Thread: swaybar opinions and experiences

I have been reading and searching alot about aftermarket swaybars.
I have decided to get a progress adj.rear for my nx for sure,but what about the front?
From what I have been reading,the front bar on my nx is a solid bar(28mm) and the progress is only 2mm bigger(30mm)
I have seen threads stating that the stock bar is not necessary.
I think I even read a thread stating that the car rotates a little better with only the progress rear,and leaving the front stock will understeer less.
If this is true I can spend that 200 that would go to the front bar on a wideband instead
whaddaya think??

Any opinions or input from experience will be greatly appreciated

koo koo kachoo

What types of racing are you doing with the car? For occasional track days, autocrossing, or street driving doing just the rear bar is fine!

If you are starting to get fast at track days or take track days seriously the larger front bar is necessary for high speed work when the rest of your suspension and driving abilities are up to snuff.

One of the first things I did to my suspension was install a progress rear sway bar (set at the middle adjustment) and replace my front sway bar with one from the Sentra XE model. The XE bar is the same diameter as the SE-R bar but it is hollow instead of solid which obviously makes it less stiff, and it is a direct bolt in. (Front swaybar washers are a failure point on our cars so while you're at it get the ES replacements if they still make them.)

Even with stock springs it was a huge improvement in low speed rotation. The car really woke up from those mods. It might have been too much rotation at higher speeds, but adjusting the rear bar and/or choosing tires and inflation pressures properly can counteract that.

Stiffer springs typically negate the need for sway bars so the stiffer you go from stock the less you should need in a sway bar. I don't know if even the stiffest coilover springs typically run (500F/380R) are stiff enough to allow the complete removal of either sway bar, but that might be up to personal preference.

Going to the XE bar with stock springs doesn't sound like a great idea in theory. Maybe going with the progress rear (on full stiff setting) and keeping the front bar stock will work well. That being said, my car sure did like the XE/progress setup on stock springs suspension.

Thats funny you posted this Eggman because I was going to do a product review on this Part.... Well....I bought the progress bar recently for my B14 I have to say good quality very thick and stiff. There is a big noticeable difference between stock and this bar, your cornering speed will go up just for the fact that you will feel more planted in corners,on dry pavement.. I have the bar on the lightest setting right now. ....Now for the bad part......On rainy days the front end of my car under steers to the out side of corners during high speeds +25 mph.. this is scary to me...and very dangerous. One reason I think it does this is that I did not do was get a alignment yet... I believe with the addition of this bar it alignment changes dramatically. So make sure you set aside some money for that alignment as well if you do buy the bar...Another negative about the progress bar( IN MY EYES) is the weight of the bar. Using a horrible scale in my house I believe the progress bar weighed in at 25+ pounds while the stock bar came in at under 10 pounds. I also had slight installation problems with this bar with the B14. I don't know if it was originally designed for B13's it gave me slight install problems. I called progress customer service they were clueless, I had to come up with something on my own. Everyone has there tastes in parts but me personally I drive the car on the street 80% of the time I am going back to the stock bar with energy bushings. I say leave this part for the autocross racers.

Well,its my daily driver,but I have alot of curvy roads around here.
I also want to start autocrossing and theres a local time attack on a small roadcourse I would like to start running soon.



Thanks for the input.I am running hyperco/agx and plan on keeping the setup,its very DD friendly.
So if you went with the xe bar,that would tell me not try the front,I guess I will just keep the stock bar for a while.
I actually have a es kit for the car,and was about to put the rear swaybar stuff on when I started to look into a upgraded bar.



Wow,good info to now.
as I replied above,I do plan to start tracking the car soon.
My car has a spot on 4 wheel alignment now,and I cant see where changing the rear bar would affect it.There isnt really anything that you loosen to install it that changes the alignment s there?

This was the Progress front bar, I did not install the rear yet.

Oh yeah wow,that make alot more sense.

This link should provide you more info on the Suspension Techniques sway bars.
ST SWAY BARS
As a summary - keep the OEM front one and install the rear ST bar.

i currently am running a pair of ST bars front and rear with the hyperco/agx combos.i have been running this for the past few years. its very good on the street car just goes were you point it with no fuss and hold corners very very well. how it does at the track i don't know since my cars have only gone straight at the track ( IE drag). if i was to do it all over again i would go with the Progress bars mainly because of the adjustably and how they mount up seems to be less likly to bind than the ST bars. on a side note i run the rear strut bar as with no front strut bar and polly bushings all around.

I have never had a chance to try the progress front bar, but I can say this. On my old B14, I was running the progress rear bar (which is a questionable product IMO) and the OEM B14 front sway. The car felt ok with that setup. However, I ended up replacing the OEM B14 front bar with a OEM B13 bar (hollow 26mm vs. solid 28mm). The difference was night and day! The car felt soooo much better. The car felt more planted and responsive and I found myself throwing the car into corners much harder then before. Seriously, it was one of the best changes I made to that car. I know a lot off people will warn against running a larger front bar, but I really believe they are quite beneficial. In theory, yes more front roll resistance will promote understeer. However, the benefit I saw from running a larger front bar was not so much how the car handled in response, rather how I reacted as the driver. My confidence as the driver went up and with a better sense of communication with the car, I was able to drive the car much faster.

On my current B14, I plan on running the progress front bar and no rear bar. Yes that's right, NO rear bar. I honestly feel that adding a rear sway to a B14 does more harm then good. Anyways, good luck with the car.