Installed - Hotchkis front and rear sway bars

[mocohead]

I know this topic has been beaten to within an inch of its life but...yesterday I had Hotchkis sway bars installed and a 4 wheel alignment done. The reason for the sway bars vs springs and shocks is because I daily drive my Evo about 18k miles/yr. I am a 44 year old father of two who uses the Evo as a grocery getter, carpool car, and occasional twisty road entertainment device. Since the car spends far more time on the street than on the track, I wanted to preserve as much ride quality as possible while reducing body roll.

I chose the Hotchkis bars because of the grease fittings on the brackets and because I have had their bars on other cars and was very happy with them. Because the car is driven daily I wanted to be able to easily lubricate the bushings. Plus since I don't race the car this setup gave me the best compromise between performance and streetability.

The car was aligned to - 2.25 camber, 0 toe front and - 1.5 camber and 0 toe rear. Bars are on soft front, medium rear.

My initial impression is that the ride quality did not suffer, as I anticipated. Turn-in is very crisp and body roll is noticeably diminished. The car is more willing to change direction and generally feels more neutral. Time will tell but so far I am happy!

In my opinion this was a worthwhile mod that did not break the bank and made a definite improvement. For a car that is not RACED (as distinguished from attending HPDE or autocross) and where the goal is performance vs looks, I highly recommend this upgrade.

[evolutong]

subscriibed

[mocohead]

The main difference I feel is less radical weight transfer to the outside front tire. From the driver's seat the car seems more planted and has significantly less body roll. i am convinced that as a handling upgrade to a daily driver this was the right choice for me. YMMV...

[mocohead]

Got a chance to do some practice laps at the bmw cca autocross I organized last weekend. No timed runs though...by the time I got in the car somebody had already started picking up cones and clearing the course. Bummer...

Anyway I think the car now handles exactly how I want. Body motions are well controlled, grip is up and it rotates beautifully. It turns-in so crisply now! A fellow instructor drove it from the shop where we store our truck to the track. Knowing nothing about my sway bars, the first thing he said when he got out was "damn your car turns-in quickly..." All he did was follow me (I was driving the truck) and it was that obvious. To me that shows this is one of those mods you can enjoy driving daily without driving like a lunatic.

My only comment is despite greasing the bushings during install they are making quote a racket. This weekend I will grease them again. Too bad nobody makes larger sway bar with rubber bushings.

Still if you are on the fence I strongly recommend this upgrade! It is a great bang for the buck!!!!

[mocohead]

ok...um...lesson learned. Upgraded rear end links are NOT optional. My oem link snapped. Hotchkis links on the way. Fortunately they're easy to change.

Anybody considering a rsb MUST also do end links.

[MaC_X]

Nice review.. Planning to get one.

[mocohead]

I am instructing for bmw cca this weekend. saturday at willow springs and sunday at streets of willow. it will be interesting to see how the car feels on those tracks (if i actually get any track time). i got new hankook z214 in the medium c51 compound so there is lots for me to learn!

[itsoem]

^^Any updates^^

[Mike W]

Most of the EVO X aftermarket front sway bars we have installed either rub on the rear motor mount or on the power steering pipes. You slide things one way and they hit the other way. What looks like it will clear rubs when the bar pivots and travels through its arc. We'll clearance the motor mount side usually. Check your power steering pipes on the back of the steering rack to be sure nothing is rubbing.

Mike W

[mocohead]

Mike - thanks for the suggestion. I will double check!

Regarding the weekend...so much to say I will try not to bore people. Unfortunately because we were short of instructors I had no time to drive my own car. My impressions are based on driving a very similarly setup Evo X owned by a friend. It was my first time driving an Evo X with the sway bars, with Hankook Z214 C51 (medium compound) tires, with the CarboTech XP12 endurance compound and with a mil.spec HFC. The car I drove also had the Porsche brake guides and front backing plates removed.

Saturday we were on Willow Springs big track. I spent most of the day instructing so I got very little time to drive. That track is very high speed and not particularly brake or suspension intensive. The few laps I got to drive the Evo revealed that it felt very settled going into turn 8 at =/- 110 which was my personal max. The car was fine...I just was unwilling to go faster than that in another person's car. Coming out of turn 9 the car planted and rotated exactly the right amount to get the apex. Turn 2 is an uphill, LONG right hand corner that is taken nearly flat out in 3rd. Most cars tend to understeer pretty significantly since the turn is uphill and all the weight transfers to the back. The Evo was stable and totally neutral, clipping the very late apex easily while at full throttle. Tons of grip and minimal body roll. It was very impressive!

Sunday our Club ran Streets of Willow counter-clockwise. Streets is not nearly as fast as WSIR and far more technical. Due to it being a very busy day I got very little track time as a driver. My friend's car feels significantly faster than a stock Evo. Last time I was at Streets the Hawk HT-10's on the car I drove faded and boiled fluid (Castrol SR-F) and left horrible pad deposits on the rotors. The CarboTech pads were flawless and the rotors are good to keep using every day. No fluid boiling despite the fact I was driving a car using stickier tires and having far more power.

On Streets the sway bars really revealed themselves. On the tight stuff near the skid pad I was able to neatly rotate the car on the throttle which I could never do before. Through all of the off camber uphill twisty bits the car rotated perfectly and stuck like glue. Grip in the "Bowl" was truly a magical thing! Body roll was significantly reduced overall and the neutrality of the handling was amazing. Seriously this is how the Evo should have come from the factory IMHO.

I wish I had gotten more time to play with tire pressures as I am sure there was way more grip to get from the tires, but it was not my car. As it is, I had trouble getting them up to temperature since the ambient was hovering in the 40-50F range. Part of the problem is that as an instructor we were encouraged to take students for rides at 70-80% max. As a result the car really didn't get pushed that hard either day.

So are sway bars a good investment? Absolutely! I would personally start my Evo mod path with front and rear sway bars. They make a huge incremental improvement with minimal sacrifice in daily driving. When driven hard the sway bars enable the stock suspension geometry to work its magic. Honestly Mitsu did an incredible job designing and tuning the suspension and it is way too easy to mess it up. Sway bars are a pure improvement and well worth the effort. If your mod priority is performance over looks, sway bars are the way to go. I just recommend using Energy Suspension Grease on the bushings, inside and out. The polyurethane will squeak far less!!

The CarboTech pads on the car I drove showed almost no wear and worked brilliantly. No more awful pad transfer and distracting judder! Plus the CarboTechs work very well cold unlike the Hawks which are almost dangerous cold. The XP12 compound has a higher fade point than the Hawks and the endurance compound I tried never let me down. They have a great pedal feel, good initial bite and excellent stopping power when warmed-up. The only down side is they start off too thick to use the giro disc shims. I suggest having them shaved a bit before going to the track so you can use those shims. Overall - Great pad!!!!

I like the Hankooks a lot. They were not particularly communicative so they make a bad choice for a beginner but their break-away characteristics were predictable and controllable. Plus Tire Rack had them in the OEM size for less than a set of NT-01's so...it was a no-brainer for me. Wear was reasonable and I like that I can flip them and keep running for a while. Still please do not buy this (or any r-comp) tire unless you are very experienced. They are a terrible learning tire because the massive grip will always cover for your mistakes.

Maybe next time I can actually drive my own car...aaahhh the sacrifices we make for instructing others.

Thank you for reading this way-too-long review. If you want any more details please feel free to contact me via PM.