RON430

Ok, I have installed the TRD Sportivo sways (white) on my wifes 2k3 GS3 and here are the impressions. Install is the same as the blues, no fitment issues or surprises at all. The only difference is that the front bar is noticeably lighter than the blue. I didn't get any measurements but it looks like the diameter of the Sportivo front bar is about the same as the blue but must be a thinner wall thickness than the blue. The rear bar looks to be the same diameter as the stock bar but is heavier due to being solid. For those of us who went through the loose stabilizer bracket to frame attach bolts on the 2k1 cars, Lexus has it sorted out. The bolts were tight and torqued to proper specs on the 2k3 GS3. I doubt the white color will last but it is nice to have the part number on one side in blue and the TRD Sportivo logo on the other side. Front bar goes in only one way, with the TRD Sportivo facing up, but the rear bar can be put in with it facing down. My guess is that Lexus won't have any problem with this bar with that TRD number on it.

The full disclosure on "Frosty", my wife's parchment white 2k3 GS3 is that it has stock 225/55-16s (albeit Yokohama AVS dbs) and bilstein HDs if you have been watching my posts. Initial impressions are that the ride got better with these bars on rather than the stockers and that the stock bars shouldn't be on a Tercel, let alone a GS. Doesn't feel as flat as the TRD blues/bilstein Sports as on my 2k1 GS430 but a bit better than stock. My wife had to go over to Santa Cruz, for those of you in the bay area you know what 17 is like going over there (personal note, on Monday she said CHP was out in force with a radar setup about every third turn all the way over) and her comment after she returned was that the car felt just about perfect with better ride and markedly reduced sway in turns. Hmmmm, anytime most women notice something on a car it is either pretty good or pretty bad. I had driven the car a fair amount but really didn't notice too much difference but I did notice that the ride seems a bit smoother.

Last night going to go work out, I was tail end in a string of cars with probably half a dozen cars in trail to get to the next off ramp with about a half mile of clear behind me. Up comes a bimmer 330 and just has to get up passed me and put his turn signal on and force his way in between me and the car I am following rather than just get in line behind me. Ok, it torqued me off. We both get off at the next exit and I can't resist getting on his bumper. Exit is a fairly good sized 270 degree off ramp that dumps, with no merge, into two lanes of traffic. It is obvious to bimmer bill with the blacked out windows that I am on his bumper and he hits the ramp fairly hard. Well, frosty had no trouble staying right on his bumper. He went a little wide in the middle of a ramp, typical, the vast majority of bimmer drivers have larger bank accounts than they have driving ability, while frosty was just planted all the way around. When we hit the top of the ramp where it joined the street we were getting onto, I had to get off the gas just slightly and tap the brakes just slightly, or I would have put a L monogram on his roundel. He never slowed so frosty just plain caught him in the turn on the off ramp. We both accelerate hard and my wife makes the comment that he pi$$ed me off, didn't he? Well, I may be and old fart, but I'm not a dead old fart and yeah, he did pi$$ me off. We come up on the next intersection which is a three lane road crossing a four lane road and our hero cuts quickly into the turn lane to make the right. I was turning right also and was firmly back up on his bumper. After the turn, he has to drift into the middle lane while frosty was able to stay with the bimmer and stay in the far right merge lane. We then made a left turn to go work out so there was the end of it.

Was he trying? Yeah, he was trying. Did he have more left? I sure hope so because I can tell you that frosty could have gone quicker through this whole event, and that was on the 225/55-16 Yoko AVS db's which aren't exactly sticky gumballs. Was I impressed? Yeah, I was. I didn't see much way I should have kept up with, let alone caught up, to a bimmer three series with a big ol' GS3. So what do I think of the TRD Sportivo sways? I am impressed. The ride with the bilstein Sports was awful on this car and the HDs were a marked improvement but still somewhat stiffer than the stock suspension but the car just did not feel as stable in turns as my GS4 with the TRD blues. The Sportivo sways have a very subtle effect on the handling and, in my instance, actually smoothed out the ride somewhat. But, when called upon, these bars have a pronounced effect on the GS3 that really will put a smile on your face.

