Posted by Walter Barie on June 19, 2003 at 12:17:55 from 12.101.19.97
In Reply to: Where to set adjustable rear sway bar? posted by Bob Humphrey on June 18, 2003 at 21:32:17:
For autocross it all depends:) It also depends on how competive you are or want to be. I've been very sucessfully autocrossing an E21 for 18 years and my stock E12 once in a while. I would adjust the rear bar based on the following...
If the car has a limited slip then make the rear bar as stiff as possible. However you may find that the car may have too much transient oversteer in places like sloloms. In that case dial out some of the stiffness. Also if you are still spinning the inside rear wheel too much soften the rear bar.
If you have an open differential, I may be going against typical convention, but for autocrossing I would probably set the bar to full soft or completely disconnect the bar (gasp!). Depending on your suspension setup E12 (and also E21) cars tend to lift their inside rear wheel in tight corners. Rear bars make this situation even worse. However your cars springs may be stiff enough that this is not a big problem (which I doubt). If there are lots of tight corners on the autocross course any time you would gain with more balanced handling from a stiff rear bar will be lost because the you will not be able to accelerate out of corners. So it somewhat depends on the course. Yes the car may push / understeer more but in my personal experience on a tight course you will be faster overall if you can accelerate earlier and with more traction out of corners.
So hopefully my response hasn't confused things too much.
Walt Barie
'80 528i
'82 320i FSP Solo II and track car