front sway bars

[2019 Golf R]

I think the Ohlins are a little soft out of the box, I had that setup for a while (26/24 superpro + 70/80 ohlins) and it's excellent for the mountains but due to the motion ratios on these cars you want an even stiffer divorced spring in the rear, 120-140nm imo. The rear axle does do work but you really want to keep weight pushed onto the front as much as possible out of corners.

I wouldn't go back to stock sway bars, did you install the front 26mm bar yet? I would try moving the rear bar back to soft and seeing how it behaves. It's great if you can get the car to rotate but if it's "stepping out" that sounds like a loss in speed to me, given you'd have torque going to the rear when that happens.

Personally I ended up going to stiffer rates (90/140) and H&R bars (much quieter). It's not usable for daily driving unless you're an insane person but I would attribute that to the springs, not the bars. For most people, stock-like springs with big bars is way more livable than very stiff springs with stock bars.

You're right about them being soft out of the box - I'm honestly amazed that these are coilovers... A local shop (GMP Performance) has done a lot of Ohlins installs on Porsches and recommended them for my R, thinking I'd get something between a B12 kit and a B16 in terms of ride comfort. I'm running fresh OEM strut mounts since the Clubsport S mods are on my car and -2 is about perfect for my mix of driving.

Out the box and at Ohlin's recommended ride height setting (20mm or so lower than factory), they set them to 7 clicks from full stiff because the street settings were so soft. They then rode around a test loop with me at that setting to see if they needed to soften them up or not.

I gotta say - the closest thing I can compare them to is what my 997 Carrera felt like. Except a touch firmer and with more control. It's blowing my mind. They're incredibly streetable with both bars at full stiff and I'd have to say they remind me of DCC set to Race but with better control recovering from bumps. Incredibly smooth. I had been worried about losing DCC but after driving on these, that's out the window.

I knocked them down to 8 clicks from stiff just to see and that took a tiny bit of edge off, but still super controlled. Tomorrow I'll be on Shenandoah with them and will see how they do through the Karousel. So far I'm just blown away. There's some slight noise from things settling when you back out of spots, but no big deal, we'll see if that goes away with more miles.

If you can swing it and aren't heavy autocross/track, the out the box Ohlins are simply incredible.

 

[JerseyDrew77]

Just installed a 29mm to the front and set to "soft", can't wait to test it out on the track.

Damn that's a big fsb. I hope you have a decent size rsb to go with it.

 

[2LEEGIT]

Running a 25mm (eibach) for the rear. Also, soft setting on the front is only +10% over stock.

 

[GoatAutomotive]

I wouldn't go back to stock sway bars.

For most people, stock-like springs with big bars is way more livable than very stiff springs with stock bars.

^ This.

A good set of sways can compensate beautifully for softer spring rates.

Worst issues for me with sway bars over the years (not just this platform)…has never been any problem with the thickness and stiffness of the bar causing poor ride quality.

…It’s the poly bushings, and keeping them lubed to stay quiet.

When the poly bushings get dry, they can cause binding of the sway bar, where you will experience creaks and noises, and the car’s ride quality goes to hell in a hand basket. The whole suspension gets bound up along its common axle.

Stormy runs an H&R 28mm FSB that uses their proprietary bushing material and a Teflon coating. Never has to be greased, and it has been absolutely faultless for years now.

But the rear APR bar (25.4mm) has to be serviced annually with the HD suspension grease, which works its way out over time with normal suspension cycling (up and down movements of the rotating bar).

Knowing this now, I would absolutely have paid the premium for the H&R design that uses teflon coated bushings for quiet operation.

Bars were done at very separate times. APR RSB as a “this will be a great improvement” deal in 2019. Loved it.

…Until winter a year later, when the grease wore out and the bar started making it creak and ride like a Civic on cheap Coilovers.

Then the H&R front bar was added in early 2023 when we started tracking the car and finding weak points.

When the bushings are good quality and the bar can rotate freely as intended, I’ve had 95% positive on-road experiences with thicker bars here in Texas and the southern states.

It would take a really nasty road like you see up north to compromise them.

Hope this info helps some folks.

 

[2019 Golf R]

Swaybar tip that I've always done on my swaybar bushings - wrap teflon tape around the swaybar where the bushing will go.

 

[Nineeightyone]

Swaybar tip that I've always done on my swaybar bushings - wrap teflon tape around the swaybar where the bushing will go.

