AcuraEL

ok, I'm a noob so that's why I'm here

I had this question, there are so many "bars" available for the car, torsion, strut, tower brace I mix them all, the thing is, the more I put, the better, right?
Anybars that will do me bad?
And since I'm not planing to get them all of the same brand, what kind of material I should stay away from? Any tips?

Thanks! and I hope to get some real answers or maybe links to some informative pages.


[Modified by AcuraEL, 8:06 PM 1/20/2003]

slammed_93_hatch

um ya this thing can give you some sweet *** links
https://honda-tech.com/zerosearch

rodrez.

I have quite a few bars on my 93 hatch, the handling has only improved with the addition of new bars. I'm sure I've added a pretty good amount of weight to my car as well, but that's how it goes. Personally, I prefer strut bars that are non-adjustable. You certainly want to stick to products that are good quality, to avoid problems in the future.

Archidictus

Now that you've subtly been told to search, I'll give you my best answer.

More bars does not = "better". If you increase the rigidity of the back of your car it will swing around more intelligently when you corner. This can be attained through the use of Strut Tower Braces/Bars (connecting the shock towers or strut towers that compose your rear suspension: they go through your trunk/hatch area), sway bars (link the rear suspension at various points, as well as, usually, connecting to the unibody), tie bars (rear control arms at the unibody) and basic supports that reinforce the unibody both in and outside the car.

If you upgrade the chassis rigidity in the front, your steering will be more responsive and you'll, occasionally, see better traction in corners and launches. A huge front swaybar (like putting a GSR front sway on an EH2 hatch, for instance) will help keep your tires planted in curves, reduce wheelhop slightly, tighten your steering response, reduce bodyroll and reduce flexing. It's a great first "bar-mod" to make. Strut Tower Braces that connect from the strut towers to the firewall or IM or anywhere else serve to further increase the rigidity of the car's nose.

A good compliment of bars, both front and rear, will allow you to swing and drift around curves more easily and without the honda's infamous nose-diving that happens too easilly in quick cornering. As with all suspension mods, though, you need to get used to the feeling they give when under normal road conditions before you attempt anything fancy.

As far as materials go, aluminum is nice and rigid and (most importantly) light. A hollow bar is lighter than a solid bar, obviously, but it doesn't usually work as well. Solid steel bars, like those found on trucks, weigh a helluvalot but do their jobs pretty well. Titanium is optimal (although some people say carbon fiber is better...it's expensive and pretty but the sheer-coefficients of it are worse than titanium, I assure you) if you can afford it.

The more points the bar connects to, the more rigidity you'll get out of it. That doesn't necesarilly mean that the best bars have the most connections.

What I would do, in your situation, is start with a front and rear strut tower brace and rear sway bar. That should even your handling out quite a bit. The tie bar for the rear control arms doesn't give you as much of an overall benefit, but it shines in quick, darting maneuvers. The front sway bar would be a good investment too, but make sure that you want your car to do what it will allow it to before you buy it.

The best way to piece together a good suspension setup is to feel out how your car currently handles and add things to correct/change that handling. Be safe and smart and ask a lot of questions: that's what we're here for.

P.S. don't listen to other trial users or anyone under 400 posts or anyone with 95% or less.

EDIT: DC sports, Comptech, Tein, Koni, Tokico, Spoon, Mugen, Zeal and APEXi all make great suspension stuff.
Stay away from Companies like: APC, OBX, Ractive and Pacesetter.


[Modified by Archidictus, 8:24 PM 1/20/2003]

AcuraEL

Archidictus, thanks so much man, it was a long time a haven't seen such big and informative reponse answering all my questions. This should go to FAQ somewhere.
Anyway, it goes to a file on my computer right now and I'm gonna read it couple of times.
One thing I missed out :
The front sway bar would be a good investment too, but make sure that you want your car to do what it will allow it to before you buy it.
can you explain me this a little more please?
Thanks you!

P.S. What I want to start with is to give the body maximum possible rigidity, it's a 99 4 door, and thing thing cracks sometimes so I want to get the body solid.
What would be my best bet for the moment? Which magic bars?


