upgrading rollbars

[peester]

Is it worth upgrading the small front and non-existing rear anti roll bar on my 1.2 mk1 to gte/gsi fitted bigger front and rear items? i have a full (including rollbars) set of poly bushes to suit my now sold gsi which ide like to fit to this mk1 1200 but as it is the roll bar bushes would be spare and/or not fit.
Sticking to small block engines with this one; just thinking bout that roll bar / no roll bar debate..

[dannyb]

You have a small anti roll bar on a 1.2?? My 1.2 Merit didnt come with **** as far as anti roll bars go so its prob been fitted as an afterthought. SR/SRi/TD ARBs were 18mm in diameter, GTE/GSi ARBs were 20mm in diameter so only a marginal difference in stiffness. You ought to trial fit the poly bushes to the ARB to see if it will fit, if they are loose get some GTE/GSi bars. I'd stick with the ARB if you arent going to coilover it. If you have coilovers, bin the bars and sell the poly bushes for the ARBs to me!

[Stuart]

rear arb is a must
front personally no way

[peester]

rear arb is a must
front personally no way

ok cool - at least i get to use the rear bar bushes.. ill sort myself one.

ta dude.... anymore agree with stu on the front roll bar??

[Adam]

Remove/Dont fit front ARB
Fit/Keep the rear ARB.

[peester]

No one says fit a front ARB.
Just the rear.

you saying remove the front roll bar that i currently have on the car then??

[Adam]

Yip.

[Dar]

If it was me I would fit both ARB's if you are not running very stiff suspension.
I ran a front and rear ARB on mine with the bilstein sprintline kit and the car still leaned far too much. So I would hate to think what it was like without one fitted.

The reason (as far as I see it) you can get rid of the front ARB 'once your suspension is suitably upgraded' is that the car won't lean much anyway and the ARB will not allow the uprated suspension to work independly, thus not maximising the contact with the road surface . However if your suspension isn't stiff enough then it will help level the car out through bends making it handle better.

However its all personal choice. I would say try it with first, then take it off and see if you prefer it. It may feel like your cornering harder once its off because the car will be leaning soooo much.

[craig green]

I agree. On sloppy std suspension the ARB will do its thang, but when lowered & stiffened right up. Lose it.

[Stuart]

all it did on my std sloppy suspension was to make it understeer REALLY badly compared to not having it

[Dan]

I ran a front and rear ARB on mine with the bilstein sprintline kit and the car still leaned far too much. So I would hate to think what it was like without one fitted.


In all honesty not much difference but with alot less understeer and a faster capable cornering speed as i tested it back to back when i used to run this same setup and first removed my arb yrs ago.

[CP]

My main gripe with the front ARB is that its a **** design that doesnt really work very well. Because its not referenced onto the chassis directly anywhere it loses part of the effect of a roll bar plus the way it acts and where it acts is so crude. If you look at better handling cars they have a RB mounted onto the chassis usually behind the front wheels with vertical drop arms onto the bottom arms right near the wheels. Best to get some decent aftermarket uprated shocks and springs and get rid of the ARB. If the suspension is std it wont make a lot of difference whether its on or not - nova std front suspension design is cheap **** really