Nige wrote:As I understand it stiffening the rear anti roll bar on a FWD vehicle reduces body roll at that end and the effect on the handling is less understeer, conversely stiffening the front will reduce body roll at the front but will increase understeer. So it comes down to a question of handling balance and preference.
Body roll is not necessarily bad, it only becomes bad when it exceeds the ability of the suspension to keep the contact patch of the tyre firmly planted on the tarmac. When wheel lift or less than ideal wheel contact is reached reducing body roll simply pushes the point that this occurs further out.
Not sure that is strickley true as it depends on how stiff the chassis is and on the elan it is very stiff.
If the car has large amouts of body roll you are reducing the grip on the inside front tyre, it is not so bad on the rear but on the front you then raise issues of putting the power down, as it will tend to spin the wheel that is lightly loaded.
A bigger rear sway bar will move the handling more towards oversteer, and will also help in putting the power down on the way out of corners because it will help to keep the inside front tire planted.
Note: Going from say a 22mm diameter roll bar to say 26mm diameter will just about double its stiffness.