteer than understeer. I don't see how this is all too different than adding a big ass rear bar. I'd be willing to admit I'm wrong if there's some technical articles I could read on the subject. I just don't see how adding a sway bar to limit body roll by adding "spring pressure" to the outside edge is too far off from the idea of the "O-bar".