What I've found is that the bigger sway bars reduce the understeer initially, but what I'm getting is sudden and vicious oversteer when driving under full power through bends.

I've had this on two cars recently. One was an 1800 ES with sway bars of unknown provenance. The other is on a PV 544 with IPD bars on it. The PV is much less chronic than the ES. To be fair I'm not too sure what is causing it on the PV. The PV has Bilsteins all round. Now bear in mind here that I'm talking being seriously silly. This PV has a very short axle (4.8) and decent power. It also has a wide rear axle off a 144 with a limited slip. With the rear bar disconnected and a standard bar at the front the car obviously rolled a lot more. However it got rid of the sudden onset of oversteer. I have a suspicion that part of this equation is the back axle on this particular car.


On reflection though I think I should have phrased my comment differently. The sway bars make the car much more flattering to drive. With the standard setup the car gets scary well before anything nasty happens. With the sway bars, especially if there is some underlying fault you can get very close to the edge, and when things start to happen they happen very very fast, and it takes a great deal more skill to catch them when it does happen. Hence my comment that everything else must be right, the sway bars are the last job. I know of a couple of people who've removed the bars from rally cars because they're pushing them to a point where most people simply don't go. In the hands of a driver that is willing and able to explore those margins, the car is every bit as fast, if not slightly quicker without the bars. I'm certainly not panning the IPD bars, but very unexpected things can happen if they're used as a cure for a fault, rather than as an improvement for something that is fundamentally sound.


Regards



Pete