front sway bar swapping- is it worth it (with coilovers)?
 

I'm currently installing a set of TCK SA coilovers on my Ti - it's the 'normal' e36 setup with the GC tall RSM's. 600-lb rear springs, 400-lb fronts. The car is a '95 Sport, so it has the 'thicker' front sway bar. I have access to an M3 front sway bar- I understand the M3 front sway bar is of a thinner diameter, but with the alternate attachment points (struts), is it effectively stiffer than the standard control-arm attachment points with the Ti sport front sway bar? If not - does the bend of the Ti Sport bar allow for mounting it to the strut body (using the M3 endlinks)- possibly making it effectively even stiffer?

My ideal setup was to run with no rear bar and the M3 front bar (*I've heard this is a pretty good setup*)... no real weight reduction has been done- I've added a rear rollbar and removed the rear seat back and sides, swapped out stock seats for fixed back Corbeau seats and 5-pt harnesses.

Anyone have any insight to add? Comments, suggestions, outright slander is always appreciated, not necessarily in that order. Thanks in advance!

Okay - I didn't 'search' hard enough- I didn't realize the non-M "sport" front sway bar was of the same bend and the only difference was the endlinks and mounting points. So you can use a Sport front sway bar and, using the m3 endlinks, attach it to the strut mounts, giving it a higher roll resistance.

http://tarmacspecialist.com/suspension_faq/index.html

Not necessarily good as it might be too stiff, but I guess I shall find out soon enough.

If I saw this sooner I would have saved you some searching.

You should like the super stiff front bar a lot with those 600lbs rear springs. If you want to get crazy look into Ground Control's front sway bar.

You could also search for threads and comments by "Gimp". He autox'd his ti quite a bit and I remember he ran a big front sway attached to his struts and he was saying it might have hurt his performance.

This is more what I'm worried about - I might have too stiff a roll resistance without supporting spring rates- I believe 600 might be a bit soft for the rear, maybe 700's instead. And besides spring rates, I have yet to do bushings, etc.

I'm guessing I'll probably end up swapping to something closer to 700 rear and 500-550 front, and then may or may not play around with which bar is more suitable.

(I've still gotta finish putting the drivetrain/exhaust back together from my clutch/tranny swap before I even get to the suspension swapping)

Now that I think about it, Gimp was running a 28mm eibach front bar attached to his struts. So a sport ti bar attached to the struts would be less and may be better. He had no rear bar and 600 or 700lb springs in the back.

Right before he sold his ti he began running 245/40-17s and said the car wasn't rotating the same as it had when he ran 225/50-16s.

Gimp originally had #600 TC Kline shorty springs and then moved up to 700

Just as an update- going from bilstein sports with the H&R race springs, stock sport front & rear sway bars - switching to TCK SA coilovers, front 400, rear 600 (without height adjuster), m3 endlinks on the sport front sway bar and no rear sway-

The car works awesome. I love it. It rotates nicely, but not as abruptly as I was used to with my previous car ('91 crx), but feels much more 'stable'.

That being said, I'll have to look into stiffer springs front and rear now... :)