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Upgrade RSB only or do both RSB+FSB?

draza74

Go Kart Newbie
Location
OR
Car(s)
17 GTI
Here is the best answer you're ever going to get.
Do both unless you're tracking your car and very specifically are tracking your car and are trying to optimize your car to the max.
From what i've read via VWRacers FB page: The car feels nicer with the front bar but they lost a tiny bit of time with it. Front oem bar paired with aftermarket rear seems to be the best balance.
This is just what i've read. Maybe they're entirely wrong. I don't know.

Me personally I do track but I don't currently do anything competitive. Just track nights.
Id say do both because the front bar makes the car feel like a go-kart.
Personally I love the way the car drives with it vs before. More fun.
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
Here is the best answer you're ever going to get.
Do both unless you're tracking your car and very specifically are tracking your car and are trying to optimize your car to the max.
From what i've read via VWRacers FB page: The car feels nicer with the front bar but they lost a tiny bit of time with it. Front oem bar paired with aftermarket rear seems to be the best balance.
This is just what i've read. Maybe they're entirely wrong. I don't know.

Me personally I do track but I don't currently do anything competitive. Just track nights.
Id say do both because the front bar makes the car feel like a go-kart.
Personally I love the way the car drives with it vs before. More fun.
I'd say that is not accurate - many are tracking with both and gaining ground @DerHase for example by keeping the front suspension alignment more consistent during turns. I know I have read Rob W's comment (only one I have seen) on that page that he lost time but we don't know all the details of his setup...it seems the front/rear combo works best with mild suspension upgrades like stock or lowering springs and not high-rate coilovers etc.
 

GoatAutomotive

Autocross Champion
Location
Georgetown, TX
Car(s)
2017 VW GTI SE, DSG
The ride on my car got MUCH harsher with the upgraded FSB. Thats my only input on this matter.
Worth noting for transparency and to help others reading:

1) What does your full suspension setup consist of?

2) What are the roads like in your area? NYC? or elsewhere in the state?


We have a mixture of 70% good/decent roads here in TX and 30% that are just garbage.

I imagine if I lived somewhere with horrific roads (lots of potholes and poor surfacing) that might change how I evaluate my ride quality on Stormy.
 

GoatAutomotive

Autocross Champion
Location
Georgetown, TX
Car(s)
2017 VW GTI SE, DSG
I'd say that is not accurate - many are tracking with both and gaining ground @DerHase for example by keeping the front suspension alignment more consistent during turns. I know I have read Rob W's comment (only one I have seen) on that page that he lost time but we don't know all the details of his setup...it seems the front/rear combo works best with mild suspension upgrades like stock or lowering springs and not high-rate coilovers etc.
That's a good point most readers are gonna overlook: it's the total combo that matters most. Not just "I'm on stock FSB" vs "I run this thicker FSB". Results will vary greatly for this reason.

Parroting Adam (Tigeo):

Stock-style strut cars using aftermarket springs need the most help with roll and motion control due to the lower spring rates.

It's a shame that nearly every aftermarket spring is still using the factory spring rates. Only Neuspeed Sports offer a substantial improvement.

Coilover cars tend to be running substantially stiffer springs and dampers that do a better job at eliminating unwanted roll, pitch and dive.

So I can totally understand if someone has a coilover setup that is already performing well with stock sways, and then they add stiffer bars and it reduces the car's ability to rotate into turns, that could slow down some corner speeds/lap times.

On mine, the FSB was indispensable and nearly mandatory for running HHR in a CW direction, and for having the flatest possible motion control with the handicap of H&R OE Sport springs (great street spring, but need a LOT more rate for motorsport use)

Hope this helps.

-Feisty Goat
 
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ZuMBLe

Autocross Champion
Location
NY
Car(s)
Alltrack 6MT
Worth noting for transparency and to help others reading:

1) What does your full suspension setup consist of?

2) What are the roads like in your area? NYC? or elsewhere in the state?


We have a mixture of 70% good/decent roads here in TX and 30% that are just garbage.

I imagine if I lived somewhere with horrific roads (lots of potholes and poor surfacing) that might change how I evaluate my ride quality on Stormy.

Fair..

Stock Alltrack springs on Bilstein B4 struts, Superpro front bar, whiteline rear bar, eurocode front strut bar, 225/50R17 tires. The setup was pretty comfortable until I put in the front bar. After front bar, the ride is legit harsh over uneven surfaces.
 

DerHase

Autocross Champion
Location
Hampton Roads, VA
Car(s)
2019 GTI Rabbit
Here is the best answer you're ever going to get.
Do both unless you're tracking your car and very specifically are tracking your car and are trying to optimize your car to the max.
From what i've read via VWRacers FB page: The car feels nicer with the front bar but they lost a tiny bit of time with it. Front oem bar paired with aftermarket rear seems to be the best balance.
This is just what i've read. Maybe they're entirely wrong. I don't know.

Me personally I do track but I don't currently do anything competitive. Just track nights.
Id say do both because the front bar makes the car feel like a go-kart.
Personally I love the way the car drives with it vs before. More fun.

Be careful of who you take advice from. Most are slow or sponsored or both.

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I've done actual testing to the best of my abilities - it's unreasonable to swap sway bars on the day of an event, so I did the next best thing: I tried my 26mm FSB or stiff vs soft on same day, and was very surprised to find the stiffer setting being notably faster (1+ sec). It showed higher lateral Gs in every corner at VIR, and higher min corner speeds as well.

As others have alluded to it likely depends on overall setup - you can add roll rate with springs or sway bars or combo of both. I'm not saying a FSB will for sure make you faster, but it did for me and I have data to show why I'm confident that is the case.

