can I ditch the front ARB

[ryanmac 10]

Hi all

 

Since I am building my vr6 for track/fast road/weekend toy I decided to build my own adjustable wishbones for the front to go along with the adjustable top mounts. Problem is I have went to fit them up and they hit the anti roll bar.......

 

So I am thinking of ditching the front anti roll bar......Is it really required or will the car wallow about in the corners....

 

Cheers

 

Ryan

[Dude VR6 0]

I build race cars for a living, have been for over 15 years now, and every car I've built has a roll bar, or sway bar. So wouldn't recommend removing yours, just try and find another way to connect it.

[mimjed 0]

not an expert on the subject but fairly sure it will suck donkey dick without one.

 

just a loose wishbone bush and you notice the difference in handling.

[ryanmac 10]

I thought I would ask as I have seen a few track cars running without them. I am going to have to look at it as even if I lengthen the drop links to push the front of the anti roll bar up the rear of the anti roll bar will still contact the arm coming from the rear wishbone mounting point. Its a pain as the wishbones are now fully rose jointed with no bushes anywhere in the system.

[mimjed 0]

possibly get away with upper and lower strut braces, but only one way to find out.

[quicky1980 0]

if you want a track/fast road/weekend toy then ARB are deffiantely needed, otherwise the rolling body would destroy handling

[Alex_G60_Fanatic 0]

You'll need it... without a doubt. No point getting fancy wishbones without fitting a ARB. With your wishbones working independently your car will wont to roll over... thats why the rear beam is made of one piece and not split in two.

 

have you considered trying ARB's from different cars? or getting one fabricated maybe?

[OllieVR6 0]

The clues in the name amirite?

[corozin 0]

I'm wondering if the OP should be allowed to build a track car after a question like that.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Car's don't *need* Anti-roll bars.

 

Since the 80s it's been common for road cars to have a front ARB and no rear ARB (or a very small one) purely to dial in some understeer. Without the front bar, it will not flop and roll about like an eel in the corners. That's what springs are for. They hold the car up off the floor, remember, not the ARB.

 

Let the man build his track car and try to offer some worthwhile advice rather than put downs. Sounds like he's doing some nice work and with the right spring / damper rates he may not need a front ARB, especially if he wants a more lively rear end.... think MK1 Golf leg cocking. Some folk like that.

[davidwort 0]

long time ago now but I remember messing with roll bars on a mk1 chassis, I had a jetta which came from VW with no front ARB but a rear one, this was presumably for comfort up front (less transmission of bumps from left to right suspension) but as the car had a long boot it needed a rear arb to control the rear end weight better, especially if loaded up.

I then bought a mk1 GTI for breaking and fitted the front ARB to the jetta (drilling the wishbones to fit the links :lol: ), I now had a thick ARB up front and the original thin rear one, hardly surprising but the car then understeered more, finally fitting the rear GTI ARB (thicker than the jetta one) and with the rear tightened the understeer was reduced.

 

Now the mk1 had a pretty poor front subframe design compared to the mk2 and corrado (same chassis scirocco 16v got an extra brace on it) but it was interesting to see how different cars with the same basic chassis were tuned for comfort and handling with different bars (or lack of them), although on the mk1 chassis at least, fitting the front arb seemed to have little effect on reducing comfort and not surprisingly kept it much more level on corners.

 

I'd imagine looking at the basic Corrado front suspension design that having no arb would result in much more lean through corners even with hard suspension as there would be no link to counter the weight shift, even worse would be the response when shifting from one direction to another.

 

Never looked into it, but it would be interesting to see the setup on cars like the lotus 7/westfield and the like, I don't recall seeing left/right links on their fully independent suspension, but pretty much every modern car has left/right links on both front and rear, some of them hideously complex, prone to failure and don't seem to make the cars hadle that well either :lol:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Same here, I experimented with ARBs on my MK2s. I actually liked the way one of my MK2s drove with no front ARB and an Eibach rear. The turn-in was brilliant. As you say though, the car will lean a little more and cock a hind leg, but that can work on the track for some people! Some track front spring rates can get up into 800s inlb (over twice that of a normal road coilover kit) which in itself will reduce roll considerably compared to softer springs.

