b.obsdian | b.orginal

A couple of years ago, I upgraded my sway bars to Cusco 22mm units. Initially, I said the changes were subtle, but had few negative issues. The Bugeye was definitely flatter in the turns and the car seems to handle better. I don’t mind some body roll, but if the Bugeye handles better without it, so be it.

However, there was one major issue. Understeer.

In some random scenarios, almost without warning, the WRX would understeer. I tried pulling some negative camber out, and that helped a little bit. I was thinking about unflipping my control arm pins to reduce the caster.

Then I stumbled upon a video by Julian Edgar.

He suggests trying a smaller front sway bar or larger rear sway bar to reduce non-terminal understeer. His argument is getting the front end to “work harder” will improve understeer. I was skeptical, but I gave it a shot and swapped back to the 20mm OEM STI front sway bar.

It worked!

The front end does roll a bit more, which is fine. Not all body roll is bad. However, in the turns, the car feels more neutral. The front end grips, and the rear end is happy to follow along. Initial turn-in is slightly worse (and I do mean slightly), but then it gets significantly better the more you turn! I think I might need to replace my control arm bushings to clean up the initial turn-in.

I’m not sure why I developed random understeer. I think all the weight reduction I have done on the front end may have reduced the need for a bigger front sway bar. So far, the understeer hasn’t cropped back up. In fact, the car feels GREAT!!

Cheers!