Re: Handling problem/question
I am wondering if the lack of a rear sway bar could cause this?
Yes, I just replaced my rear sway's bushings and just that alone made a HUGE improvement and made it drive/handle much better
No rear sway is essentialy going to load most of the weight on the front outside tire, which will likely make for some funky handling. However, because of the lack of the sway on the rear I beleive you might also have an easy tendency to load one corner in the rear if you turned in hard enough, which needless to say makes driving the car very interesting.
http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?t=72486
In my thread, I had old/worn out cheap polyuro bushings that had ovaled on my swaybar, after I replaced them it went from feeling like my axle was moving 1" to either side, to it feeling like I just put in a link setup. I had spent years chasing suspension parts down just to figure out it was these the whole time.
Essentially the worn out bushings on sways try to make you car constantly try to load it's weight to either side of the vehicle and turn, and would get alot of wobbling side-to-side effects.
If you're complaining of handling problems and don't have both a front and rear sway, I would get both sways and then take it from there, having a rear way will be a HUGE improvement.
IMO alignments should either be OEM if you don't like to carve corners, and then if you do I'd try to run around -.5 to -1 camber, +5-6* of caster, and slightly less toe in than factory.
I usually run that alignment and it feels great, definitely far sportier than stock, however you may wear the insides of your tires out faster than the outsides. I've run neutral toe before and IMO unless it's a racecar you probably don't want that.
