This one looks much better and definately better priced.

Agreed......looks very tempting.

I tried the 'uprating' approach before when I asked about Cupra bushes. They wanted to add an extra £120 to my premium as I was in the realms of uprated suspension as the car would be stiffer. Pfft....

Yet, when it came to my leather interior (£900 quids worth) they didn't want an extra penny. Daft.

You'll notice no difference in 3mm. This one looks much better and definately better priced.

Somebody brought this up a couple years ago about the front ARB. Here's my post on it:

Thats all well and good' date=' but the Fabia already has a front ARB, its either 19 or 21mm, so hardly worth upgrading imho.[/quote']

I hear this a lot, but according to the technical guides section:

ARB are rated on thickness, which is expressed in either mm or inches (or fractions thereof). Watch out though as a few mm or 16th of an inch can double the stiffness of the bar. Reason is that stiffness increases as a fourth power of change in diameter ie you multiply the diameter 4 times to get the stiffness. Best to work it out in mm. eg a 22mm bar gives an end value of 234256 while a 26mm bar gives 456976 (26x26x26x26) basically nearly twice as stiff!

So the 20mm bar is (20x20x20x20 = 160,000) and the 22mm would be (22x22x22x22 = 234,256) so 74,256 difference.

Now thats just numbers to me, as I have no idea what that means in practical terms except the difference is almost 50% the original bar, which must make some difference, yes?

So surely even 2mm is worthwhile if you want extra stiffness? Or am I way off here?

Can't find the original post in the Technical Guides Section anymore. Would do a search but I'm lazy. But thats the difference (as I see it) with a 2mm thicker bar. So 3mm would be even more. But still; it's only numbers to me. But I'd definitely say there's a difference?

But surely the actual material of the bar would play a part too? :confused:

edit, and also the mounting point... my physics is a bit rusty but wont the fact that the mounting points are 2-4in further apart than the Jabba arb, doesnt that mean there will be more force acting on it?

Hmmm......so 2mm extra almost doubles the stiffness of the bar? And the difference between these 2 is 3mm so that must be a bonkers amount of stiffness.......

Sounds like the Jabba one is still the better buy if you can afford it though due to the extra inherent stiffness.

You could do with the Whiteline fitting brackets for the twist beam and the Jabba bar itself.......but painted grey, not green.

Hmmm......so 2mm extra almost doubles the stiffness of the bar? And the difference between these 2 is 3mm so that must be a bonkers amount of stiffness.......

Sounds like the Jabba one is still the better buy if you can afford it though due to the extra inherent stiffness.

You could do with the Whiteline fitting brackets for the twist beam and the Jabba bar itself.......but painted grey, not green.

they come in black too

they come in black too

Well worth the extra £100 right there.

To be honest I think now the physics have been discussed I'd regret not getting the Jabba one. If I'm forking out extra for insurance I might as well get the fatter bar.

the only thing is with "adjustable " anything . it never gets adjusted ! you just put it on set it and leave it like that .

after having a bit of a study on this i have come up with a theory,this may be bs but here goes,i think the jabba arb will be better by quite a margin,and here is why,a arb works by twisting or not allowing so much of this,this whiteline arb acording to my maybe bs theory would be far less effective than the jabba item because of the bush arrangement on the bottom of the shocker mount,if there are four extra bushes that would be four places an arb could twist and when twisting,its not doing its job properly,hence on my homemade maybe bs theory the whiteline arb is an inferior item:D

can see where your coming from the dog bones have poly bushes , while they may not flex much they do flex non the less and so reduce the torsional stiffness of the bar

I dont think anyone can dismiss this bar though.

Its not as though whiteline as some sort of cowboy outfit.

They are a very very well respected manufacturer. The only way to know for sure if the Jabba ARB is better is for someone to test both.

Until then I think Whiteline is looking more likely for me. £100 is a significant sum after all.

With the figure eight attachment the whole ARB moment will just turn into a rotational moment making it as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

It needs to be a rigid mount to twist the ARB to add to the existing torsional beam.

