For those of you running front strut tower bars, how much difference would one of those make combined with the rear antisway?

 

Some will insist that they work, in my case the ASPEC front bar works every bit as well as a strand of cooked linquine. A lot of us believe that the Fit body is rigid enough to see no benefit from strut tower bars, front or rear.

 

when i was runing the DF210's i could tell night/day difference running
the Cusco front STB.

with my current EnduraTech's not sure. it's a soft setup so if i was to
do it over i would probably not use one. if i ran something like the ProC's
in the stiff setup i would run the Cusco's front and rear.

 

I've read a lot of posts on front strut bars now and I think for my pretty stock car it would make no sense. For the '87 911 I useed to own the wheel wells and strut towers were well ahead of the firewall and it made more sense, much more opportunity for flex. Considering how close the towers are to the firewall on the Fit and the fact that I won't be racing it and will rarely be taking it to the limit in daily driving, I'll save my money. I just wanted to make sure that with the rear ASB I wasn't going to be missing anything. Waiting for it to arrive via UPS Ground now.

 

You make more sense than most posters on this subject. Congratulations!

 

Well, I got the bar installed and just returned from a test drive. I can't report any major epiphanies - perhaps a little more neutral than before, perhaps a bit more oversteer; it cornered well and doesn't seem to be doing anything strange. Worth $200.00 (shipped to Alaska)? Not sure. I'll drive it to work on a dippy, twisty road tomorrow and feel it out more. Maybe with the 205's I hope to mount in the not-too-distant-future it will be of greater benefit. Does that make sense? For some reason it seems that with wider tires a little more oversteer would make the steering seem less sluggish. By the way, I tried to torque the nuts they gave me to 35 lbs. ft. as they instructed and stripped two of them before the torque wrench ever clicked. I had to make a trip to town for new bolts and nuts. That ticked me off. I just tightened the new ones with "mechanic's feel" and a drop of red Locktite and they seem OK.

 

good to hear you tried it and like it so far.

i used about 28lbs/ft on the nuts and used blue... 3months later
the bolts rusted completely (chicago winter). was very glad i had not used red cause
it would've been impossible to remove with my extractors probably.

 

I can tell much of a difference with this on??? seems like it works kinda like a strut bar...

 

Today I went through the tight little s-curve that ramps me to a rural divided highway, the curve in which I usually have to back off to keep from breaking loose. Not today. The bar stays

 

it's significant difference. nothing like how a strutbar works. give it a shot.

 

is the fact that the spring seat (the rubber peice) is now sitting on the 3 bolt heads a problem?,
i want to order one of these, but from the pics, it looks like it would sit crooked or something after the install

 

yes. a strutbar is just "bling bling" junk. a swaybar actaully works. i thought it worked well with my skunk2 springs, but after going to coilovers, it's crazy. im going on 3 wheels going into parking lots and stuff lol. awesome handling

 

With stock springs, or Progress springs, there is no problem with the springs & pads sitting on the bolts- everything works fine as 50 or so owners have posted.

 

agreed. even with skunk2 springs, i only had slight scraping sounds. nothing crazy. only could hear it when the radio is off. with coilovers, i don't have any issues

 

you know i dont agree to that part of your statement. stb depends on
the design of the bar, how it is mounted, and the rest of your sus setup
to be effective.

but this is a RSB thread so we don't need to go into that.

 

strut tower bars do nothing more than get in your way lol. that's all my rear j's racing bar did.

 

yah, that one is a bad design....

 

do you have the progress rear swaybar? if not, you really aren't someone to say whether it improves handling or not

 

you sure dont read people's post well do you?

i had the progress bar on at one time. i didn't like the overall feel
so removed it. im one that try stuff on my own and report back
my finding.

currently im riding on just the Endura-Techs and aftermarket wheels/tires.
as far as performance the car's feedback does not call out a RSB. looking
at the skunk2's spring rates on their pro-c's i doubt i would use one if i had
their setup either.

im going to try the pro-c's pretty soon for the hell of it to compare
vs my endura-techs. so stay tuned for that if you're interested.

 

Yo, Matt,
Apparently you lost track of all the ins and outs of this huge thread. Ken HAD a Progress bar, but didn't like it with the custom suspension that he put on his Fit, so took the rear bar off. AAANds , of course, we posted at the same time. Hi Ken.