Sway Vs. Coilover ?

[waxxonMTL]

Hey guys,

I bought a set of new eurocode sway bar to go on my B8.5. Haven't bought the mood link yet tho. If I were to buy the end link + cost of the sway bar + install. I would be pretty close to 800$cnd.

It's winter and I don't really care about modding my car so parts are waiting in the closet lol After reading a few comment about sway bar Vs. coilover, it got me thinking...

Let say I get my hand on a quality set of used coilover ( most sell for approx 1500$usd = 2kcnd) from what i gathered on the forum from previous classifed thread. I could always sell my sway bar, recoup that 800$ and put it toward the coilover and just keep the oem sway bar.

What do you think ? are both mod ''mandatory'' or one has a much greater effect than the other ?

My goal : no trackracing, just spirited driving where it snow 4 month. Try to reduce/eliminate that sloppy feeling I get when I quickly change lanes ( not exactly zig-zag, but spirited driving around corner) and better on-ramp highway exit and such..

I don't mind the stock height and appreciate the comfort of the oem suspension, but it can feel a bit sloppy at times and wish to minimise that effect.

[jran76]

For what you are saying you want, I'd do the sway bars, drivetrain stabilizer (AluKruez or 034), and the CR-15 strut brace. And stop there.... Those 3 things will take out most of the sloppiness.

I wouldn't do coilovers unless you want to lower the car, and want adjustability. Unless you track your car, I don't know that end links are really worth it. In harsh conditions, they will wear over time, and it's just another thing to go wrong, make noises, etc.

Hey guys,

I bought a set of new eurocode sway bar to go on my B8.5. Haven't bought the mood link yet tho. If I were to buy the end link + cost of the sway bar + install. I would be pretty close to 800$cnd.

It's winter and I don't really care about modding my car so parts are waiting in the closet lol After reading a few comment about sway bar Vs. coilover, it got me thinking...

Let say I get my hand on a quality set of used coilover ( most sell for approx 1500$usd = 2kcnd) from what i gathered on the forum from previous classifed thread. I could always sell my sway bar, recoup that 800$ and put it toward the coilover and just keep the oem sway bar.

What do you think ? are both mod ''mandatory'' or one has a much greater effect than the other ?

My goal : no trackracing, just spirited driving where it snow 4 month. Try to reduce/eliminate that sloppy feeling I get when I quickly change lanes ( not exactly zig-zag, but spirited driving around corner) and better on-ramp highway exit and such..

I don't mind the stock height and appreciate the comfort of the oem suspension, but it can feel a bit sloppy at times and wish to minimise that effect.

[o1turbo30v]

Coilovers are a better mod if you want to also lower your car, the rear sway bar will only be noticeable during hard cornering, coilovers will be noticeable all the time.

[chilort]

For what you are saying you want, I'd do the sway bars, drivetrain stabilizer (AluKruez or 034), and the CR-15 strut brace. And stop there.... Those 3 things will take out most of the sloppiness.

I wouldn't do coilovers unless you want to lower the car, and want adjustability. Unless you track your car, I don't know that end links are really worth it. In harsh conditions, they will wear over time, and it's just another thing to go wrong, make noises, etc.

X 2.

Coilovers will affect your ride all the time. So if you go with stiffer springs then you get a stiffer ride going straight down the road. Every bump, crack, whatever is more pronounced. Sways do their work when cornering but don't generally provide negative effects while just cruising down the road. ... these are broad generalizations.

[justr0]

For what you are saying you want, I'd do the sway bars, drivetrain stabilizer (AluKruez or 034), and the CR-15 strut brace. And stop there.... Those 3 things will take out most of the sloppiness.

I wouldn't do coilovers unless you want to lower the car, and want adjustability. Unless you track your car, I don't know that end links are really worth it. In harsh conditions, they will wear over time, and it's just another thing to go wrong, make noises, etc.

+1 I second this, especially since you have 4 months of bad weather, I wouldn't mess with ride height unless it's the look I wanted. Stiffer springs will take care of whatever slop is left once you're done with the sways, drivetrain stabilizer and CR15 strut brace. End links are not really needed, but if you do get them, I advise getting the dust boots as well! Also I would suggest using teflon tape under the bushings if you go with Eurocode sways.

[chilort]

I installed the Moog endlinks and they've been fine for the short time I've had them on the car. I wasn't about to deal with a heim joint and we don't even get snow and salt here.

I have the USS sway bars and setup as recommended and the CR15 firewall brace. This is how the car should have come from the factory.

