McLaren has no sway bars on their MP4-12c, but that doesn’t mean the car just flops about on the track. So how do they keep body roll in check? Hydralics, pistons, and hoses. This might seem rather complicated (in comparison to a regular sway bar) but the system isn’t actually as difficult to understand as it might seem. The colorful diagram by Engineering Explained really shows how the system works, and what’s happening when the system detects body roll.

The video starts with a simple diagram showing just two tires (you can pretend its the front or the rear of the car–it doesn’t matter) with pistons connected to each control arm. Inside these pistons is fluid, and rather than have holes or diaphragms inside of them, they are connected to the piston on the opposite side. Attached to that are small flow restrictors which can open, close, and vary in size depending on the needs of the car. For example, when you drive over a bump or pot hole, there is no reason for the system to transfer fluid from one side to the other, which could potentially make for a harsher ride. It’s also important to note that there are roll accumulators installed inline with the lines prior to the pistons on the other side. These roll accumulators allow flexibility in tuning and how much “roll” you experience while driving.

So with this type of system in place, you no longer need shocks or sway bars, since the kinetic system replaces those. You will however still have a traditional coil spring. Benefits of kinetic suspension is that damping and roll adjustment can be changed on the fly in any scenario to create optimum handling. With a normal sway bar setup, you typically would need to remove bolts and place them in different holes on the sway bar ends (assuming you even have adjustable sway bars). Plus, you can’t exactly do that while driving down the road or hitting corners on the track, like you can with the kinetic setup. Proving as a competitive advantage, this type of anti-roll system has been banned from certain motorsports such as the FIA. Will we start to see this sort of system trickle down into more affordable cars? Most likely not anytime soon.