 

For a road car I personally prefer to keep the stock front bar with an Eibach type rear one, especially on the Plus axle platform as the front ARB has a longer reach across the WBs (more leverage), so to speak, compared to the 4 cyl cars. But as ever, the chassis should be looked at as a whole, and not just deleting a component with no other work to balance it's removal.

[boost monkey 0]

It's true, mathematically you can calculate the weight transfer both left to right and front to rear, with and without ARBs.

 

basically, a negative number for a wheel load will mean that wheel is up in the air, and very high numbers will mean there's a huge load on that wheel (always the outside wheel in a corner).

 

not got much time at the mo, but i will try to elaborate if needs be.

[ryanmac 10]

Thanks for the supportive replies guys.

 

I am sorry corozin for asking a question, but as they say it seems to be a valid question with good replies and if I remember correctly keith smiths old mk1 race car that I have just got rid of did not use a front anti roll bar......

 

I have overcame the problem using my adjustable wishbones and a slightly modified standard anti roll bar and adjustable drop links...

 

I will be fitting a eibach rear anti roll bar and at the same time I have emailed leda suspension to ask there advice on there platforms and spring rates as I might look at buying a kit from them and selling the KW coilovers I have. The reason for leda is they were fitted to my old mk1 and although I didn't use it much I did like the way the felt and talking to the previous owner he said on track they were awesome.

 

I will post up pics at some point of the front setup but it consists of adjustable top mounts, adjustable wishbones, modified anti roll bar, adjustable drop links, home made lower strut brace and a home made adjustable upper strut brace

 

Ryan

[Purple Tom 0]

I'd be very interested in seeing the pictures please.

 

I had a front subframe conversion on an old Polo GT a while back, and I experimented with removing the front ARB as I'd fitted adjustable lower arms along with adjustable tie rods so both castor and camber could be adjusted. To be honest the front ARB was in the way and I found the car drove better, as a road car, without the ARB.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Same here. There's always room for improvement on the Corrado chassis and any inspirational pics are always welcomed!

 

The best "off the shelf" parts I've seen to date are SCCH (South California Cylinder Heads) tubular control arms and bumpsteer elimantion kits.

 

http://scch-heads.com/viewpart.php?id=35

http://scch-heads.com/viewpart.php?id=38

 

A bit expensive though!

 

My own Corrado responded very well to 5 degrees of positive caster (+3.5 is standard IIRC) which you can get from spherical top mounts, but due to the static angle the bearings run at, they don't last long at all,

[dannyboy 0]

Ive seen a few examples of racecars ditching the ARB and use smaller versions of springs and gas dampers,which to me is a very good idea since they can be adjustable in many ways.

 

Downside is they wont be anywhere near plug and play and would require lots of cutting and welding and custom parts.

Depends on how far you wana go and how much you got in dough?

[ryanmac 10]

SCCH was the company I looked at it but they don't do them for a vr6...

 

I did base my wishbones round there design though bar the rear bar has been bent to roughly the same contour as the original wishbones and I have a modified 2l16v arb with adjustable drop links. I plan on running this for one track session and depending on the outcome adjusting the front spring rates. This setup with the adjustability on the wishbones and the top mounts will allow me to be able to get it to handle just the way I want it too. The rear end is polybushed with an eibach anti roll bar fitted.

 

I know I keep saying I will post pics and I will once they are finished. They are at my welders at the moment getting some finishing touches and then my mate is powder coating some bits of them(ARB and wishbones) and once they are fitted I will get them up.

 

What i want to know is SCCH sell anti bump steer arms...looking at the design I would be able to come up with something similar but what benefits would I gain over standard track ends....

[perksy 11]

this is a good thread its nice to see people trying new things and ideas, keep up the good work and i look forward to seeing the pics when its finished