Suzuki Swift 1.6 4wd handling

[redzuki]

Dear Whiteline,

I am just about to re-build the car stated above. I appreciate you may well have limited experience of this particular vehicle.

I would like to make a few upgrade's to the vehicle's handling. For me there is too much body roll on the vehicle and therefore I am interested in some anti roll bars. The vehicle is used as daily transport, fast road and if I am lucky a sniff of trackday use.

You do not have an anti roll bar for this vehicle listed, but you do have some listed for the 1.3 Gti AWD. Could these products be used on my vehicle? Main reasons why not will be the different gearbox and the fact that there is more weight at the back of my car as it is a saloon as opposed to the 1.3 Gti AWD being a hatchback?

You have also carried out testing on Swift Gti's in the past and have concluded your tests with some camber, caster and toe settings. How applicable are these setting's to my vehicle again with the boot and 4wd. I appreciate that it may well be a whole different ball game due to differing drivetrains.

Like the tested Gti in your article I would like my vehicle tighter with a sharper turn in. My vehicle, under enthusiastic driving tends to understeers slightly and I was wondering what advise you had with respects to dialing in more balanced cornering.

I also have a set of Apex -35mm (I think) lowering springs specific to the saloon. I do not know the spring rate and cannot find the relevant information on the Apex website. I also have a set of new (ish) Monroe dampers. I am unsure of these specs aswell. Labels are scrubbed off.

I was also wondering what effect significantly larger ARB's have on warp characteristics? If you have a much stiffer ARB would force not be transferred to the other side of the vehicle if you hit a bump or pothole and therefore bring about some interesting handling charachteristics? Is the key not to go too stiff?

Thank you for your time,

alex

[Whiteline]

Hi Alex,

We do a range of bars for the Suzuki swift 89-00, if you can email myself with a build date and exact model code so i can narrow it down further that would be appreciated. Possibly even send some photos.I also need too know if it has independent rear suspension as i am not too familiar with the suspension on these vehicle.
Normally, without a sway bar when the car corners the weight of the chassis
shifts toward the outside of the turn compressing the springs on that side. The
springs on the inside generally extend a little, or do nothing. A sway bar couples the suspensions on each side to each other, and relative
to the chassis. If you could put the car up on a hoist and actually compress
the suspension on one side , then a sway bar makes the compression of one
side also try to compress the suspension on the other..

A sway bar effectively increases the spring rate on whichever side
is compressed so if the sway bar were absolutely solid with no
twist so there's a 100% coupling between each side then
an attempt to compress one spring actually becomes an attempt to
compress both springs. It doubles the spring rate. If the bar has some
twist, then it may only increase the spring rate by 50% on whichever side
is compressed the most.This is why there is such a fine relationship between sway bars and springs. There are also many different ways to achieve a better balanced vehicle through adjustable sway bars and alignment correction products and specs. Please endeavour to send me your information so i can help you ouy more.


Regards,

david@redranger.com.au