I would start looking here:

Sporty upgrades/mods

Loving the 500e so far. Today was 1st day in an ICE vehicle since I bought the 500e. It brought a couple things up that I would like to tweak. Not looking to make it a racecar, just liven it up a hair as it is not as sporty as I expected. #1 Throttle response. Honestly feels like 1/4-1/3 pedal...

www.fiat500owners.com

 

However if your primary issue is body roll, a rear sway bar is the easiest solution. I haven't been able to find any 500e-specific bars, & it has about 150% as much weight trying to slide the back end out, if you stiffened rear body roll as much as the lighter cars.

In other words, a rear bar that makes an Abarth or Turbo handle perfectly neutral would make a 500e oversteer. A bit of that is okay IF everyone who drives the car has sufficient skill. However if oversteer is excessive, you'd need to try to find a stiffer front bar & add that too, or try to figure out how to soften the new rear one...

I found one rear bar which can be softened (click here or here or here). It's pretty pricey, but cheaper than an OEM Abarth rear bar (click to enlarge):

Worst-case scenario with the DNA bar: If its softest setting is still too stiff, a VERY simple bracket could easily be bolted to the side of its stock bracket, to give one or more additional softer settings:

 

Nice, thanks for the links and info to a question I had not asked yet !

Do you know if the fitment for all the rear sway bars the same ?
I remember reading a comment about the rear bar, interfering with some wheels ?

 

I believe they all fit the same* with only ONE exception:

The $400 brackets for the OEM Abarth rear bar will apparently bolt onto an E, but they won't fit with 15" wheels unless you grind them down:

That's the only reason why 16" is the official minimum size for Abarth (15s will fit on the front - same brake size as the E).

* Note that the first link above says (their bold) "FITS: FIAT 500 (All Models)", & the 2nd one says "Applications: FIAT 500 – Abarth included (2007>)".

 

I’m not particularly fond of those knurled rod/bracket setups, the DNA bar link you provided is the * Normal* setup I’ve had on most of the other cars I’ve had.

 

@Electric Tire Shredder Thank you so much for the wealth of information here!! This was exactly what I needed.

 

I hope it helps you decide what to do & report back.

Since I apparently haven't overwhelmed you yet, I wanted to make sure you know that body roll is also reduced by:

• Front sway-bar stiffening, but if you only do that then the front end will slide out even more than it already does (understeer).
• Lowering/stiffening, such as with Bilstein's Abarth kit #47-270176, which is a bit over $1k, but @500e*clipse confirms will bolt straight onto a 500e:

Yes, there are cheaper ways of lowering/stiffening, like cutting the rear coils & using Abarth fronts, but they're way more work than bolting on a rear swaybar, & may not have as much effect on body roll.

 

CAUTION!

Anyone with a 500e who plans to use a rear swaybar that's made for a gas 500, should first either:

• Find a report from someone else who has done it*, or
• See if it's even possible to stiffen the stock front swaybar, to balance out any excessive oversteer...

The stock front may already be maxed out:

Please see post #3 above. When adding weight (like our batteries) to the back of any car design, the age-old cheap-&-easy industry standard solution is to stiffen the front swaybar. Fiat may have maxed it out & it still wasn't enough. That may be why they added the VERY expensive staggered-width wheels!


* I haven't seen any reports, but I haven't looked all that hard yet. If anyone reading this knows of any, please reply.

 

I’m not sure I understand what wider wheels with the same width tires will do for the back end ?

Thinking about this a bit more.
This will result in the bead of the tire sitting wider on the back rim than the front, ( but only 1/4‘’ ) this would affect the sidewall of the tire, * maybe * adding some lateral stiffness to the rear suspension ?
But how much…
( scoring the internet for Facts )

 

If you're going to scour the 'net for something, maybe look for a report of someone else using a rear bar on an E, because...

I agree the staggered-width wheels might make very little difference, but it doesn't matter:

My point is just that it's possible the front swaybar stiffness is already maxed out from the factory, to compensate for the rear battery weight.

So that's something to check before assuming it can be stiffened to compensate for excessive oversteer from adding a non-adjustable rear bar, since they're all made for the gas versions with lighter rears...

You'd need to check the diameter AND the lever arm length. A shorter distance from the body-mount to the linkage mount makes it stiffer, hence the 2 link-mount points that make this front Abarth bar adjustable (click to enlarge):

 

Or you could use narrower tires on the front, if a rear bar from a gas 500 gives the E excessive oversteer.

That's the OTHER age-old cheap-&-easy industry standard solution. For example 205 on the rear & 195 or stock-width 185 on the front.

 

Thé summer wheels ( 15’’ 12 spoke Abarth ) will give me a square setup, so I’m wondering what that change will do ?
Plus having summer vs. winter tires will make a difference, just wondering.

 

Typo? 15" won't fit Abarth rear, unless you grind down the OEM bar mounts or replace it with an all-models bar. Take another look at post #5 above.

Me & several other forum members run ”square" with the same wheels/tires all-around. It just understeers a bit less than stock.

Some even have stock rear/front reversed & report that it still understeers a bit, although maybe not with a max-weight load in the hatch.

 

They are 15 » wheels ( just went out and measured again )with the proper bolt pattern and had the red scorpion center caps , I’ve test fit the on a front and back wheel.
The center caps are peeling so I got Blue Fiat centers from Madness.

( they sent me the wrong size the first time 2 » vs 1.75 )

 

Just because they had Abarth center caps doesn't mean they'd actually fit over an Abarth OEM rear swaybar.

 

True, they center caps do not make the car.
The offset might also be different ?

 

You can measure it yourself.

The OEM 15 x 5.5 fronts have 28mm offset & 6.5" rears have 35, same as my own 15s that are are 7" wide (measured where the tire touches the INSIDE of the rim).

The front has more clearance*, but adding offset or width might not clear 205s at the back. Click to enlarge & see red arrows:

Note that not all 205s have the same sidewall width. Mine are spec'ed as 8.3" on 6.5" rims, which means about 8.5 on my 7" rims. The Conti's I might be getting soon are spec'ed 8.4" on 6.5 rims, so about 8.6 on my 7s, which is 0.1" less clearance at those red arrows, but it should be okay, or I might be able to shift that part a bit. I think it's the handbrake cable.

*

 

The width on these wheels is 6“ with an offset of 4 7/8 from the mounting surface to the edge.
If the centerline is @ 3” minus the lip thickness = the offset is roughly 42mm.

I’ll probably stay with the stock tire size, I’m not looking at going to 205/50 R15.

 

I will tell you from experience. Wheel & tire upgrade transforms these cars and I would recommend you do that before worry about suspension changes.

I went with 16" storm s1 wheels from a miata and 205 width GMAX AS-05 tires. The car became a big electric gokart. Super responsive, grip for days. A car you could literally throw around, really fun to drive.

I genuinely miss that car for it's fun factor, but I needed more range.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

I genuinely miss that car for it's fun factor, but I needed more range.

Ya my Tesla3-owning friend really misses her 500e too, "for zipping around town", which is what most of us do most of the time anyway!

Different drivers have different priorities:

• To ME the worst thing is wheel spin on acceleration, even with such grippy tires that I can't slide on corners without going over double the posted limit.
• Stock understeer is a bit excessive, better with the same wheels/tires on each corner, & even better with the stock wheels reversed front-to-back, but I'd understand if the understeer bothers someone more than the lack of grip.
• Body roll is a bit excessive even with OEM tires limiting cornering speeds, so I understand if the roll bothers @mateykzero more than the lack of grip. More grip will allow even more body roll before the car slides.