Charri

97 Honda Accord SE
Doesn't have rear sway bar.
Now I want to put the rear sway.


Reference: http://www.hondaautomotivepart...R+ARM
I understand I need the endlinks and everything around it. Are brackets (16-17-18) required? I just dont see where they would mount up. I've read somewhere I need to tap holes for the endlink brackets. If it helps I got the EX rear disc conversion at home also which would give me EX rear trailing arms and whatnot. If I do need the brackets where do they mount up to?
Thanks in advance

TouringAccord

I don't recall what 16, 17 & 18 are. Don't think those are for the sway bar.

If I'm not mistaken, the sway bar endlink mounts to the trailing arm. I believe part #12 is what mounts the endlink to the trailing arm. I think that is the hole that needs to be drilled on a car not equipped with a sway bar. If you have the trailing arm from a EX then just swap those in and you shouldn't have to worry about that.

In addition, parts 10, 14 and 58 are also required to hold the sway bar to the rear subframe.

jakeiscool

why the interest in a sway bar?

Charri

Got the rear sway bar from Tanabe for 80 brand new couldn't resist so now I have to put it on my car to match my fronts

johnlear

That looks very similar to the CB7 / CD5 rear end.

Bracket 16 or 17 (not very easy to understand as it appears to be a single bracket in the diagram and definitely is in the metal on the CB7) is bolted to the subframe and in turn the 'D' bush clamp attaches to it. It's definitely needed or there's nowhere to attach the ARB to on the chassis.

This bracket benefits from substantial re-inforcement as it's quite soft and flexes a lot, which deducts significant stiffness from the ARB as a total system. The (unwanted) affect is be similar to fitting a very soft 'D' bush. It's bad enough with the stock 14mm ARB, but will flex even more with a siffer ARB. If you detach an end link from the ARB and push / pull that end of the ARB up and down you can see the bracket flexing.

I've welded additional metal to my ARB brackets to re-inforce them, and while you can still see a little flex when attempting rip the ARB out it's a lot less than with the stock items. This resulted in noticably less roll and less undertseer, not greatly but a worthwhile improvement.

Bracket 18 isn't visible on my CB7. It may be that this is a re-inforcing plate fitted inside the subframe??

Part 12 is the 'stud' that attaches the ARB lik to the trailing arm / radius rod. Note that it's a thinner OD for the last half or so if it's length, and the link attaches to this thinner section, which means the 'stud' is unsupported at it's inner end. The loads from the ARB are fed into the arm / rod through the thicker part of the 'stud' from a point that is an inch or more from the plate steel of the arm. This is in effect a 'lever' arm that causes the metal of the arm to twist as load is fed into it, and also deducts stiffness from the ARB 'system' in much the same way as the stock subframe mounting brackets do.


On my car I've added a strut to each of these studs that prevents it acting as a lever arm and stiffens the 'system'. The struts are made from a tube flattened at each end. The upper end has a hole drilled that allows the strut to slide onto the thin part of the stud so it sits between the stud shoulder and the link (effectively replacing the link's rubber bush retaining washer - part 11). The strut extends down and is bolted at the other flattened end to a tab welded to the bottom edge of the trailing arm (where the metal is folded at the dge and 'bulges' inward toward the centre of the car, this bulge not visible in the diagram).

This also resulted in a noticable improvement in roll etc as with stiffening the subframe bracket, again not great but worthwhile. By the time you've also replaced the stock rubber ARB bushes with poly items all these small improvements add up to a significant improvement overall. Probably not as great as fitting say a 19mm ARB (which I've yet to do), but very worthwhile, and will most likely increase the effectiveness of a larger ARB even more than with the OE ARB.