Hy 1200ralliecar. I am responding to you about the helper springs. There is helper springs that look like what you mentioned,a coil spring positioned under the frame and over the axle. That kind is more geared for heavy loading,because,in my opinion,it helps the axle tire components with handling the load over the car(dirt,motorcycles,bricks,whatever it is)... in a vertical way ,but it is not as good for performance ,because it does not help in lateral movement,,as in spring/axle warp,which happens when the car accelerates,and the differential tends to rotate(if looking at the car sideways,from the side,rear tire),as in the counterclockwise manner(as opposed to the rotation of the tire,which is clockwise). The axle sits on the spring plate which is bolted to the spring,so the front of the spring rises,and the rear of the same moves downwards with the moving(attempt to move) ...of the diferential/axle tendency. The spring helper I am taking about,helps on load as the coil one does,but it also prevents(or reduces to a minimum) this warping effect,because it is a bar,kind of curved,that goes beneath the spring plate,it is as wide as your spring leaves,somewhat shorter than your leaves,and holds underneath the spring plate with 2 U bolts (in reality they are squared,to hold on to the spring leaves)...one forward and the other efter the spring plate. The ends of this leaf rest on either side of your leaf arrangement.One is close to the front eye,the othe is close to the rear eye. For road use I found it excelent,adds strenght to the rear springs without having to add leafs and experiment with different thickness bars,it is a blot on thing,you do not have to disable your car to take off the leaf springs to a shop,and make the car really good on curves and on bumps. with them there is a limit your suspension will travel downwards,becoming insurance against bottoming,tires never rub against fenders,it becomes a performance car. For off road use,rally,etc it should work excellent.
What I said before about the sway bar versus stronger springs(or fitted w/this device).. is that I think you still need the sway bar,if you are into cornering,road use,because while the stronger springs push upwards the weight of the body when cornering(imagine the outside side of a car in heavy cornering,the body sinks down into the axle by compresing that side spring,and it is then where the helper spring,or stronger spring,fights back pushing upwards,resisting this "sinking" effect)...the other side,the inside side of the car,is where the opposite hapens,the body is going upwards and away from the axle,by stretching the spring leaves,which do nothing significant to arrest this separation. The sway bar acts as a scale(old fashioned,gold miners scale)... by pushing up on the sinking side and pulling down on the separating side.
I will look for pics of it,or the manufacturers address so you can see it. Here in US it is a cheap item found on auto stores for about 45 US bucks. I will bring in more info,
Cheers
Jaime

thanks, i think i understand all that but my next main concern with this system would be that in tightening up the rear end too much youre only going to influence the car to lift up on two wheels and increase risk of rolling. but up to the point where the tires do lift i agree you would have better handeling. i wont be using a rear sway bar on my car for this reason i placed the initial query for a friend whos looking at doing it to his road car. i would love to see some pictures of this set up if that is possible, thanks heaps, Michael

loose the sway bars completely sway bars are used for tarmac to stop the car breaking loose but in a rally car in the gravel half the time you are trying to get you car sideways im my opion swaybars are no good as my dad tryed running swaybars on his GTiR on the tarmac it's great but it seemed to handel better on gravel without swaybars

P.S this is only my opion

yeah but rally-a-coupe you still dont want mass amounts of body roll cause that aint good either, you need to as much as possible keep the weight evenly distributed (why i bought a 1200 as it has natural balance and light weight) on all four tyres as this will achieve maximum traction (going sideways is cool but aint always fastest). for this reason i reckon keep the front end flat with sway bar AND strut brace to reduce understeer but leave the arse end as independant as possible (i.e. as much like IRS on 1600s as that is a very good setup and the reason why people rally the 1600). the thing to watch out for with sway bars is though that if you upgrade to a really stiff one you will achieve better traction but also increase unpredictability as when you do manage to break traction the car becomes a lot more difficult to control.
thats my 2 cents anyhow

Hey rally 1200 and raly car,I am confused,you both are rally something!,well,I am responding to you guys. You both are right,the sway bar in the rear is not that good for the rally car,on top of that,the ute is light in the back,so strong shocks and springs are probably all you need in the back,a sway bar on front is needed though,to keep things in check. Rear sway bar is more geared towards road racing /performance(tarmac).
The front sway bar will help upon cornering,and does not interfere with suspension whe not cornering.
Jaime

Sedans suck, Coupes rule.

Quote:

I like both sedans and coupes,I would like to have both in racing trim

Jaime

John, John, John. Why must we go there again?
Someone hold Mareospeedwagon back!

Well, when you said degenerate I thought you were talking about me....

Sorry people, I think he ate something that didn't agree with him. And he would too!