# Bags and Upgraded sway bars



## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

so i used to have coilovers on my car, but i upgraded to bags for convenience and comfort last winter and i love them except for the fact that cornering just does not feel the same anymore.

Can anyone shed some info on how/if upgrading the rear/front sway bars would help bring the "stiffer" coilover feeling back?


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## Culver (Jun 1, 2009)

what's your PSI that you're driving at?


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## [email protected] (Sep 1, 2012)

Let's start with some basic information like what year and model car do you have, what product do you have installed, and what are your driving pressures?


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

CULVER said:


> what's your PSI that you're driving at?





[email protected] said:


> Let's start with some basic information like what year and model car do you have, what product do you have installed, and what are your driving pressures?




Airlift Performance Fronts
Air Lift Double bellow rears
Koni Orange rear shocks
autopilot v2 management

I'm generally riding at about 50 psi at all four corners

i know that increasing pressure will increase stiffness, but it gets too bouncey for me and then with that the cars center of gravity is higher which will result in more body roll


I'm not sure if it is possible with bags to obtain that feeling where the you can whip the car around a turn and it feel extremely planted. with bags the car seems to feel soft and washy on hard turns. now i understand i gave up performance by switching to bags, but i'm wondering if i can get some of that feel back? btw i was coming from koni's that were all the way down with the perches removed


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## Twilliams83 (Jan 25, 2011)

steveo17 said:


> Airlift Performance Fronts
> Air Lift Double bellow rears
> Koni Orange rear shocks
> autopilot v2 management
> ...


whats the front dampening set at on your bags?


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## Culver (Jun 1, 2009)

i have a mk4 w/ XL slams, and my car handle's a lot better than it ever did on coilovers. 

less roll, & less bump steer. 

and I removed my front sway, and installed a 30mm Rear.


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

CULVER said:


> i have a mk4 w/ XL slams, and my car handle's a lot better than it ever did on coilovers.
> 
> less roll, & less bump steer.
> 
> and I removed my front sway, and installed a 30mm Rear.




what coilovers did you have and how low?

did you have the RSB on the car with the coils?


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## christofambrosch (Jul 5, 2011)

My old GLI and my wife's R32 both had/have a Neuspeed 25mm rear sway bar.


18 | 365 by santorum, on Flickr

Front by santorum, on Flickr

AirLift Performance Series fronts and AirLift double bellow rears, with Bilstein shocks.


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## Culver (Jun 1, 2009)

steveo17 said:


> what coilovers did you have and how low?
> 
> did you have the RSB on the car with the coils?


raceland ultimos. not that low. my girls mk4 at the time had koni's, which were later switched to FK's. 
I personally thought my bags handled better than all the above. 

the RSB was put on a few months before switching to bags.


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

VR_Kraut said:


> My old GLI and my wife's R32 both had/have a Neuspeed 25mm rear sway bar.
> 
> 
> 18 | 365 by santorum, on Flickr
> ...


How does the car feel with the Rsb? 

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk


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## christofambrosch (Jul 5, 2011)

steveo17 said:


> How does the car feel with the Rsb?


Have you ever driven or rode in a car with an upgraded rsb? I personally feel it should be the number one suspension upgrade that anyone does to any car. Depends on the size and setting. I also still have the front sway bar connected via the Performance Series struts. The rsb reduces body roll dramatically and helps with understeer.


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

VR_Kraut said:


> Have you ever driven or rode in a car with an upgraded rsb? I personally feel it should be the number one suspension upgrade that anyone does to any car. Depends on the size and setting. I also still have the front sway bar connected via the Performance Series struts. The rsb reduces body roll dramatically and helps with understeer.




i actually haven't. when i was driving my car on konis it felt amazing whipping it around a turn. car was really planted and didnt feel loose/soft like it feels now on bags. i do have my front sway bar connected with the performance bags too


i was looking and autoanything has the whiteline sway bars on sale plus $20 off and free shipping and it ends up being $195 for the 24mm 2 point adjustable sway bar. Would you recommend that one?


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## christofambrosch (Jul 5, 2011)

First, try making adjustments with the front and rear dampening. Second, any rsb will make a difference. I've always bought Neuspeed so that's my preference (my MkV, B7, and MkII all have them).


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## [email protected] (Sep 1, 2012)

steveo17 said:


> now i understand i gave up performance by switching to bags


It is actually the opposite, the way we design our Performance Threaded Body product is to offer the ultimate driving performance through air suspension. We strongly recommend running our threaded body rear shocks with the performance front struts for a well balanced suspension setup.

That being said, everyone's individual preferences are never the same. Some people prefer a nice soft comfortable ride, some like their car to handle like it is on rails, then you have a good balance in between. This does require some tuning to achieve your desired results just like any coilover would.