[S4'ed]

The best bang for your buck are the sways, with stock or Moog endlinks. The CR15 upper chassis brace ($150) is next, but the rest of the performance parts (helm-joint endlinks, coil-overs, and Al Kruez lower chassis brace) are expensive parts with diminishing improvement. After the sways (and maybe the CR15), it would be better to spend your money on better tires.

[waxxonMTL]

X 2.

Coilovers will affect your ride all the time. So if you go with stiffer springs then you get a stiffer ride going straight down the road. Every bump, crack, whatever is more pronounced. Sways do their work when cornering but don't generally provide negative effects while just cruising down the road. ... these are broad generalizations.

By going with quality coilover tho, ( i.e: in the like of the PSS10 and V3 KW) i heard they can have a max height close to oem and with the 10 damper setting, it can be set to be ALMOST as soft as the stock suspension.

Of course, this statement applie to cheaper coilover, maybe I'm wrong tho. I stand corrected but just thought with higher priced coil I should be able to achieve comfort and miminal drop while getting better handling overall all the times, like you guys said.

[waxxonMTL]

+1 I second this, especially since you have 4 months of bad weather, I wouldn't mess with ride height unless it's the look I wanted. Stiffer springs will take care of whatever slop is left once you're done with the sways, drivetrain stabilizer and CR15 strut brace. End links are not really needed, but if you do get them, I advise getting the dust boots as well! Also I would suggest using teflon tape under the bushings if you go with Eurocode sways.

i want the moog endlink because they are still rubber like OEM but have a metal body instead of plastic oem and my have 55k miles so i suspect they might have some slack lol

[torinalth]

get the moog links. cheap and nice. mine are holding up great so far, but still recently added. Personally I would not run coilovers again. Not tracking the car makes the losses of using the coilovers too great. why would you get coilovers and set them to the softest setting, which is still more harsh than stock, not give much more benefits than the sways, and cost 3-4x as much? simple answer is you wouldn't. especially on a daily driver car you will not be piddling with all the settings with changing conditions. you will set it once and then probably never touch it again. or always adjust it because it's never right. learned that a long time back, no more adjustables for me. If what you really want i coilovers, then by all means do it. But from what you are talking about it doesn't make sense in my opinion. I'd do the sways, CR-15, moog links, consider the alu kreuz if you get bored and have money to burn, and then look at either springs or the KW HAS kit if you have a real burn to lower the car. though my perspective is just one of many. take it as you will.

[waxxonMTL]

Well.. the sway bar are already bought as well as the CR15. ( yet to be installed)

Also have an intake + awe catback. ( yet to be installed too lol)

thanks for the reply so far !

[Hofahome]

Agree with everyone above. Ecode endlinks were great but too much noise and did not fare well in winter. If you don't care about ride height then dont do coils. Sways are good first step and made most dramatic difference to me without a huge loss in comfort

[Tod]

Good info here!!! I saves me a post!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[B44]

Well.. the sway bar are already bought as well as the CR15. ( yet to be installed)

Also have an intake + awe catback. ( yet to be installed too lol)

thanks for the reply so far !

Go with bilstein pro kit nice oem drop and best if you dont want to go crazy low like coilovers.

[Bdangs11]

get the moog links. cheap and nice. mine are holding up great so far, but still recently added. Personally I would not run coilovers again. Not tracking the car makes the losses of using the coilovers too great. why would you get coilovers and set them to the softest setting, which is still more harsh than stock, not give much more benefits than the sways, and cost 3-4x as much? simple answer is you wouldn't. especially on a daily driver car you will not be piddling with all the settings with changing conditions. you will set it once and then probably never touch it again. or always adjust it because it's never right. learned that a long time back, no more adjustables for me. If what you really want i coilovers, then by all means do it. But from what you are talking about it doesn't make sense in my opinion. I'd do the sways, CR-15, moog links, consider the alu kreuz if you get bored and have money to burn, and then look at either springs or the KW HAS kit if you have a real burn to lower the car. though my perspective is just one of many. take it as you will.

Where is a good place to get the Moog inks?

[torinalth]

Where is a good place to get the Moog inks?

amazon if in stock or rock auto. see information by derek and myself here: http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...highlight=moog

[Neosapian]

Coilovers over sway bars or end links all day long. In this case, The most dramatic and beneficial option for the money is a set of coilovers. You dont need links and sways for daily driving. It'll add a significant degree of vibration & harshness to your nicely damped & insulated chassis. The last thing you want is a skateboard/rally car feel transmitted through the control arms & steering rack.

