Here's another note on sway bars:

Generally, factory stock vehicles are designed to understeer when pushed to the limits. This is for liability(=lawsuits) and safety reasons. For an inexperienced driver, better to "plow" straight ahead than spin when the car is pushed past the limits.

If you add a rear sway bar to a vehicle that didn't come with one stock, you will move the handling characteristics toward oversteer. How much toward oversteer depends on the specific vehicle. If you add a rear sway bar, you should change the front sway bar to a thicker one to keep the handling similar to the factory design. In previous vehicles I have bought kits from Hellwig that included a larger front bar and a smaller rear bar. By installing new front and rear bars, you will reduce the overall roll rate without significantly affecting handling at the limits.

You can also affect the oversteer/understeer characteristics by changing the front or rear tire pressures relative to each other.

These are just some extra things to keep in mind when changing suspension parts.

Steve

Agreed.

I understand your point, but FWD vehicles already have a tendency to understeer (edited - ooops!), due to increased torque steer from the transaxle. That is why we would like to see a rear sway bar option. Adding a rear sway bar will control more of the "looseness" the HHR has from a high center of gravity. My HHR is lowered and steering and control has already improved immensely, adding the rear sway bar will allow it to corner even better. It seems a good amount of HHR owners are expressing interest in the poll.


We are trying to have an adjustable sway bar made so that the end user can control how much lateral stiffnes is added. It will not be a generic "fixed rate" bar.

As nice as an adjustable sway bar is... most drivers don't really know how to adjust them properly. Personally, I would be happy with a standard "fixed" bar. I think that would work fine.

Well, I guess you are getting your way; after discussing it at length, it looks like the bar will be a fixed rate design. Here are the details I have:

http://www.songramp.com/photos/ArtistArticle6108.jpg

Cool... looking forward to getting one.

Will it be necessary to replace the front one with a larger one?

No. The new rear bar was designed to work in conjunction with the existing front bar.
Of course, if your HHR is lowered, it will respond even better!

I know this is going to be a dumb question. But i'm not a car expert. However i've learned a lot on my own. Its different since dad passed away. But why does anyone need either a sway bar or anti-sway bar. Is there any differences or advantages.

A sway bar ties the two sides together and makes the car corner flatter, at the slight compromise of ride comfort. They also reduce the tendency of the inside wheel lifting when cornering hard (yes, I have seen front inside tires lift high enough that you can easily see air space under them).

As for over/under steer, I do not believe there is anyway to make a front wheel, front engine car oversteer without greatly altering the weight distribution (I did in my 280Z by eliminating the bumpers and replacing fenders, hood, and headlight buckets with fiberglass plus lowering the car and thick, thick swaybars). I believe our main goal with the HHR is to reduce body roll.

I used to have a 1998 VW Golf that was lowered and it would CONSTANTLY lift its inner rear wheel in any corner taken aggressively. I think some refer to it as a 3-wheel-squat. (Fun to see when taking corners on Montana highways at 100+ MPH!)