Adjustable Endlinks

[voidhawk]

I have adjustable endlinks in the front (came with my coilovers), and was wondering which way does what.
I'm trying to cure the car's understeer tendency, which way should I adjust the front end links to get more towards oversteer? thx.

[Blue Bomber]

The endlinks' adjustability is there to remove slack in the sway bars. Not sure if it's safe to use them to increase/decrease the sway bars' stiffness. Try changing your coilovers' stiffness before you mess with the endlinks. If anything, you'd probably want to soften up the front if you're getting too much understeer.

[voidhawk]

I'm running 6 in the front and 0 in the back on the shocks (0 being hardest on scale of 0-16). I know I can tweak that, and also tire pressure, but I was curious if the endlinks might be an additional "knob to tweak".

Assuming the sway bar is level in either case, what does per-loading (shorter endlink?) accomplish?

[Blue Bomber]

Pre loading the sway bar can go from eliminating free play (making handling more stable), to making it act like a thicker/stiffer bar, depending on how much you adjust the endlinks. Not sure if the bar or the endlinks were made to handle the kind of stress the second option would introduce. You'd want the exact opposite on the front bar, though. Just like the Hotchkis front sway bar on stiff causes understeer, preloading the front bar too much would do the same.

In another thread, someone said stiffening up the rear too much would actually increase its grip, increasing understeer. Your best option right now would be to test out different coilover stiffness settings (maybe ask other owners on here what they run) to see if you can dial out the understeer. BTW, which coilovers do you have, anyway?

[Gas-n-Grease]

Spring rates? A lotta coilover kits out there come with stronger spring rates up front and softer in the rear (makes sense since our engines' make our cars heavier in the front). But there are some ocassions where better balance is achieved where the rear s/r are stiffer than the front. Damn, i the cornering ability on my friend's Civic is down right amazing. He uses 8kg/mm for the Front and 10kg/mm in the Rear. The nose of the car tucks in at the corners and body roll is almost non-existence.
Stiffening up the front will give u understeer for sure, but what i dont get is how increasing stiffness in the rear makes the car understeer. It should give the car more oversteer.

[NoCones]

Originally posted by Gas-n-Grease
dont get is how increasing stiffness in the rear makes the car understeer. It should give the car more oversteer.
stiffening rear shocks (especially in compression) can actually dampen the bump steer and tame some oversteer.

stiffening anything else (springs, sways), however, I would expect to decrease understeer/increase oversteer

[voidhawk]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. BB, I'm sitting on Tein SS-Ps & EDFC, so playing with settings is pretty easy :). I'm still missing a rear strut bar (3pt going on next week), which I know I need because my chasis twists badly enough that the trunk lid hardly closes when parked on an incline. After that I'll start of with some tuning on the shock settings and tire pressures.

One more thing: when you "pre-load" the bar, does that mean you make the endlinks shorter or longer? Right now my front endlinks are as short as they go.

[Blue Bomber]

Originally posted by voidhawk
I'm still missing a rear strut bar (3pt going on next week), which I know I need because my chasis twists badly enough that the trunk lid hardly closes when parked on an incline. Damn, that's just downright scary. :eek: Besides getting the strut bar (which does help, I have one), you could get all the seams in the trunk by the rear struts welded. It will reduce their movement, reducing overall flex in the rear. I'm getting that done whenever I get my car back.Originally posted by voidhawk
One more thing: when you "pre-load" the bar, does that mean you make the endlinks shorter or longer? Right now my front endlinks are as short as they go. Honestly, I'm not sure which way would preload them, but I would think making them shorter would do that.

[NoCones]

Originally posted by Blue Bomber
The endlinks' adjustability is there to remove slack in the sway bars. Not sure if it's safe to use them to increase/decrease the sway bars' stiffness. Try changing your coilovers' stiffness before you mess with the endlinks. If anything, you'd probably want to soften up the front if you're getting too much understeer.
Pre-load imeans that the bar is under some torsion load when the car is sitting still.

You would use adjustable end links to get rid of pre-load, not to add it. Pre-load doesn't "remove slack." It sort of "increases/decreases stiffness"...unfortunately it increases roll resistance in one direction and decreases it in the other...not good.

[Blue Bomber]

That's what I figured, so the sway bars' stiffness can only be properly altered by settings on the bars themselves, not the endlinks.

[celica001]

all i know is that since i put my hotckis sways on i have went through three sets of stock endlinks lol....so i picked up hotckis's adjustible ones and set em just like stock...never had a problem since

[Blue Bomber]

What kind of springs/struts do you have, celica001? And how much do the Hotchkis endlinks cost?

[Gas-n-Grease]

Originally posted by NoCones
stiffening rear shocks (especially in compression) can actually dampen the bump steer and tame some oversteer.

stiffening anything else (springs, sways), however, I would expect to decrease understeer/increase oversteer

Thanks for clearing that up :thumbup:

[NoCones]

Originally posted by Blue Bomber
That's what I figured, so the sway bars' stiffness can only be properly altered by settings on the bars themselves, not the endlinks.
:thumbup:

I suppose if you had a very wide range of adjustability, you might have some effect by changing the angle of the endlink relative to the bar (on both ends), but I think that sort of difference would be very small relative to switching between mounting holes.

[hephaestus]

I'm going to give this a shot. I can't wait to hear the replies on this. I don't know if this is for street or auto X. I only drive on the steets, so I can only give my opinion on this. First off, make sure nothing else on your cars suspension is broken, lose, or worn including the engine mounts. Make sure all those parts are well greased. I hope those all apply. Measure everthing again. Spring seats, ride height, etc. with a precision tool where applicable (not a tape measure for the dampers). This is all means a lot. A little bit in ride height or spring rates all around will make for bad handling. For the endlinks the shorter adds more tension to the front bar. Make sure these measurements are exact also. It takes some trial and error to preload the bar. This is only for street driving, for I have passengers some of the time and would throw off my whole thing if I only preloaded it for my weight only. I took the safe way. I preloaded both ends just enough, but perfectly. Adjusting the dampers, of course is trial and error also. All I can say is for me the back is way too soft on the recommended settings, even on the HA's. I think I read you are at 6 front and 0 back (the stiffest). Don't run 0 on any damper long! It will go in 6 months if that. Set the settings close to equal. 10 and 9, 10and 10, 11 and 9. or even 10 and 11 you get the idea. I once had my back dampers greater than the fronts and it was a problem w/understeer. I ran my HA's with 20-22 in front and 12-16 in the back on blown back dampers maybe (estimating). And It had a tendency to oversteer a lot sometimes. Just figure out what works. I always had better handling with a slighter stiffer damping rate than recommended and sometimes a click or 3 more so in the back. I know it sounds crazy. I don't know your car's settup, but I know I need some new sway bars, quick. The body roll is horrendous. The stock bars just can't keep it together with the added stiffness and lowering. Of course tire pressure, strut bars, alignment, and corner weight and balance track or street will make a huge difference also. Good luck.

[CrazyCarl]

Originally posted by Gas-n-Grease
A lotta coilover kits out there come with stronger spring rates up front and softer in the rear (makes sense since our engines' make our cars heavier in the front).

Some kits also use stronger spring rates in the rear than the front to keep the back end of the car from squatting. This is crucial on front wheel drive cars for traction when launching.