Jmaxey27

Hey dudes.

As I'm new to this whole performance handling deal (driven Jeeps my whole life) I want to know just exactly how much benefit you get handling wise with strut bars. The 94 DX I just bought have a front one and I do have some plans on beefing the thing up engine wise so good handling will be a bonus after/before that is all taken care of.

I read a lot about how they stiffen the strut towers and I was pretty dumbfounded to find out that those aren't welded super tight to the frame. But it sounds like a decent way to be able to fly around some corners without really feeling like you're gonna roll. If I'm on track there?

Just let me know how they have benefited you guys. Thanks!

FYI I love this damn thing. filled it up with premium for like $30 the other day. And that was almost 2 weeks of driving.... Much better than $65-70 every five days on gas in the Jeep...

mikekh10a

iTrader: (2)

honestly you'll get more bang for your buck with sway bars.

Shmallow

my perspective, they are a last step. squeeze the last bit of performance/feel out after everything else has been taken care of.

my priority ranking:
driver skill [(good driver+mediocre car)>(mediocre driver+good car)]
wheels/tires [emphasis on tires, pressures too]
spring and shock/coilover [check the stickies in the suspension subforum to get started]
sway-bar [not only effects roll, but ratio of front to rear stiffness will effect under/oversteer]
bushings [replacing old ones, upgrading to stiffer ones, going nuts with spherical...]
and finally
strut bars/chassis stiffening [you get what you pay for, unless you've got welding and fab. skills like many serious Jeep/off-road guys might...]

they're cheap enough and easy enough that most guys I think don't even give it much thought. Like a loud muffler, something visceral has changed so it must be better/faster/more awesome! maybe not exactly.

Mr. Bojangles

I've heard that the strut tower bars are more effective if you already have sway bars.

Don't bother running premium gas, it doesn't help anything btw.

B_Swapped93

premium on a dx is a waste agreed save even more and just get standard 87* or w/e you have locally.

Jmaxey27

The thing already has some stiff as a boner coilovers. They look to be in really good condition and if I remember correctly the guy I bought it off of said they only have like 5k on them. So That part is taken care of. I have yet to have the time to take it to my buddies' shop and look at the condition of the sway bars and bushings. The motor mount bushings look pretty decent so I was happy about that.

I definitely want to get some new tires on it though. The ones on it currently are pretty decent tread wise but they've got almost no grooving in them. The guy claims they're "drag tires." Which I find pretty damn hilarious lol. He did absolutely nothing to the engine other than remove the P/S and A/C and put some high flow plugs and wires on it. Yes, all great stuff, but I feel like beefing up the actual engine itself is my first order of business.

The guy was a wiring catastrophe waiting to happen.. the battery stabilizer he had on there "fried due to age"? Yeah.. the Venom 400 performance module looks like it was installed by a blind person, and the wiring to the speakers in the back was absolutely god awful. And it only took like 15 minutes and some electrical tape to really take care of.

My next question: If I were to just de-install that dumb Venom 400 (which I've read some lovely reviews/posts on here about.. sarcasm) by pulling all the wires out and splicing properly and making sure nothing is open, do you think it would screw up anything? I don't think it should since it doesn't do anything when it's off, but I don't want to cause a bunch of problems with all the sensors on the intake.

The greatest thing about this forum is that it is identical to Jeep Forum. Simple and effective.

speedjunkie_g35

I use to get better mpg using regular in my d series than I did using premium.

instrument

From what you've described a strut tower bar should be pretty far down your list.