Buy a set of KW-manufacutered ST coilovers for less than $800 new, and you'll never regret it. Perfect OEM+ ride quality, even if you're über low. Dont let the industry and forums convince you that you need to drop $2-4k on comfortable coils. KW/ST is known to be on the more comfortable/compliant side of street oriented suspension but you'll vastly improve overall chassis dynamics.

You can get a million-way adjustable PSS10 style kit but I guarantee you this; after install you'll end up spinning it to the softest settings and wont ever touch it again - why buy a track setup for street use, right? ST's should run you $1500 installed WITH an alignment. DO IT bruh!

Save what you would spend on sawys & links and upgrade brakes, tires or some other significant system you will benefit from every single day.

My .02

[Hofahome]

Coilovers over sway bars or end links all day long. In this case, The most dramatic and beneficial option for the money is a set of coilovers. You dont need links and sways for daily driving. It'll add a significant degree of vibration & harshness to your nicely damped & insulated chassis. The last thing you want is a skateboard/rally car feel transmitted through the control arms & steering rack.

Buy a set of KW-manufacutered ST coilovers for less than $800 new, and you'll never regret it. Perfect OEM+ ride quality, even if you're über low. Dont let the industry and forums convince you that you need to drop $2-4k on comfortable coils. KW/ST is known to be on the more comfortable/compliant side of street oriented suspension but you'll vastly improve overall chassis dynamics.

You can get a million-way adjustable PSS10 style kit but I guarantee you this; after install you'll end up spinning it to the softest settings and wont ever touch it again - why buy a track setup for street use, right? ST's should run you $1500 installed WITH an alignment. DO IT bruh!

Save what you would spend on sawys & links and upgrade brakes, tires or some other significant system you will benefit from every single day.

My .02

I think most people here disagree with you. My question is, per your garage, did you swap a 335 motor into an e30? Coming from an old e30 owner that would be bonkers.

[torinalth]

It'll add a significant degree of vibration & harshness to your nicely damped & insulated chassis. The last thing you want is a skateboard/rally car feel transmitted through the control arms & steering rack.

I'm sorry, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. anti-roll bars do none of this.

[chilort]

I'm sorry, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. anti-roll bars do none of this.

Agreed.

[Neosapian]

Anything that increases rigidity in the chassis or suspension, such as bigger roll bars or stiffer end links, WILL cause more N.V.H. Whether or not a driver is atuned to these changes is a seperate & subjective matter. We all lean upon our own knowledge of suspension dynamics and I understand that there are people who disagree with me.

That said, for the vast majority of us drivers who do not track our daily drivers, the ride quality plus adjustability of coilovers are going to provide the most drastic & useable improvement compared to sways or end links.

Increasing dampening & spring rates will increase NVH but retaining stock sway bars & link bushings will isolate road feedback better than aftermarket bits. Stock stuff is good for 100k + miles before they get tired. Stock spring/damp will be always have a monster truck ride height & roll to & fro like a Bayliner no matter how mamy supporting mods you add.

I think most people here disagree with you. My question is, per your garage, did you swap a 335 motor into an e30? Coming from an old e30 owner that would be bonkers.

Garage profile is a typo! I regret the day I sold my E30. 325i with the M20 engine in it. Automatic though. Bought it from a friend for $600, ran perfectly. This was before i knew anything about cars. Didnt realize what i had until in recieved 26 phone responses within 2 hours of posting the for-sale advert. How sick would it be to swap an N54 into an E30 though!

[Luna's S4]

Said it before, will say it again: The massive Stasis 28mm RSB was crap on the street and worse on the track, unless you really like over rotating at speed. H&R 24mm is just right for both.

[boro92]

Said it before, will say it again: The massive Stasis 28mm RSB was crap on the street and worse on the track, unless you really like over rotating at speed. H&R 24mm is just right for both.

I agree with this. That 28mm setup is outlandish. Also, considering the motion ratio of the rear suspension, it's crazy to require a bar that big. Not to mention, you don't want to run such a huge bar on a car with an active rear diff - if you ever lift an inside wheel, the diff will probably freak out and throw an awd error.

To the point of "coilovers or sways", one distinction that no one made yet is that a sway bar is intended for ease of suspension tuning and adjustments. If OP is after altering the character of the car (ie: more trailing throttle rotation, or better steering response etc etc), then that's what you want a sway bar for. A set of adjustbale sway bars is to balance the cars handling to the driver's needs.

Also no one else has mentioned this - tires make a huge huge difference. Want to take out the sloppiness on a stock s4? Try a tire with a real sidewall (like Dunlop starspec z2, RE71R, RE11A etc). A stiff sidewall makes the car so much more responsive, so much more darty and much more eager to react to a change in steering angle.

