Greetings eveyone,
I hope you are all well. I have just bought a 2017 i30 SR premium and I must say what a lovely car it is. I am new to the site, and grateful for such a wealth of knowledge here.
I would like to make a couple of basic mods to the car, and was thinking of a sway bar upgrade and perhaps an exhaust upgrade also.
I notice I can purchase 1 x sway bar or 2 x sway bar upgrade kits for front and rear. What are the differences and the benefits to 2 x sway bar upgrade compared to the 1, and do I need 2 sway bars to stiffen up the steering and lesson the under steer or is 1 sufficient? This is one I was looking at: Whiteline F And R Sway Bar Vehicle Kit - Hyundai i30 PD/i30 N PD/Kia Cerato GT BD BHK018
Hi Rob, sorry, I'm so late replying to your post. Have you gone ahead and bought swaybar/s? If so, what are your thoughts?
When I read you wanted to reduce your understeer I assumed you must be doing what is euphemistically called 'spirited driving' on the street? Car manufacturers favour default understeer settings for the road, being supposedly safer than default oversteer.
I had a 2006 WRX/STi. First time I threw it hard around a very large roundabout (3am, no traffic) it understeered like a pig! So disappointing! From memory, I upped the front bar from 17 or 19mm to Whiteline adjustable 22mm and it made a big difference...but I was taking the first planned steps towards club level motorsport, while still being a road-registered sleeper for the HWP!
When I first got my 2018 i30 SR I seriously toyed with the idea of modifications e.g. swaybars, coilovers, 17" wheels, better tyres, improved exhaust and a sneaky ECU upgrade and then do some track days or supersprints to keep my skills up. But 4 years on, nothing! Too old and too lazy to pick up tools.
For street use only, I personally would not be changing swaybars or doing other mods unless I intended doing some track days etc...it can be too much of a temptation to test the changes on the street. Mind you, I am a 78-year-old grump and I suspect if I was a much younger man I might think differently and make my SR a street monster and swap lies with the Maccas car park crowd.