Hi All,

Thinking about picking up the strut tower bars (frt. and rr.) but not sure if it would make that much of a difference in handling. I'm sure it would help on a track but not so sure if it helps on the road. Would this mod make my car ride stiffer? I've had aftermarket swaybars,springs on previous rides and I noticed an improvement. Thanks for your advice!

 

A front strut tower bar will not make your car ride stiffer and will not help much if you drive on the street only and observe all traffic laws. So normal drivers don't need it for performance reasons.

They are usually made out of light weight aluminum (which is good) or steel and then powdercoated (which is durable but heavy and not that much cheaper).

For any car that has a less than stiff front end the strut bar may be helpful- especially during hard cornering such as on the track or at autocross. It doesn't do anything for straighline performance.

It does look nice. Be careful that it doesn't interfere with other upgrades and doesn't rub on the inside of the hood. Remember that if it blocks things after installation you might need to remove the bar before taking your car in for dealer servicing or they can charge you for the time it takes to remove the bar. Ouch!

 

I think most people that put these on do it for looks but it's not useless, it stops compression of the strut tower so it doesnt let the body flex as much. i dont think an average person can feel the difference but it should help on the track.

 

I just purchased a Spoon front strut bar for the fit. Putting it on after I run the first half of a track event. I want to see if I can feel the difference in the afternoon.

I'm pretty sure it's gonna tighten things up a bit for the track. I questioned it at first, due to finding out how solid and stiff the chassis already is from the factory. It's stiff but not as solid as the high "X" bone chassis of the s2k. That's why this mod was proven useless for the S.

 

How does the J's Racing Rear Pillar barr go on? Looks kinda cool... doesn't mess with the curtain air bags?!

 

i found a cusco front sway bar, duno if it fits the USDM fits.

http://www.cuscoracing.com/fit.htm

anyone can verify that if it fits?

I've read someone on this site with spoon dampers fit in the JDM spec sway and endlinks

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/show...ht=spoon+shock

Also, does anyone know the jdm spec coilovers need to mate with the jdm front sway bar + endlink or the USDM front sway + endlink will fit just fine?

one last ques, jdm coilovers will fit the usdm fit after enlarging the front shocks mounting holes from 17mm to 19mm rite?

 

Hi, guys

My name is Richard. I am the sole distributor for the Ultra Racing Strut Bars for Singapore and some regional areas. I would take this opportunity to advertise our UR strut bars. They will improve the car handling during cornering or even normal high speed travelling and it will also strengthen your car chassis. You will feel your car more stable.

Here is some of the function for the individual bars

Front Strut Bar
Every vehicle’s front chassis is different; therefore designs and develops the front bars based on the actual conditions of the vehicle, repeatedly testing and proving to its perfection. High attention is taken during the design and development stage to ensure the chassis is able to withstand the load when a bar is being installed.

Ultra Racing is proud to bring to you the first of its kind in the country, the MULTI-POINT Front Strut Bar. The Front Strut Bar is installed to minimize the weight transfer of the vehicle body, therefore the vehicle will not loose traction easily during cornering.

Lower Arm Bars
The Ultra Racing Lower Arm Bar is designed to reduce the flex of the vehicle chassis where it is connected by the Lower wishbone of the suspension system, thus to lessen the distortion of the vehicle lower suspension when it is under load, especially during hard cornering. It is installed at the lower mounting points between the left and right suspension and the vehicle chassis. Tremendously improving the stiffness at the area where the lower arm is connected to the vehicle chassis. The Ultra Racing Lower Arm Bar also keeps camber accurate during hard cornering.

Anti-Roll Bars
Ultra Racing Anti Roll Bars (also known as anti-sway bars, sway bars or lower tie bars) affect the handling of the car on the lower end of the suspension. Sway bars tie the lower suspension components together across the front or back, and affect a car's over steer and under steer.Sway bars will keep your car flat in turns instead of leaning over to one side. They distribute energy from the side of the car with all the force from the turn on it to the other side of the car, bringing the whole car down flat instead of leaning to one side. Of course the car will still lean some, but not as much.Sway bars provide better cornering especially at high speeds and work very well in conjunction with strut tower bars. However, they can have an adverse affect in off-road situations by leaving one tire completely off the ground.

For more info, please visit the following website:

http://www.e-revmotorsports.com/main.html

http://www.ultraracing.com.my/

If any enquiry, please feel free to pm me. Thanks

 

Hi Richard,

Please review forum rules for Sales Solicitations. Thanks!

 

Ok so here is my deal. I recently purchased a set of front and rear j's racing bars from a fellow fit driver. I installed them and after about a week I noticed the rear was rattling and it got progressively worse. I haven't had time to tighten them back up but I want to know

A) If anyone has had this problem with the rear J's racing strut bar?.... and
B) What the proper procedure is for installing strut bars?

