Anti Roll Bars

[lordgibbness]

The only understeer I got was when accelerating too hard out of corners and the hairpin which was on a rise aswell, most cars understeer there though.
Never found the limit on the road since fitted ARB's, the limit is just too fast for the road TBH

Any oversteer moments at all? Hows your car in the wet generally?

 

[Willie]

Any oversteer moments at all? Hows your car in the wet generally?

Plenty of available oversteer but only when massively on the edge on a tight right hand fast corner with a big drop in level.
Haven't really pushed it in the wet yet TBH, Scotland's been pretty dry since I've had this set up

 

[lordgibbness]

Plenty of available oversteer but only when massively on the edge on a tight right hand fast corner with a big drop in level.
Haven't really pushed it in the wet yet TBH, Scotland's been pretty dry since I've had this set up

Sounds cool on the track! You reckon it works well on the road too - and reckon a woman could drive it safely, if I ever let her?

 

[Willie]

Sounds cool on the track! You reckon it works well on the road too - and reckon a woman could drive it safely, if I ever let her?

My wife loves driving my car, if your wife finds the limits of adhesion in your car I want to meet her, lol.
honestly bud, the cars feels perfect every here and in every situation, apart from driving through muddy field but I don't think the ARB's effected this.

 

[lordgibbness]

lol cool - thanks Willie

 

[vwbassett]

Just to add my 2p worth, a car that has 2-4 deg of body roll will be faster round a track than the same car with anything stiffer due to the way dynamic camber shifts tyre tread to the tarmac as the car enters corners. Im sure all our leons have more than that but your not letting the suspension do its job if you stiffen up too much. If you are going mega stiff If i would reduce static negative camber from factory settings. Manufacturers generally trade off the car comfort by using softer springs but as this adds roll, anti roll bars are fitted so if your doing coilovers or high poundage shorter springs your unlikely to need the stiffest of roll bars and may be detrimentally affecting your handling.

 

[Willie]

Just to add my 2p worth, a car that has 2-4 deg of body roll will be faster round a track than the same car with anything stiffer due to the way dynamic camber shifts tyre tread to the tarmac as the car enters corners. Im sure all our leons have more than that but your not letting the suspension do its job if you stiffen up too much. If you are going mega stiff If i would reduce static negative camber from factory settings. Manufacturers generally trade off the car comfort by using softer springs but as this adds roll, anti roll bars are fitted so if your doing coilovers or high poundage shorter springs your unlikely to need the stiffest of roll bars and may be detrimentally affecting your handling.

This is a good point BUT what we really need to know is for the Leon when do te ARB's get too stiff for say the OEM suspension and coilovers?
I think we've proven that even 25 front 28 rear isn't too stiff for either.
After stripping out the interior of my car I think I need to reduce the stiffness of te rear bar as the car feels a bit happier to swap ends with much less weight in the rear

 

[Ruddmeister]

TBH I think your worrying too much about the car being too stiff. I realise it's a lot of money but you are going to have to grasp the nettle at some point.......unless your funds are endless and you can try numerous different types of setup.

Lift off oversteer at the very imit of the car was always catchable in my experience, understeer was negligable. The only time Lift off oversteer was not catchable was on the OEM setup with crap tyres on the back and good tyres on the front.

My opinion hasn't changed that you shoud upgrade front and rear in rough proportion though with a sightly smaller front ARB than rear.

Be interesting to see what you plump for, are you going to get something done in the near future?

 

[lordgibbness]

You're probably right, but I just want to make sure I end up with a setup that improves on the OE settings and my driving style. It seems that the 28mm rear is the recommended ARB to get; but I don't want to go overly stiff and I don't want the driving wheels losing traction and acceleration so I'm thinking of opting for the 22mm front ARB, 28mm rear ARB. I'll probably start with the rear ARB set to it's softest setting to begin with.

If I find the rear is stepping out at this point then I'll know I have to downgrade to the 25mm rear ARB (I would prefer this option to upgrading the front ARB to 25mm to compensate) and sell the 28mm rear on here. If on the other hand I find the front is washing out on cornering then I can try stiffening up the rear setting until I get a neutral balance. I think this is better than starting out with 25/28 as if the car understeers with this setup it might be harder to fine tune.

