Project Mustang 5.0, Part II: Controlling Body Roll with Whiteline

Here are some pictures of the rear sway bar mounted to the vehicle. The rear end links use synthetic elastomer bushings instead of spherical joints; the design of the bar renders their use unnecessary. I also set the rear bar to its softest setting, which again, is still stiffer than the factory bar.

Now, those Whiteline parts look pretty darn nice up there on the lift, but how well do they really work? Driving the car around town, the ride really isn't much bumpier than stock. But who really cares about around town? Well, we had ourselves a nice little autocross to test that out. The difference that the Whiteline sway bars made was immediately apparent. Body roll was drastically reduced.

Stig Mode: Engage!

The best way to describe the effect that the Whiteline bars had was that I felt a LOT more feedback from the inside front wheel during hard cornering. Compared to the way it felt now, it was almost as if that wheel wasn't even touching the ground before. The car simply felt flat around the corners and had a lot more tarmac-holding capability. Even when driven past the tires' limit of traction, it was almost impossible to upset the chassis. Previously, doing irresponsible things like kicking the back end loose in a glorious, smoky power slide caused the entire body to wallow to the side like a drunken Buick. Doing that now barely seemed to make the chassis lean.

Furthermore, the neutrality of the chassis was preserved. There was some worry on my part as to whether or not the front and rear bars would be well “matched” to each other and would thus require some “tuning” of the front and rear bar stiffness. To me, the car seemed just as neutral as before, although I will be playing with stiffening the front and rear bars at a later “test and tune” event.

Results? I benchmark myself against several drivers in my autocross club who are very good. After the addition of the Whiteline components I gained a second in relation to their times.