I thought one was supposed to lift the car, install the bars, tighten them up, then drop to give it the proper tension but thats just what I heard. So if someone could please clear this up for me that would be great. Oh and I heard you had to remove the a/c bracket to install the front J's bar but I just cut off that extra part instead. I'll post pics so you guys can tell me if I did something wrong....

 

i read you have to hold down the center bolt with an allen wrench then tighten. I'm assuming you did that. I'd put some loctite on the thread.

 

yeah i did that... with out putting a hex key in the top of the strut and holding it in place the whole shaft will move and no luck of you tightening that bolt. I probably will try loctite but i need clarification on proper strut bar installing procedure. I have to friends that work at Super Autobacs (Stanton, CA) and they said you don't have to raise the vehicle but I swear I've read elsewhere (possibly another forum when I had my DA) that lifting the car was necessary to get the most out of the strut bar. So the case still remains open

 

typically with any suspension related install, after around 500 miles (sometimes earlier) the bolts need to be re-tightened due to the settling of the components...this should be the cause of the rattling.

 

chillz... I will be doing that then. Just hope that damn rattling goes away. I looked up strut bar install on google and an aem page came up. I guess they're saying that it is not necessary unless the holes dont line up then that would be the case to lift up the car. any other opinions?

 

You read the lift thing on the Tanabe web page probably. They have an adjustable nut on their strut bars to make this more viable, lift, install, tighten nut, drop it down.

I had the same problem, I installed it the same way you did above, and had the same noise problems. I actually never tightened it down though, and it makes noise sometime, but the noise went mostly away (or i just got used to it i dunno).

If you lift the back the struts will fall out of the tower hole when you loosen the nut, so don't raise the back to install the rear strut bar.

Tighten it down and let us know if it fixes your problem.

 

hey man, I ordered my rear J's Strut bar bar from Ben at AJ-R and had the same problem. He told me to put everthing back to stock then install the bar on top of the existing bolts, meaning that there would be the original bolt underneath the bar and two new one's on top (that you'll have to purchase at Home Depot or any other hard ware store) Ben said this is what they did to his car to eliminate the squeeking. I didn't care too much about the rattling, so I did't even bother (and I was lazy too ). With the rear seats up I could barely hear it; and over my exhaust and radio I can't hear it at all. good luck with it and let me know if it works, I might just do it.

 

alright so i got home from school today and what i did was loosened the back bolts that hold the bar to the plates and re-tightened them effin tight!! (i used to be able to bench 325 so that gives you an idea of how much power was going into the tightening lol ) but anyways I took it for a slow test spin and it seems to have gotten rid of the squeaks for the most part but I hear an occasional little squeak. I have a feeling though its going to loosen up again so if i start hearing it again I'm trying loc-tite next.

As for Ben's idea... would this significantly decrease the amount of rigidity of the bar? It seems like it would be bolted up way too high and it would be in contact with only the bottom nut for stabilization. Maybe someone could ask Ben at aj-racing to take a picture of the rear strut bar so that we can take a look at how they did it.

 

don't know, but that's what Ben told me through our PM conversation (which I can't seem to find). This was way back in October when I first installed the rear strut bar.

You might want to remove the washer that you have in between the nut and the rear bar. it's how I have mine installed.

 

ok so I've been sitting here and other than that little test run in my neighborhood i haven't ran my car ever since. so what i will do tomorrow if it keeps doing the noise is put some great where friction might occur. Question regarding that though: Can lets say 1)Grease or 2) WD-40 cause the bushings under the plate to soften or over time tear due to the oils in the grease and lubricant?

Because i already sprayed some WD-40 on the bolt up points (the wet marks in the pictures). Tomorrow I will update on this.

 

While I am waiting the 6-8 weeks for my Progress Technology rear anti-roll bar to ship, I decided that it is also time to add a front strut bar as well. There appear to be a growing number of manufacturers and marketers of strut bars all with very similar designs. The cheap ones on eBay are obviously cheap in their design, with the strut mounting flanges welded or rigidly formed to the bar ends instead of being attached with pivot bolts.

For those of you who use these bars, I want your opinions on 1. The best brand (and why is it the best), 2. Is the highest priced bar better than the lowest priced one and how is it better, and 3. All of the bars that I have seen in ads seem to be made of 6061-T6 aircraft aluminum with steel flanges, meaning GOOD materials for the purpose. Have any of you seen signs of failure (cracks, corrosion, etc.) on your bar that made you wish that you had spent more to buy a more famous name brand?

I ask the above because some bars are being sold at 1/2 the price of others but are made of exactly the same design and materials.

My questions are open to strut bar VENDORS as well as end users- reasons why I should consider your brand of bar over others--

Dave

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

 

i second these questions. I'm wanting to buy a REAR strut bar and i'd love to know the differance between manufacturers. Don't some suppliers use the same manufacturers but just different logos when sellign to customers?