How a sway bar can improve your cornering ability.

Learning how to adjust or change sway bars can greatly affect how your Rc Truck or Car gets through the corners.

What do they do: In a corner your rc vehicle wants to roll over in the corner due to centrifugal force.

With out sway bars on an off-road vehicle this causes excess chassis roll that compresses the outside suspension and tire and causes the inside tire to go into droop.

While on an on-road car this excess chassis roll overloads the outside tire and unloads the inside tire lowering overall traction.

As your outside suspension and tire compress your inside no longer goes into droop. The sway bar raises the inside suspension arm raising the inside tire.

This lowers your center of gravity causing your rc car or truck to settle down in corner and be more stable.

While on a on-road rc car a sway bar accomplishes the same thing, but the big difference is that it keeps both the inside and outside tires planted squarely on the ground increasing traction.

While the blade type sway bar is most common on rc on-road cars.

The formed wire type sway bars works by twisting, thus providing a spring action as it untwists. The blade type sway bar works by bending or flexing into a U-shape to produce its spring action. It is most common on touring cars as to keep their center gravity as low as possible.

As to the size of sway bar be it either the wire or blade has the same effect. A lighter or thinner sway bar will reduce the effect of the sway bar, while a heavier sway bar will increase the effect of the sway bar.

Also to keep in mind with learning how to adjust and tune your sway bars is your setup and driving style. You may want to run different size sway bars on the front and rear. There is no carved in stone rules when it comes to sway bar adjustment. It all depends on your conditions and driving style.

With the sway bar tying both the left and right side together, the sway bar must overcome the weight of the spring on the opposite side as one side compresses.

If a light weight thin sway bar is used this allows a lot of movement on the outside suspension arms and very little on the inside suspension arms in a corner.

While a thick heavy weight sway bar so stiffly connects both sides of your suspension resulting in what feels like a straight axle suspension.

The trick is finding the sweet spot between these two extremes. Sway bars do not change the overall traction of your rc car or truck, they just affect your side grip in a corner.

Besides springs chassis flex plays an important role in the effectiveness of your sway bars. The stiffer your chassis is the more responsive your car or truck will be to nay changes to sway bar settings.

Adjusting sway bars is a balancing act, increase stiffness to a sway bar on one end, reduces the side grip of that axle, while increasing the side grip on the other end. The net effect of sway bars on both on-road and off-road vehicles is almost the same.

A softer front bar:
1. Increases front chassis roll.
2. Increases front grip or traction, while decreasing rear grip or traction.
3. Slower steering response.
4. Increases off-power steering at corner entry.

A stiffer front bar:
1. Decreases front chassis roll.
2. Decreases front grip or traction, while increasing rear grip or traction.
3. Faster steering response.
4. Decreases off-power steering at corner entry.

A softer rear bar:
1. Increases rear chassis roll
2. Increases rear grip or traction, while decreasing front grip or traction.
3. Less on-power steering.

A stiffer rear bar:
1. Decreases rear chassis roll.
2. Decreases rear traction, while increasing front grip or traction.
3. Faster steering response in high speed corners and chicanes.
4. Increases on-power steering.




For on-road or touring cars the results of adjusting sway bars can quickly be seen. The easiest way to see if you are running the correct sway bars is tire wear.

Your goal is to get the front and rear tires to wear the same.

Also, if your touring car does not want to turn or pushes into the corners a smaller front sway bar could help.

Plus, if your touring car is turning too good or wants to spin out on corner entry a larger front sway bar can help correct this.

As for adjusting or tuning them on off-road vehicles it is not so straight forward. You need some chassis roll to help plant the outside tires in a corner, while at the same time you do not want too much to cause a roll-over.

It is a fine line and depends on your driving style and conditions.

Also your center of gravity comes into play with off-road vehicles the higher your center of gravity is the stiffer sway bar you are going to need.

This will cause your monster truck to squat more in the corners lowering its center of gravity.

With tying both sides of your suspension together it does have some drawbacks.

On a rough track and using stiff or heavy sway bar can have negative results to both off-road and on-road cars and trucks. Hit a rut or bump with one wheel will upset the suspension on the other side of the vehicle. This can cause small bumps and ruts to seem much bigger than they are.

So, if you are running on a bumpy or rough track try using a smaller or lighter sway bars.

The last thing to remember about sway bars is no one setting is going to work for every situation or driving style.

Want works for you more than likely not work for someone else and vice versa.

Learning how to master adjusting and tuning sway bars can and will improve both handling and performance.

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