What would the Sportivo's do on a GS4? Don't know, but I have another set that I may just do some tinkering with. There is no doubt if you want absolutely dead flat cornering, the TRD blues are the ticket, but may not result in the best or quickest handling. But, if you are looking for that bimmer ride/handling combination, and are savvy enough to be able to separate bimmermyth from bimmerfact, than these two changes on a GS3 (the bilstein HDs and the Sportivos) put you pretty much in bimmer territory. If you look at a bunch of the tests, the sweetest ride/handling combination of the bimmers are the 3's (not M) and the 530. For a lot of the people here, I suspect that this combination would not impress you very much but if you want to get a Lexus to that wonderful ride/handling combination of a bimmer, a GS3 with bilstein HDs and the Sportivo's is about as close as I think you can get.

And if anyone from Lexus is lurking here, you have the Sportivo sways in the parts bin, they need to be the stock bars on the GS. I know the next gen GS is near but do everyone a favor and at least put these bars on the stock suspension on the current model. You aren't doing yourself any favor with the stock suspension on the GS and it can be improved at little cost.

Neo

iTrader: (3)

Gee Ron, how many sets of sways do you need?

Anyway, thanks for the write-up. Sounds like a solid upgrade.

RON430

Fair enough. Actually there are some posts here about how difficult the Sportivo sways are to get. They aren't. And I have a few other things planned that are going to increase the ride harshness of my GS4 so I thought I would get another set of Sportivos to be able to play around a bit. I will give my wife some more time with the new setup but my guess is that frosty is done with the possible exception of some tire experimentation.

amwendwa

Outstanding write up. I see Bilstein HDs and TRD sways on order.
P.S. Where did you get your sways and how much if you don't mind me asking?

MasterG

Ron , thank you for the right up. I held off buying sways until I feel that I can make a purchase with solid info. I think I want the Sportivo sways but with Tein CS coilovers.

RON430

My wife's GS3 is the daily driver and the more I drive that car, the more I am impressed with the Sportivos, the bilstein HDs, and the GS3 handling in general. There is just an eagerness to the GS3 that the GS4 doesn't have, really a good combination but definitely firmer than stock. I guess I am getting to the point of believing that the GS needs something beefier than the stock bars but probably not that much. If you have the blues and like them I think that is fine but when the spirit moves me, I will try out the Sportivos on the GS4. I never really felt that the blues stiffened things up that much but if I get smoother ride and keep the roll stiffness, that's not such a bad deal.

koreanpers

Did i read the above comment correct? Are you saying that you didnt really notice a big diff w/ the blue racing sways on??

RON430

No, you are not reading it correctly. There is a definite difference with the blue racing bars. Don't know exactly what you qualify as a big difference but it is very noticeable, at least in turns. But the blues let you know they are there, the Sportivos don't seem to let you know as much but in cornering, the GS3 stays remarkably flat. No quantitative numbers but not that far behind the blues. I am sure you would notice a difference going from Sportivo to blues but not as much as going from the stock to either.

CrazeeSC

Yes they let you know alright thatu have them you canfeel them on every bump on the road!!!!!

Ron how can the TRD stiff bars be good and the soft bars are good too? UR observatisn are confuzing

koreanpers

Yes im confused too. I thought i was going to get the blue racing ones...but i have heard mixed feedback bout them. I dont want a super harsh ride...we have a gs4...and body roll is way to much right now. has anyone tried the daizans? probbly spelled the name wrong

Guru

I have the TRD blues with the Tein CS suspensions and the ride is awesome. DOesn't feel all that much different than stock although the control is hugely improved and especially the steering feel! Incredible turn in as well.