Me and @Mini7 go back and forth with our data. I'm not sure what exactly he was running at the time (tires, spring rates, etc), but comparing his min corner speeds vs my min corner speeds at VIR seems to be a pretty strong argument to try a front bar. Or stay on stock springs. 🤣

Jose is by no means slow - and I'd argue is a much better+more consistent driver than I am overall.

In a nut shell most of my corner speeds are faster, primarily in all the lower speed corners. He's got a couple mph on me in South Bend and Hog Pen.

Overall times cannot be directly compared because IS20 for me and IS38 for him.

We can compare within the Catalyst app, but essentially he's only got 0.18 sec on me all the way from the start line to Oak Tree (despite starting the lap out at +15mph over me at 136.9mph vs 121.5mph). He does carry 2mph more through South Bend at 91.4 vs 89.7mph though.

He puts a ton of time on me down the back straight (approx 2.8 sec due to power alone - 147.6mph vs 131.1mph), I gain back 0.6 sec through Rollercoaster and entering Hog Pen, where he does carry more speed (71.4 vs 68.3 for me) and then rockets down the front straight for an overall 3.17 sec lap time difference overall.

My car has it's biggest advantage through the T4/5 complex - min 49.3 vs 41.2mph. I peeked at his "optimal" lap data, and it looks like his best was 45mph through there if cherry picking from other laps for benefit of the doubt.

Videos of the laps in question:

Me, IS20 GTI with the Koni shocks and stock springs + F/R sway bars:

Jose, IS38 GTI with 529 Coilovers and a slew of other things, but with stock FSB:

Hopefully he will be able to chime in as I know he's got a front sway bar going in. I'll be really interested to see his results.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will add that the front bar WILL push a bit when the tires are cold. Once up to temp though it helped me a lot. Driver ability also will play a role. You have to be able to adapt to the setup and potentially change some inputs to get the most out of any setup because you're changing the shape of the friction circle. With the front sway bar set stiffer, you can "lean" on the outside tire a bit more because it's not losing [as much] camber in turns. If you're still doing ALL of your braking in a straight line, then yeah you won't be getting all the benefits of the added roll stiffness.

26mm H&R front bar on stiff:
1693242239646.png



26mm H&R front bar on soft:
1693242315201.png


Braking is down(negative), accel is up(positive). Left turns are left(negative), right turns are right(positive). I tried to circle around all the data "hits" possible for a rough idea of the max friction circle. The top one was comprised of a shorter session so the # of hits scale is different (we're only interested in where hits can be generated at all for this), but you can clearly see where with the bar setting being the only thing changed - it allows you to more effectively multi-task on corner entry.

So yeah. If you can't change your driving to take advantage of a change, then yes you'll be slower. This goes for anything that changes the friction circle. Some tires multi-task better than others (especially Hoosiers). The above was all on Kumho V730s for reference.
 
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DerHase

Autocross Champion
Location
Hampton Roads, VA
Car(s)
2019 GTI Rabbit
Fair..

Stock Alltrack springs on Bilstein B4 struts, Superpro front bar, whiteline rear bar, eurocode front strut bar, 225/50R17 tires. The setup was pretty comfortable until I put in the front bar. After front bar, the ride is legit harsh over uneven surfaces.

If you unbolt both sway bar end links (can be strut end or bar end, doesn't matter), can you freely move the sway bar up and down with minimal effort? Binding sway bars are absolutely terrible for adding harshness if they can't move freely.
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
Fair..

Stock Alltrack springs on Bilstein B4 struts, Superpro front bar, whiteline rear bar, eurocode front strut bar, 225/50R17 tires. The setup was pretty comfortable until I put in the front bar. After front bar, the ride is legit harsh over uneven surfaces.
Do you have adjustable endlinks?
Be careful of who you take advice from. Most are slow or sponsored or both.
odds are if they have a big wing, a dogbox, or a bolt-in roll bar, they're not fast...
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
I feel attacked.

7wdpd7.jpg
 

Greg_mk7

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Montreal
Car(s)
2017 golf R
I just installed a RSB on my 2017 golf r a couple of months ago. In my opinion it was not worth it, I know alot of people Might feel differently as this mod is highly regarded for these cars. The stock rsb is by no means small at 21mm, probably one of the largest oem sizes you can find on a car.
It was a pain in the ass to install, the sway bar bushing bolts broke off into the rear subframe while trying to remove the oem bar.
I've had a much easier time installing new struts on the car than that rsb. Unless you plan on tracking the car I wouldn’t do it. I could barely tell a difference. Its possible that the combination of front and rear would yield a better result but for everyday driving, the pain in the ass install and the price,it was not worth it for me.
Just being honest, l know some people would probably disagree we me.
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
I just installed a RSB on my 2017 golf r a couple of months ago. In my opinion it was not worth it, I know alot of people Might feel differently as this mod is highly regarded for these cars. The stock rsb is by no means small at 21mm, probably one of the largest oem sizes you can find on a car.
It was a pain in the ass to install, the sway bar bushing bolts broke off into the rear subframe while trying to remove the oem bar.
I've had a much easier time installing new struts on the car than that rsb. Unless you plan on tracking the car I wouldn’t do it. I could barely tell a difference. Its possible that the combination of front and rear would yield a better result but for everyday driving, the pain in the ass install and the price,it was not worth it for me.
Just being honest, l know some people would probably disagree we me.
I'd say your install experience is not the norm at all - usually a v. simple install even on the 4Motion cars. I agree some of the hype is placebo/expectation of reading how great it is and of course you go out and drive on an on-ramp not even close to the limit (but you think it is!) and hail this as the greatest upgrade known to man...and so the MK7/all enthusiast car world goes.
 
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