Looking for suspension upgrade recommendations

Hey guys, title says it all. My Fiesta is full bolt on at this time, and after doing some runs at the Tail of the Dragon this last week, it made me super eager to continue building my suspension setup.

What are some of the things I could get... I already have Bilstein B8s on H&Rs. I was thinking of getting SuperPro Front Lower Control Arms, 2 point trac bar, front sway bar links, and 22mm rear sway bar.

Any recommendations are appreciated and brand recommendations.

some links:

https://whooshmotorsports.com/produ...arm-set-2014-fiesta-st?variant=42971285782706

https://whooshmotorsports.com/produ...iesta-st-free-shipping?variant=35839537414306

https://whooshmotorsports.com/produ...adjustable-sway-bar-links?variant=30013893443

https://whooshmotorsports.com/produ...fiesta-st-free-shipping?variant=1251504324622

The 2 point track bar is OK. I have a 4 point and like it. From everything I have heard, if you are going to do it at all, get a 6 point. It will really firm things up. Whatever you end up doing, make certain you pick up replacement bolts. They are torque to yield and if you reuse them you risk breaking them.

I use those exact swaybar end links. They work well, but are only nessisary when trying to corner balance the car.

I use a rear sway bar and a torsion bar, which may be overkill. Good luck with your build.

Forgive my arrogance and lack if research, but is Pierce a good brand? Also, what is corner balancing?

It looks like a 4 or 6 point is the way to go.. and I have a 15’ so ive read the rear sway bar can be beneficial. i have also heard people just completely removing their front sway bar but i am still researching

do you have any other recommendations not on here?

Someone more proficient than I can describe/explain exactly what corner balancing does for the car's handling, instant center, etc.

But I do know that it can only be done with any real accuracy with an adjustable collar type front coil over, and rear weight jacker/spring height adjuster on the basic suspension type our rides came with from the factory.

if you're wanting something for the street then the Bilstein B6 are the way to go. if you're looking to do street and track you'll need a set of coil overs. With a few minor adjustments to the camber front and rear this will increase your handling. Now I've never been able to drive one of these small cars.. so I would need to know that if you've even been air board or jumped a few humps with the car. How did it act or react did it land on all fours of on the rear first or frotn first. I know that our suspension upgrade on the van has been adjusted so when it does and has bene air borne.. the van lands on all fours.. which is ideal for me. if others have installed a particular brand of coil overs then I would look into and invest in a set. I know that there are at least four major brands of coil over companies that have offered a set of their coil overs at a discount. However, just the other day SP racing has bene in comminutions with me about maybe designing a custom coil over set for the van.. which would be unlike what those other 3 companies currently offer. Furthermore, a coil over tend to be very stiff and often drivers adjust these depending on the road course. You're just looking for a happy medium.

I have never had any problems with the Pierce branded equipment I have installed. M-Sport is spot on about corner balancing, it is very difficult to do with the way our car is setup (especially the rear). I would recommend you stay with the stock endlinks.

yes forgot to mention the end links assuming they are within the correct length range.. the van's were not and we had to shorten them. in fact just added anew set of the whiteline links because the superpro's blew out 3 weeks ago. This will make the 6th set of different links we've installed on the van. and with the upcoming 28mm sway abr.. I would like to hope these whiteline last longer that 13 months with the superpro. we even test the Bimmerworld spherical ball joint links and these failed. We're talking about clearances. as the M12 studs could be too wide/long for the car. But whiteline told me we could drill out the mounting points and add the m12 to our setup.. we may opt for that.

Oh one more thing to the Op cross reference any other cars that have or use the same type of parts.. often crossover parts form one car will fit on another.. we found this to be the case in several instances.. Oh and Op, Just noticed the end links are what's on our van now, been adjusted to the 10.5 or 266.7mm. Check how level the sway bar is when adding these links.. the sway bar should be +10 / level / -10 anything more or less then this, could cause handing issues.

Both corner balancing and sway bar preload affect weight transfer between opposite corners.

A car is like a stool with 4 legs. If one leg is short, it will reduce load on both its corner and the opposite corner, leaving more weight on the remaining two. This “cross weight” property is what allows the springs and sway bar to effectively transfer load when cornering both across an axle, but also front to rear (by making one axle stiffer than the other)

For an example that’s more clear to see, when your stiff rear sway bar causes the inside rear to lift in a corner, the weight of the car gets redistributed to both the outside rear and also the inside front. Even in a corner, the four wheels still have to hold 100% of its weight up

Tires don’t actually have a linear friction response (you get less and less available maximum cornering force for each pound you add to one corner as ).

In the case of the rear sway bar, that effect means that the less stiff axle that is more evenly distributed (front) generates more cornering force, and the stiffer, less evenly weighted axle (rear) loses grip, and the result is what we like to call “oversteer”

Back to sway bar preload and corner weights, this means that uneven corner weights means that weight transfer no longer starts from “zero”, and the weight transfer effect will slightly be different between cornering left and cornering right! In this case you’ll find that the car feels different in the two directions.

Taken to the extreme of unevenness, you might find that the car, say, understeers turning right but oversteers turning left, and also generates more grip when turning one way vs the other. This effect (along with unsymmetrical alignment) is actually exploited in oval racing (like NASCAR) to make the car better at turning left than right.

Clear as mud?

2 Point....4point...6 point. Anything is better than nothing there trust me. The LCA bolts are TTY bolts but you can get Non TTY bolts from Ron @ Whoosh.

Update:

Just wanted to add.. that the custom coil springs (2'' shorter & 20% stiffer than OE) was test fitted on the van today. All system go. Next up, getting them powder coated. So if you're looking for another option in coil springs for your car, I'd seriously think about contacting Coil Spring Specialist, KS.

Someone at the forum, needs to design a set of coil springs and have CSS create them for you based on your specs. Once made, these springs will then be available to all other Fiesta owners as a Fiesta ST Forum Brand special or group buy..

The basic idea for corner balancing involves a scale under each tire and adjusting individual coilovers until the weight on all 4 scales is the same. As @Dialcaliper mentions, this can be done unevenly for purpose as well.

if you don't have quality coil-over money, just go for b8s + swift springs.

Or try DialCaliper’s experimental spring set up and get the benefits of the stiffer springs without having to lower the car …

My guess (and hope) is that the Swift Spec Rs on B6es will not lower the car more than a half inch, while yielding a higher rate than factory (especially the post '15 to early '16 OEM rate), linear rate springs.

Most likely the route I will take when I need a new suspension setup.

For reference:
https://www.fiestastforum.com/threa...ce-springs-for-oem-b6-style-suspension.30829/

All the fun, none of the drop!