With the figure eight attachment the whole ARB moment will just turn into a rotational moment making it as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

It needs to be a rigid mount to twist the ARB to add to the existing torsional beam.

It's a drop-link, not a piece of string. Some movement may be lost in arcs but most of it will translate into vertical movement of the bar. Personally, I'd like to see longer drop-links but that may prove difficult considering the limited space to play with. There'd have to be some bracketry...

J.

I had the whiteline ARB fitted to my Octy VRS at the weekend and it makes a good deal of difference. There are 4 settings on mine, it's currently set at next to softest and it has definately reduced understeer and made the car feel much more stable when cornering.

My insurance company didn't charge any extra to add to the policy either.

I haven't had another chance to drive the car since saturday so no more to report as yet.

Just reading people's comments and it strikes me that people just presume that bigger (or thicker in this case) is best And that a Solid (Rigid) mounting arangement is the best option (I think most, if not all modern sports cars/hot hatches run drop links to their Antiroll bars).

I've found this off the Whiteline website that may help clear a few things up for those who are interested in the techinical side of things

Why Fit Bigger Swaybars? Example of larger rear bars on front wheel drives

The fitting of larger swaybars (rear and in general) has two main effects, vehicle balance in terms of understeer and oversteer, and increased roll resistance. Both of these can provide increased overall grip levels that can be achieved by the vehicle.

As most factory vehicles are biased towards understeer, fitting of the larger rear swaybar will help in providing a more neutral characteristic in the handling at the limit. This is due to the increase in roll stiffness at the rear, which loads the rear wheels more unevenly and provides slightly less grip at the rear than previous.

At first this may sound sacrificial, however, as the rear end is resisting more of the roll, the front end resists less in proportion, leaving the front wheels more evenly loaded, therefore more available front end grip. In the end an increase in overall grip can be achieved by balancing the vehicle. A WRX or other front torque biased all wheel drive vehicle will benefit even more due to combined front end steering/traction demand.

Another effect of introducing larger rear bars is that the roll stiffness is increased, and chassis roll is reduced, this also reduces the effects of "roll camber". Roll camber is the variation in the wheel/tyre camber setting due to chassis roll, and during cornering usually results in the outside wheels gaining positive camber.

By increasing the roll stiffness and reducing roll camber effect, the wheel/tyre stays closer to its wheel alignment setting or optimal setting. This can increase the overall cornering grip available, as the wheel/tyre does not lose as much negative camber at the limit.

The balance (and grip increase) of the car could also be achieved by reducing the front swaybar stiffness, however its roll stiffness would be reduced and roll camber would suffer. This would lead to large amounts of positive camber being gained on the outside wheels/tyres when cornering. This would result in a wheel/tyre that would not be at its optimal camber setting at the limit of handling.

This could be remedied with large amounts of static camber to counter act the positive camber gain, however the resulting tyre where, and straight-line handling effects would suffer.

To maximise wet weather grip, a softer overall setting would be required from dry settings. The reason for this is that a wet track cannot give the same friction values as a dry track and therefore overall grip will never be as high as in the dry (hence the amount of chassis roll will be lower as well). The suspension can therefore be soften slightly until the camber setting start to be compromised due to camber roll.

So to conclude a larger rear bar in the wet should leave the car balanced however it would be slightly disadvantaged due to the high stiffness.

How big a bar do I need and how will it work?

Lets start first by assuming that every vehicle has a certain optimum "anti-roll" value, typically expressed in pounds or kilos. Don't ask me the ideal for the WRX as there are many formulas that have to take into account the COG (centre of gravity), RC (roll centres), the resultant roll couple and roll axis front to rear. We at Whiteline establish this optimal amount thru experience and testing though we are starting to use more computer modelling software to fast track development. With this amount in hand, the next issue is to determine where these amounts are needed and under what circumstances.