What is your current damping setting? Is there any pressure left in the front bags when you air out? The recommended ride pressure is 45PSI with a damping setting of 15 clicks off full stiff.


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## christofambrosch (Jul 5, 2011)

My wife's R32 has the best handling I have ever experienced in a MkV platform during my years of suspension installs.


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> It is actually the opposite, the way we design our Performance Threaded Body product is to offer the ultimate driving performance through air suspension. We strongly recommend running our threaded body rear shocks with the performance front struts for a well balanced suspension setup.
> 
> That being said, everyone's individual preferences are never the same. Some people prefer a nice soft comfortable ride, some like their car to handle like it is on rails, then you have a good balance in between. This does require some tuning to achieve your desired results just like any coilover would.
> 
> What is your current damping setting? Is there any pressure left in the front bags when you air out? The recommended ride pressure is 45PSI with a damping setting of 15 clicks off full stiff.


ok. i'm going to try to adjust my dampening in the front. i think i have it in between full soft and full stiff


i will have to check what the psi is when the car is laying frame 

i would love to drive at 45 psi, but its not exactly feasible with the wheels/tires that i run (too much poke). i do have a feeling that the koni oranges are not helping the performance factor either



is it possible to have the car feel like its on rails...while on bags? but also still be a lot more comfy that coils?


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## Earlskey (Apr 3, 2007)

I think i'm about to start a thread, but i'm doing a bit of research. 

I had APR front and rear sway bars. The koni end links would not fit front sway with dorbrits bracket and I ended up getting whiteline front endlinks to go with it. The rear apr snapped my stock end links then i upgraded to koni which snapped as well. 

i then switched to rear H&R sway and Whiteline end links. Then The dorbrits brackets on my front were sliding like crazy. (I'm just reading dubb34r's update where he said to weld them.) Even with them slipping around, they eventually snapped my front whitelines and then i just removed the front sway. Just a month after, my rear adjustable whiteline end links broke out of the threads! At the moment I'm with no sways, and I really miss my cup kit right now. What else should I be looking into? Should I just go back to stock? or just not have sways?!?!?!


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## HonestChip (Apr 19, 2009)

I have a MKV TDI Jetta with performance struts and double bellows in the rear with koni yellows. I ride at 45 psi in the front with the dampening set to 8 from full stiff and it feels really good, ill be it stiff, which I enjoy. Also the sway is not attached up front and wanting to get aftermarket sways for the rear. I had to thread the body of my performance strut a little higher to run 45 psi though. 
Good luck getting it where you want it! It's defiantly a lot of experimentation :wave:


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## christofambrosch (Jul 5, 2011)

Earlskey said:


> I had APR front and rear sway bars. The koni end links would not fit front sway with dorbrits bracket and I ended up getting whiteline front endlinks to go with it. The rear apr snapped my stock end links then i upgraded to koni which snapped as well.
> 
> i then switched to rear H&R sway and Whiteline end links. Then The dorbrits brackets on my front were sliding like crazy. (I'm just reading dubb34r's update where he said to weld them.) Even with them slipping around, they eventually snapped my front whitelines and then i just removed the front sway. Just a month after, my rear adjustable whiteline end links broke out of the threads! At the moment I'm with no sways, and I really miss my cup kit right now. What else should I be looking into? Should I just go back to stock? or just not have sways?!?!?!


I would think the endlinks were faulty. However, I had problems with the Dorbrits brakets slipping as well. I removed them and order the Performance struts. They come with shortened endlinks. In the rear (my wife's R32), I went from the OEM endlinks to the Neuspeed along with the Neuspeed rear sway bar. Car will lay frame, air up pretty high, and the daily ride height is 60f/47r with the front dampening set at 26/30 clicks. No issues, none.

Your issues could have come from the adjustments you had the endlinks at. If they were too long or short, they may have been stressed. Hope that helps.


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## ShadowWabbit (Aug 16, 2006)

On my rabbit I had XLs with no front bar and a 24mm H&R RSB with BSH billet end links and it handled almost identical to my H&R ultralows. I now recommend a bigger rear sway bar for anyone bagged who's not satisfied with the handling.


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## Turbo_Joe (Nov 13, 2009)

I just switched from stock to a 28mm hotchkis rear sway bar and it made a huge difference. I can already tell a difference just riding around town. MKVI GTI with airlift performance kit


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## steveo17 (Feb 9, 2010)

ShadowWabbit said:


> On my rabbit I had XLs with no front bar and a 24mm H&R RSB with BSH billet end links and it handled almost identical to my H&R ultralows. I now recommend a bigger rear sway bar for anyone bagged who's not satisfied with the handling.


this is great news. makes me really want to get a better RSB. does it matter what size/brand i go with in the rear? i have performance front struts and my sway bar still in. 

is a bigger sway bar better?

also how much of a difference does the bsh billet end links make then?


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