[Modified by AcuraEL, 8:22 PM 1/20/2003]


[Modified by AcuraEL, 8:36 PM 1/20/2003]

Archidictus

Sure. The front swaybar is a great modification. In conjunction with a front strut tower brace it will keep you planted through the entirety of a turn (within reason ) and allow you to make swift slaloming movements without nearly as much body roll (the feeling of your suspension going one way and the car body taking its time to catch up) or body flex (when the unibody flexes hard, sometimes reducing traction to one or more wheels and even changing your direction somewhat).

The front of most hondas have a tendency to break loose before the rear in quick maneuvering. This causes gross "understeer" that ends up in an uncontrolable slide towards the far curb at high speeds . Unfortunately, my friend and I have experienced this first hand on an unmarked S-curve at night. We missed a telephone poll by 2 feet 2 inches and came within 2 degrees of flipping over .

With the addition of a sway bar, especially in conjunction with a strut brace, your steering will be razor-sharp and very responsive (as compared to stock). This can be equally dangerous to an inexperienced driver, as you will tend to "oversteer" in clutch situations unstead of breaking loose and sliding. Spinning, however, can be just as dangerous if not moreso.

Stiffening up the rear end will further induce oversteer. A lot of people opt to stiffen the rear slightly more than the nose, but not incredibly so. This allows excellent traction in the front (cornering) while bringing the back around when you need to do something flashy in an autoX environment. While I do not condone showing off on the street, I can't say that I haven't whipped my *** around my share of (empty, of course) corners going to and from friends' houses.

In my opinion, the rear should break loose first because you control the car through the front. It does take some getting used to, as it makes the drifting specifications more like a rear wheel drive automobile, but in all I think most drivers enjoy it and feel safer with such a setup.

I forgot...Neuspeed suspension stuff is also high quality

Any more questions?

AcuraEL

yeah, one more question and it's the one you forgot to unswer..

i'm not talking about perfomance/cornering, just want the body to be stiff cauz I have that rear tray cracking when I slowly go over some bump and it bugs the hell out of me.
So the question is, what would be the first effecient mode to get that body solid and stop the flexing?

Archidictus

What does that mean? I'm having difficulties understanding what you're trying to say.

Your best bet in stiffening the unibody to the point that it stops warping would be a front and rear sway bar and a rear strut tower brace. That may not cure your problem, which you will have to carefully rephrase, but it'll sure stop your unibody from flexing so much.

AcuraEL

ok yeah so far, nobody was able to understand what I mean

ok, you know the rear plastic tray in a sedan, where the two 6x9 are? well, when body flexes, this thing squeals, makes some ugly noices, which means that the body should flex the hell of a lot, right?
You said I need both sway bars and only ONE rear strut tower brace bar?
I was thinking that I needed both front and rear tower braces instead. But it's just me and I know nothing That's why I ask

Geting OEM Si front tower brace would be a good start?


[Modified by AcuraEL, 10:03 PM 1/20/2003]

shawnhayes

You, of course, ARE going to tell our friend that the addition of a big, fat front swaybar will make the understeer (or push) WORSE, right?

Of course, maybe, just maybe, that's what that sentence meant, eh?

Shawn

Gr8Wyt3

[QUOTE] P.S. don't listen to other trial users or anyone under 400 posts or anyone with 95% or less.

Archidictus (just because a person has less then 400 post dosent mean that they dont know what they are talking about!!!! Idont have that many post but i feel that i know a lot about hondas, dont talk so ignorant, i liked your post up until this quote!)


Back to the main topic! id say go with comptech set up all around, front and rear strut tower bar (both aluninum) and the adjustable sway bar. this set up would be good for just about everyone. of course with a nice suspension. i had this set up on my 00 si with gc coil overs and koni yellows, and i loved it. peace.