Best next to jump to the issue of cornering and how much we need where and when but its important to first identify that we need to split any given corner into at least 3 segments. Corner entry is that first phase where you initially turn in, you are generally decelerating either under brakes or on a trailing throttle. Needless to say the weight shift is moved toward the front. Mid corner is when you start aiming for the apex proper with either a neutral pitch (for-aft weight or movement mode) stance or slight power application. Corner exit is once you seriously start applying power and can be either just before the apex or after. Either way, the main steering line has been established and corner exit power is being applied to maximise forward speed. Accepting the above, its equally important to then segment handling bias according to corner position. That is, a mid-engine car with factory setup will typically understeer on "corner entry" and "middle" stages but very easily oversteer on exit if too much power is applied.

Understanding that everything is a compromise, it is useful to have a disproportionately high rear roll rate on corner entry to deliver more front roll to improve initial turn-in "bite" through the front outer. A heavier front spring like a lot of front anti-roll, will act to oppose the momentary (as little as a 1/10 sec) weight transfer required to give that "bite" which can result in more turn-in understeer. On the other hand, corner exit is all about maximising grip in longitude and latitude with throttle steering used to optimise outcome. Here, disproportionately more rear roll control acts to load the inside front (particularly useful on a fwd and WRX) as the outside rear is held more upright.

The correct total amount of "anti-roll" is inclusive of spring rate, which complicates the issue but it is still safe to assume that it is better to start with less spring rate than too much. The object is to maximise grip through adequate suspension travel at each wheel, a heavier spring rate makes it difficult for an individual wheel to react to changes in road surface under roll so contact is lost. Having said that, there is still no absolute correct number or recipe with two different racecars in any 2x car leading race team using largely different setups depending on the driver's preference. However, in most cases it will still function within a certain optimal pie of anti-roll force.

For more info see Whiteline Automotive - performance handling and suspension products. car spring coil shock damper swaybar sway bar anti-sway bush bushes australia australian whiteline automotive performance road holding turn-in camber caster toe in vehicle hot 4 v8

It also tells you about the benefit of the "blade" type adjustment the bar has.

These guys certainly know what their doing me thinks

oh and you don't have to buy the bar with the adjuster like I have. A standard bar is just £113 delivered!

You'll notice no difference in 3mm. This one looks much better and definately better priced.

you say that but going from 25mm rear to 28mm rear Neuspeed it does make a big difference.

(25/28mm neuspeed rear sizes as comparison)

imo the jabba arb is way overated! £200 is way too steap. does make a little diffrence but not as goodas every1 insists well not for me anyway! this white line arb looks smart!

you say that but going from 25mm rear to 28mm rear Neuspeed it does make a big difference.

(25/28mm neuspeed rear sizes as comparison)

I'm confident if you were to test 2 cars with the these two different bars, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that bit of info from Whiteline states that the more resistance to body roll at the rear the better, unless it's wet?

In which case, surely the Jabba one is more suited to heavily understeering cars like the vRS?

Having said that I'm still sorely tempted by one of these. It's a considerable saving over the Jabba one and will surely give very similar effects.

I'm confident if you were to test 2 cars with the these two different bars, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

LOL Snoopie... i think Badger bill has a teeeny weeny bit more experience than you in this field.

Two bars made of the same material, one 3mm bigger than the other means your pint is a small amount closer to your mouth for comfort of drinking.

Assuming the same material, there "should" be a difference between two bars of identical type but different diameter. Unfortunately, these two bars are likely not the same material exactly, and it's obvious they're built in different ways.

In can probably be summarised as....

A rear ARB greatly improves the handling of Fabia/Polo/Ibiza, where there is no factory fitted rear ARB.

J.

Indeed.^

The question is

Is the jabbasport one worth the extra outlay for the "average" driver i.e. the occasional spirited b-road jaunt

Im just waiting for all the jabba ones to turn up in the for sale section when people change over to this new one failing that, i may well buy one for the cupra next year

I'm confident if you were to test 2 cars with the these two different bars, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

bet you I could

:stupid:

the difference between no ARB and one fitted is huge

so the differece between one and another will be noticable

looks very interesting! ill be considering one in the very near future for my Ibiza!

Group buy anyone???