CrazeeSC

Yes, definitely the TRD make the ride harsher theres no doubtabout that

RON430

Well, at least we got some interest going here. First, I would have to say that I don't find the TRD blues to have really affected the ride of the GS4 very much. I have bilstein sports and stock 16s on that car. However, several people couldn't wait to get rid of them and claim that they had a very negative impact on ride. My guess is that the guys who found them objectionable on ride are the ones who have lower profile tires/larger wheels, lowered ride with shorter springs (either adjustable or not), and stiffer shocks.

I get blamed for lengthy posts so let's see if I can do this briefly and get the point across. In the good ol' early days of trans am we had pretty awful chassis as far as stiffness was concerned and a pretty limited set of rules that prevented full tube chassis so we had to work around what the factories gave us. We pretty quickly found out on the Camaros that you really couldn't get the stabilizer bars too stiff, generally with pretty stiff springs too. As we learned more, we started looking at other things and found that the stiffer we went, the less the suspension worked (the ultimate in roll stiffness is just welding the axles in place but I wouldn't recommend it). We started to soften things up a bit and give various suspension components a chance to work, and went faster. I still like to reduce roll stiffness quite a bit (old habits die hard) but, above all, I prefer a balanced suspension - much like what bimmer has built its deserved reputation around. Here is a pretty simple question - can you make a stabilizer bar too stiff? The answer is yes, you can. If you look at what a stabilizer bar does, it transfers suspension movement from one side of the car to the other. This has the effect of reducing the independence of the suspension on each side as the coupling between the two sides has increased. I prefer to keep an independent suspension, thank you, for some other reasons. Are there any good things about body roll? This is a bit more circuitous but the entire suspension from the tires to the driver have to work together, at least for highest speed handling. Winding up in the weeds is somewhat undesirable. When the car gets up to its limits of adhesion, it is pretty nice for the driver to know it. Generally, increasing handling limits will wind up with the situation that if and when the car does break loose, it will be doing it at a speed where things will happen very quickly (one of the bigger reasons why people who raced on bias ply tires like me had a devil of a time transitioning to radial race tires - the bias ply had a lot of defficiencies relative to the radials but they were a lot more progressive in their feel, especially at the handling limits). Some body roll isn't a bad thing and I haven't been in any bimmers, porsches, vettes, etc., that don't have some body roll. In fact, the europeans tend to underdamp which gives higher initial body roll but the car will take a "set" and not move much from there.

So, what I am looking for, and this may not go for anyone else, is the softest bar that gives me the roll stiffness I want. The TRD blues definitely give me the roll stiffness I want on the GS4 (which is why I haven't exactly been in a hurry to swap them for the Sportivos) but it is pretty hard to tell if it is too much without trying out a less stiff bar. My wife's GS3 with the bilstein HDs and the Sportivo sways definitely has a firm ride, actually wouldn't mind softening it a bit, but as for handling, it just has a wonderful balance, better than bimmers in my opinion, and better than the GS430. I am really still in disbelief that there is this much difference between the GS3 and the GS430 but I can compare rides instantly and my buttometer certifies that the GS3 is a much different animal. The GS430 may do better with the TRD blues but having slightly more money than sense, although that doesn't make me that unique on this board, I have another set of TRD Sportivos and I will try them on the GS430 when I get the time and see how they do. Once I get totally fed up with the Michelins on the GS4, I will also switch over to 245/50-16s and that lower profile may make the ride a bit harder and that is when I will probably try out the Sportivos. If you have a GS4 and are happy with the ride and want more roll stiffness, the TRD blues will definitely give it to you and not have very much impact on ride. But, if you are going to make several changes at once like lower profile tires and new shocks/springs, you might want to wait and see how you like the ride before you go with the TRD blues as some people here have said that they do increase ride harshness. And, if what you have already done to the GS has the ride right up to or beyond what you like for ride harshness, don't be in a big hurry to get the TRD blues.

Hope that helps.

Letsride

Ron, great read. I personally wish you could get your hands on a set of the Daizen sways and test as well. This way you would be able to compare them all. Any chance of that happening in the near future?

RON430

You never know. Might give them a try but I really prefer the rubber bushings that the TRDs come with for a street car, especially a Lexus.