[Hofahome]

Garage profile is a typo! I regret the day I sold my E30. 325i with the M20 engine in it. Automatic though. Bought it from a friend for $600, ran perfectly. This was before i knew anything about cars. Didnt realize what i had until in recieved 26 phone responses within 2 hours of posting the for-sale advert. How sick would it be to swap an N54 into an E30 though!

That would be insane, like those E60 m5 conversions. I had a 87 325is daily driver through college and learned a lot working on it. Even replaced the clutch on my own since I didn't have much money. Very fun car. I eventually sold it to a friend of a friend. He texted me like 8 years later saying he saw it again. He sent a pic of it at the corkscrew at laguna seca. It made me smile. Here is an old vid I posted on streetfire that I forgot I had posted.

http://www.streetfire.net/video/bmw-...haust_2640.htm

[Neosapian]

Hofahome, I'd like to own another project E30 at some point in the future. Cant decide between another late 80's 325i or a Mk2 GTI - Mk4 1.8T swapped because parts can be had on the cheap.

Streetfire link doesn't work on my iPhone, i want to check it out on the PC though, in stoked! Awesome your old e30 is still on the road...

Also no one else has mentioned this - tires make a huge huge difference. Want to take out the sloppiness on a stock s4? Try a tire with a real sidewall (like Dunlop starspec z2, RE71R, RE11A etc). A stiff sidewall makes the car so much more responsive, so much more darty and much more eager to react to a change in steering angle.

I, as well as somebody else mentioned tires but only in passing.

I absolutely agree. The changes a lot of people are after can be achieved soley with the proper tire at the appropriate inflation pressure. Next would be an alignment and coilovers, then the value of sways can be appreciated.

[anerbe]

Where are you guys getting information that a larger anti-roll bar does not impact your ride quality?

The whole purpose of an anti-roll bar is to reduce the relative movement between each side of an axle by connecting them. The larger the anti-roll bar, the more vertical movement is transferred from the loaded side to the unloaded size. This means that any impacts on one side will be transmitted to the other side, more so with a larger anti-roll bar. An impact that would have normally been felt more from one wheel will now feel like an impact on both sides.

A stiffer spring/coilover with a standard anti-roll will increase the spring rate of the loaded side, but keep the transmissions of forces to the opposite side the same as stock.

From a strict performance aspect, you want some roll to load up the outside tires during a turn, increasing it's frictional forces. You should be changing your anti-roll to a stiffer one if you have passed the limit of your outside tire with loading, and you would benefit from the added traction when loading up the inside tire more. Often times this could also be solved with getting a more aggressive tire.

If you have ever taken out a car with larger anti-roll bars over uneven pavement over stock, the car is much more unsettled. Larger Anti-roll bars are not some magical component with no drawbacks.

[waxxonMTL]

I agree with this. That 28mm setup is outlandish. Also, considering the motion ratio of the rear suspension, it's crazy to require a bar that big. Not to mention, you don't want to run such a huge bar on a car with an active rear diff - if you ever lift an inside wheel, the diff will probably freak out and throw an awd error.

To the point of "coilovers or sways", one distinction that no one made yet is that a sway bar is intended for ease of suspension tuning and adjustments. If OP is after altering the character of the car (ie: more trailing throttle rotation, or better steering response etc etc), then that's what you want a sway bar for. A set of adjustbale sway bars is to balance the cars handling to the driver's needs.

Also no one else has mentioned this - tires make a huge huge difference. Want to take out the sloppiness on a stock s4? Try a tire with a real sidewall (like Dunlop starspec z2, RE71R, RE11A etc). A stiff sidewall makes the car so much more responsive, so much more darty and much more eager to react to a change in steering angle.

19lbs 18x9 wheels are to be bought when spring comes and I loved my Z2 SS on my skyline, so i will most likely be going for those again unless I decide to run tires that will last longer and then either go PSS or HTRZIII.

[Lensch09]

Why not just do both?
-DL

[Mat@1975]

Hello,

Just my personnal experience.

The H&R sway bar kit was my first mod.
I found it verry nice: steering response was better, lane changes were sharper, with a llitte less roll (of course ! :o) ) I was verry pleased with only this mod.
Then I went KW HAS kit to lower a little bit (0.5") and it was even better.
Then, i put on the CR-15 strut brace and noticed a verry good improvement in steering pecision and response. quick direction change are far more crisp and precise.

You could start with Sways + CR-15 . You will not be disapointed. Worth every penny !

BR

Mat