Just thinking out loud really... I was intending to upgrade in Feb/March 2010 due to a house move. If I find I have some spare cash I might do it earlier this year when I replace my tyres in a few months time... we'll see!

 

[Ruddmeister]

Mmmmm, I understand the plan......in principle.....

Found the handling very odd when I just did the 28mm rear (reviewed in my sticky:guide) which is why I did the 25mm front.....and it's why I recommended upgrading in pairs and of similar thickness Front and rear.

With just the rear done the front end would flex / roll as you turn in (rather than understeer as such) but the rear end stayed planted......Felt odd to me.....like some wierd articulated vehicle.

I had reservations about understeer but got taken out by a tuner in a mk4 golf with ARB's and liked what I experienced and went for it on my car........results were impressive IMO.

The above was done with Coilovers on.

I can understand 25/28 being a little extreme for some but a 23/25 setup would be a great compromise IMO

 

[lordgibbness]

Yeah definately will be upgrading the front. Standard LCR 18mm at the front would be much too small with a 28mm rear bar I think.

Edit: I think the 28mm rear bar upgrade works ok for Cupra owners as they have 23mm on the front already.

 

[cap r 225]

so is the standard ARB (18mm) on the front not really up to the job at all when adding a rear ARB? Good discussion this as i'm shopping at the moment!

 

[lordgibbness]

Only from my research, I would say it would unbalance the car - being too soft at the front and too stiff at the rear. You might end up with the back wanting to come round when cornering...

22/25 or 22/28 Neuspeed ARBs look like a good choice. Been recommended the 22/28 setup by a few people...

 

[cap r 225]

after a bit of reading, (largely some of you comments lordgibbness) i'm going to get the front/top strut brace first and see how that feels. It should improve turn in so thats half my problem solved, then i will approach the understeer issue which i think will be an adjustable rear ARB as i'd rather have a little twitch at the rear than the understeer!

Going in a straight line when turning the steering wheel just isn't a nice feeling!

 

[lordgibbness]

Yeah good choice. I fitted the S3 strut brace and INA dogbone mount at the same time and was really impressed with the improvement.

 

[jonjay]

My wife loves driving my car, if your wife finds the limits of adhesion in your car I want to meet her, lol.
honestly bud, the cars feels perfect every here and in every situation, apart from driving through muddy field but I don't think the ARB's effected this.

I thought your car came into its own when I saw it in the mud

 

[Willie]

I thought your car came into its own when I saw it in the mud

The brown mud spatters did suit the car. also made everyone elses cars look clean too

 

[cap r 225]

any body got any opinions on the whiteline ARB V's the neuspeed ARB. Both adjustable but the whiteline is about £50 cheaper???

 

[lordgibbness]

The main issue seems to be that only the Neuspeed rear ARB fits with the OEM exhaust properly.

I have noticed more and more people with an ARB setup of 25/28 on this forum lately. Seems to be the popular choice...

 

[Willie]

Well guys, a bit of a report on how the set up handled on the track, Knockhill.

To remind you all I have Audi TT roadster (rear), LCR OEM (front) wish bone bushes, 23mm MK4 R32 (front) ARB, 28mm Neuspeed (rear) ARB set to stiff and S3 Strutt brace. With this set up I have KWV3 coilovers with bump set to half and rebound set to 3/4 and lowered 25mm front and rear. My car is fitted with Good Year Eagle F1 Asymmetrics set to 36PSI hot pressure.

So basically I couldn't fault the handling set up of the car, this felt WELL planted throughout the whole day. The tyres were very good and only really started to fail with high speed very sharp turns (hair pin). So next on the list is R888 tyres to help the front end grip a bit better on the tighter corners.

The first corner at the end of the start finish straight, which you approach at 110MPH, is a 90 degree right turn with a very steep down hill slope, which is over steer city. This is where most people would go off, lol. Honestly the back end NEVER felt like it was going to step out, even taking this at 75-80 MPH

So I can honestly say with 23mm front ARB, S3 strutt brace and 28mm rear ARB teamed with good suspension and tyres you will have a very good handling car.