Are you greasing over top (and/or bottom) of the tape? Or using it in place of lubrication otherwise?

 

[tigeo]

H&R bars. Teflon bushings. Silence for years.

 

[00Zero]

^ This.

View attachment 325435

A good set of sways can compensate beautifully for softer spring rates.

Worst issues for me with sway bars over the years (not just this platform)…has never been any problem with the thickness and stiffness of the bar causing poor ride quality.

…It’s the poly bushings, and keeping them lubed to stay quiet.

When the poly bushings get dry, they can cause binding of the sway bar, where you will experience creaks and noises, and the car’s ride quality goes to hell in a hand basket. The whole suspension gets bound up along its common axle.

Stormy runs an H&R 28mm FSB that uses their proprietary bushing material and a Teflon coating. Never has to be greased, and it has been absolutely faultless for years now.

But the rear APR bar (25.4mm) has to be serviced annually with the HD suspension grease, which works its way out over time with normal suspension cycling (up and down movements of the rotating bar).

Knowing this now, I would absolutely have paid the premium for the H&R design that uses teflon coated bushings for quiet operation.

Bars were done at very separate times. APR RSB as a “this will be a great improvement” deal in 2019. Loved it.

…Until winter a year later, when the grease wore out and the bar started making it creak and ride like a Civic on cheap Coilovers.

Then the H&R front bar was added in early 2023 when we started tracking the car and finding weak points.

When the bushings are good quality and the bar can rotate freely as intended, I’ve had 95% positive on-road experiences with thicker bars here in Texas and the southern states.

It would take a really nasty road like you see up north to compromise them.

Hope this info helps some folks.

FYI, You can buy the HR brushings as spare parts (they make a 25mm rear bar for the golf R)

I bought a set years ago that i still haven't gotten around to installing for my eibach bar

 

[GoatAutomotive]

I'll likely post a separate thread on this, but a quick update to the above:

I recently ran into a situation where I re-lubed the RSB bushings on my APR bar (25.4mm), and it stayed smooth and quiet. ...For about 3 days.

Further investigation revealed the bushing is on the taller side, and when you tighten down the OE retaining brackets, they compress the bushing to the point of distorting it, allowing the grease to work its way out.

A week after the first re-lube service, it was binding and creaking again.

I contacted APR product support and they did the right thing: shipped me out a fresh set of RSB bushings to work with, and the uber-special grease that feels like fly paper paste.

Now that I had fresh bushings, I went to work at setting the geometry for the hold-down brackets.

It went like this (props to Vorshlag for putting this out there):

A single ~1-1.5mm thick washer between each bracket and frame to shim the thickness of the bracket out to an acceptable tolerance.

This effectively compensates for the taller height of the bushings.

If anyone is wondering, I compared the heights of the old APR bushings with the new ones: they were identical.

Copious grease inside the new bushings + the shim method = we seem to be in better waters now. Bar rotates freely with modest pressure.

NOTE: this is not a dig on APR. I've seen piss-poor QC on Whiteline sway bar products over the years (picking on them as a common example only - they are not the only contributor here), where this same method of "trust but verify" can prevent unwanted issues.

i.e. - confirm that the SB bushing isn't being compressed excessively, and that the bar isn't binding (prior to connecting the sway bar end links that lock it all together).

The takeaway here is that grease alone won't be sufficient to compensate for bushings that get distorted from being too tall. You want to verify good fitment and tolerances during install.

Parroting what others have said above (if you wish to avoid this shimming malarky):

H&R seems to have the best bar for the money on our cars.

Multiple thickness offerings for FSB and RSB to dial in your ride quality and car behavior, and their Teflon bushing design that has never given me a single issue up front.

If anyone reading this knows of another company offering a sway bar with a lube-free bushing design, please let me know so I can look into it further.

Thanks for reading.

 

[2019 Golf R]

Are you greasing over top (and/or bottom) of the tape? Or using it in place of lubrication otherwise?

No grease at all needed. Fresh bushings+Teflon tape. Have run this for years in my cars with aftermarket bars without noises.

 

[JerseyDrew77]

H&R bars. Teflon bushings. Silence for years.

Yep, same here. Front and rear H&R bars, no grease needed.

 

[erim86]

Does replacing the stock oem plastic fsb end links with metal end links like the Moog product have any benefit?

 

[krs]

Does replacing the stock oem plastic fsb end links with metal end links like the Moog product have any benefit?

The front OEM end links are not plastic.