What do you improve by replaceing them? Is this a worth while upgrade?

 

Yes. Get them. They will make whatever swaybar you have activate FASTER. What I mean by that is that they will cause the swaybar to start to "twist" (trust me on this) sooner than the stock ones. The plastic stock ones will flex a lot and make it so your swaybar doesn't start to twist until later.

Sooner twist = more swaybar action earlier

This means you will start to understeer/oversteer earlier. It's alot more fun that way!

There are a lot of threads out there (both here and on NASIOC) that go into much better detail and give a better description than I can. you can read more about the twist, there.
-Etch

 

Do you have any suggestion on maker? I have a wagn, is it recomended to get the sedan sway bar before getting the links installed?

 

i have kartboys and am very pleased with them. i have the stock sway on my car, and already i can notice the difference. i plan on getting an aftermarket sway soon.

its up to you whether or not you want to get them both at the same time.

 

but unfortunately i've seen none that do.

i first put on rota 17's; they made a huge difference: stock RE92's blow, they suck plain and simple. anyways, after that was done, i really started to notice the bodyroll.

so i put in a Perrin 22mm adjustable. results: awesome, i now run it on the middle setting and the handling is pretty much neutral. almost eliminated all side-to-side bodyroll.

A couple weeks later i put in a set of Perrin endlinks on the bar. results: AWESOME; simply stated, handling is now crisp and clean, there is very minimal bodyroll and oversteer is very predictable and usually initiated midturn with a little pressure applied to the GO-peddle. without the endlinks there was some slight hesitation before the bar really did its job. in otherwords, as the rubber bushings in the endlinks compressed, it allowed a slight amount of bodyroll, which was corrected as soon as the bushings got fully compressed. now, with solid steel bushings (not unlike pillowball top mounts for your coilovers) there is a completely solid link between the car's subframe and the antiswaybar.


i probly cant stress enough how much a larger bar is improved with solid endlinks. they don't add much blingbling, but your buddy might wander whats under there when you drift by him in the twisties. later dudes, hope this helped. Bennie

 

madrex, did Perrin make any changes to their bar/endlink combo to avoid the bar walk/ endlink reversing that was supposedly happening? Do you know what I mean?

 

dude, you sure know how to rain on a guy's parade. j/k

i did a lot of research before buying (cost is comprable on most all of the bars, so performance/reliability were my criterion) and I didn't find anything negative about the Perrin bar. I think i know what you mean, but didn't hear or read of it being a problem with Perrin's bar. I will ask them about it next time i'm in there, but i did the install myself, and that is a tight system. The geometry is basically the same as stock, with the exception of the upper endlink attachment to the bar of course. I watched how it worked as i moved the tires up and down with a jack, and i don't believe a direction swap of the endlink would be physically possible. but i will ask about it.

what have you heard of this problem? dude, i can just imagine seeing a rex cruising down the street with one endlink flipflopped; i'm picturing a car that looks like it is lifted on one side and lowered on the other... hahaha

btw, i just agreed to buy a set of Tein Flex's from a shop here that will sell them to me for $1300 is that a good deal (as long as they're brand new of course)? they had somebody lay a deposit down on them and then never come back to get them; his loss, my gain.... ??? thanks, Bennie

 

the problem with the perrin bar, as i understand it, is only a problem when it is paired with the double spherical bearing-equipped perrin endlinks... because the spherical bearings are free to pivot laterally, the bar can end up "walking" to one side or another. the endlinks end up being non-veritical. the fix for this is to put some kind of clamp on the bar itself so that the clamp prevents the walking by hitting the bar mount bushing.

if you use an endlink that does not have double spherical bearings (a la kartboy, etc) this isn't a problem. likewise, if you use any bar (not just perrin) that does not have a built in provision to prevent side-to-side movement with a spherical bearing, you will have this problem.

some folks used hose clamps. i believe perrin actually shipped out some slightly more elegant clamps to use as stops to their customers who voiced a concern.

i have a cusco RASB, and kartboy endlinks, so there's no problem. i think there's another mfg. that uses double spherical bearings besides perrin.

hth
ken

 

i haven't noticed any problems with mine yet, but i think i'll go out and look closely at the bar to see if there is any paint scratched or wore off the bar near the hanger bushings. from how they bolt in, i don't think there could be much walk, but i do understand how there could be a little movement. but so far my car feels very stable compared to stock bar/endlinks. maybe its walking and i don't know it, and if i fixed that it would handle even more predictably... either way i'm gonna call them today and ask about it. thanks for the info fellas.

 

Okay madrex, according to Jim Gurieff of Whiteline in the sway bar sticky above, the walk is far more a resut of the spherical bearing endlinks than of the bar itself. It can be solved by placing some clamps on the bar next to the bushings. Also, inversion of the links would only come at full droop of the suspension, so try lifting the car by the rear diff (this is ok, trust me) util the rear wheels come up.

 

the good news is that you're not likely to top out the suspension during normal street driving, unless you live in Finland and drive like Solberg or Makinen. even during an Auto-X run, you're only likely to lift the two inside wheels. i can't imagine anyone topping out the rear under braking unless they're running some seriously sticky rubber and have massively powerful brakes.

 

i just went outside and looked at it, and there is no way that thing is gonna walk sideways. there are big washers welded onto the bar just on the outside (actually touching) the hanger bushings. there is one on each side of the car. unless one broke or the welds broke, i dont see any way the bar could walk laterally.

hey Ban, as far as the links swapping ends vertically, when i mounted them, i actuall did pretty much what you said about lifting the car from the middle. i didn't do it from the actual diff, i used a chunk of wood on top of my jack and lifted the rear subframe between the suspension links. i didn't bounce on anything, but i did put it up on jackstands (on the frame) and then use the jack under one tire at a time to lift and see what happened.

result: with the other wheel not bearing any weight, it followed the wheel i was lifting pretty closely; this is what we want, but not to the extent of a solid rear axle or a solid rear lateral link on the rear suspension like my 02 Jetta had (notorious for lifting the inside rear tire in tight corners... not good)

i don't think the links could flipflop, but i'm not an engineer and i didn't have a lab to test all the possible loading scenarios.

thats my 2cnts, hope it helps Bennie





and what do you think about the Tein Flex; i mentioned it a couple posts ago here on this thread. i'm gonna go look at it tommorro, so if you have an opinion, please let me know, thanks

 

Don't have any personal experience with Coilovers, but Tein has a good rep overall.