[Modified by B18RCoupe, 3:12 AM 1/21/2003]

euclid

[QUOTE],

P.S. don't listen to other trial users or anyone under 400 posts or anyone with 95% or less.

pheww... its a good think im over 400 posts and still at 100%(knock, knock , knock) b/c i have some input too

DO NOT upgrade either of the sway bars w/out doing the other one at the same time. you will completely screw up your handling and wear your tires litlerally 1000% faster than usual.

i learned this the hard way, i got a susp tech 26mm front bar for my 94 civic and toasted a front pair of so3's in less than a month

so with that out of the way i will tell you my set-up which is damn near competley neutral w/ a hint of oversteer. in the front i have the benen 3pt strut bar($165) which triangultes the firewall and strut towers, i cant say enough about this style bar, i had the mugen 1piece strut bar on and replaced it w/ the benen and noticed a huge difference. i aslo have the the cusco front lower tie bar($80) which braces the front lca's, this bar did wonders for the steering response. i just recently bought the benen front crossmember brace used ($120) it mounts above the cusco and the itr and gsr come w/ a bar this style from the factory. finished the front off with the suspension techniques 26mm front swaybar($125). these bars have planted the front of the car and make it lightning quick in the old back and forth tire warmer exercise.

in the rear i have the mugen strut bar ($275 ) which i bought before the benen one was out b/c it was the only bar that didnt have joints in it, it was the only 1peice bar available at that time. i have 2 diy strongbars going across my trunk($30/both ) benen and j's racing sell these but they are nearly $200 a piece the diy bars work just as well. then i have the 22mm itr rear sway bar w/ beaks kit($200... i would recommend the beaks or bsq kit b/c it will prevent subframe damage which will cost alot more than one of these kits to repair). and i have the benen rear lower tie bar($120) which is 1 piece and the beaks upgrade($10... just 1"spacer and longer lca bolts).

i have an autopower 4 point roll bar($400 new but you can find them for like $250 used) this tighened up the car alot and gives me rollover protection and a soild mounting point for a harness.

other mods are energy suspension bushings, skunk front upper a-arms, ingals rear camber kit, and tein ra's w/ pillowballs. but i wont get into how they perform b/c this thred is about bars

i figure i added about 100lbs in total but the handling improvemnt more than makes up for it, my car is solid.

i honestly did alot of reasearch before i made these purchases and i think you will be hard pressed to find a better setup for less $ so i hope this helps. and i know everyone is labling benen as rice now, but their products are straight up ridiculous for quality and price... so stfu.

euclid

and i almost forgot... a car only handles as well as your tires. i have my snows on steelies for the winter now and my car might as well be bone stock, invest in a good set of performance tires

viCeVerSa

yeah if you dont have good tires you dont have anything....... the tires are THE connection between your car and the asphault

Archidictus

Sorry for not clearing that up. Shawn could probably tell you a lot more about suspension and the way a Honda travels at speed since he's an autoX-ing machine. That is what I meant. You can think of the physics of it and realize that understeer gets worse as speed and steering reaction increase. You're moving at a speed of 50mph, vector north. You turn the wheel to enter a turn, vector due west, and because your suspension components cause the car to hunker and react, you break traction quicker and harder than you would without the grip and hunker action. That's why, in one of my longass posts I mentioned stiffening the back more than the front so it doesn't plow and slide.

To the cool people who are new to the site (AKA, the good-seed noobies), I appologize profusely. I was way too global with that comment and I didn't mean it to encompass those of you who know your ****, some of you as well or better than I do, and aren't Icy Hot or Stunnarific. I love your input, but lately there has been an influx of mentally handicapped detritus that is just super gay and completely un- if not mis-informative.

Hope I didn't hurt any feelings for you good guys. We're all in this together . Be safe.

-Mike-

Gr8Wyt3

nicley put, we have had a lot of noobs who are as stupid as can be!!!


[Modified by B18RCoupe, 7:07 AM 1/21/2003]

shawnhayes

I'm going to be an ***, but, you think so much about this, and your posts are so comprehensive as they are slightly confusing. What I mean is, despite the fact that you are very complete in your posts, it's difficult to discern what you mean unless you have a college degree or better.

No offense intended, but you might want to uh, "dumb down" your posts. The fact that the understeer gets worse after a front bar was IN your original post, but you had to be able to "decode" it - (I was able to, and illustrated it for impact).

There you go again. Detritus. Doubt that most people know what that means right off. Of course, you are right, and there are a lot of stupid people in the world, but less than 400 posts excludes new smart people. Anyway, I think the apology was sincerely offered, and meant what it said.

See you around.

Shawn

euclid

[

There you go again. Detritus. Doubt that most people know what that means right off. Of course, you are right, and there are a lot of stupid people in the world, but less than 400 posts excludes new smart people. Anyway, I think the apology was sincerely offered, and meant what it said.

See you around.

Shawn
[/QUOTE]


context clues are the key
good point shawn

Mojo-Jojo

If you just want to stiffen the chassis DO NOT waste your money on sway bars.

Sway bars correct body roll. They do NOTHING to stiffen the chassis of the car.

You want strut braces, lower tie bars, and strong bars for your trunk area.

Let me list them all for ya since you said you get them mixed up...

Torsion bar: Don't worry about this. This is what a few cars use instead of springs in their suspension, like the first gen CRX. A sway bar is kinda like a torsion bar.

Upper strut brace: This ties the top of your shocks together.

Lower strut brace: Ties the inner corners of the lower control arms together.

Strong bars: There are a few bolts in the trunk area. I don't know really what these connect, but they just kinda stiffen up the back a bit. Supposedly better for hatches.

There are a few other wierd bars, that connect to strange points in the back, like the seatbelt bars, and the do-luck floor bars, and I think some that connect at the hatch hinge mounting points, but you don't need to worry about those until you get the basic ones.

Now, sway bars:

A sway bar generally connects to the control arms, or somewhere around the bottom of the shock, and then it connects somewhere under the middle of the car. So, what happens, is in a turn, the body begins to roll. Since one side of the bar is going up, and one side is going down, the bar twists, and resists the body roll. So, the thicker the bar, the more resistant to twisting, and the less body roll you get.

So, a sway bar might keep the chassis from getting tweaked a bit because it keeps it from moving as much as it could, but it's not actually reinforcing the chassis at all. Sway bars are for tuning handling balance, not for rigidifying the chassis.


[Modified by Mojo-Jojo, 10:15 AM 1/21/2003]


[Modified by Mojo-Jojo, 10:16 AM 1/21/2003]

AcuraEL

Thank you Mojo-Jojo!
You made it all clear for me man, I started this topic to find out how to stiffen the chassis and you got the right answer for me. Very clear and comprehensive.

Thanks for EuClid for detailed explanation of his set-up, and one very important thing I learn is to change both sway bars at a time otherwise it will be bad for my tires.

For all you guys!

kommon_sense

Skunk2, Cusco, Neuspeed, and Suspension Techniques are also good companies. However you couldn't give me a suspension part made by dc sports.

Archidictus

Sorry bout that. I'll try to keep my posts less technical and more applicible in the future .

kommon_sense

I am having a hard time understanding how you are saying that a 26mm front bar caused excessive wear on your tires. Keep in mind that many civics come stock with a somewhat large front sway (6G EX/LX have a 22mm front sway).

shawnhayes

It's no joke. That's real. Sway bars can be thought of in one of two ways:

1. They "pull" the opposite wheel up when one wheel goes up causing the body to "hunch" down over both wheels, and "equalize" traction on both wheels.

2. They "push" the opposite wheel down when one wheel goes down to "push" both wheels down to achieve nearly equal traction.

The end result of these is actually a decrease in the "compliance" of the rear suspension, either "pushing" or "pulling" the wheels in question down on or away from the pavement. The end result is a "looser" rear end if placed in the rear, or a "tighter" front end if put in the front (increases oversteer if placed in the rear, or increases understeer if placed in the front). The unfortunate ill side effect of this treatment is to increase load on the tires. Think about it.

If you have a HUGE rear bar, the rear will slide around every time you go around a corner.

If you have a HUGE front bar, the car will not turn well despite the wheel (and the tires) being turned, and the car will literally "scrub" the tires along the pavement as the car does turn.

Sway bars are used to reduce body roll, and make weight transfer more predictable under cornering circumstances. They have some unintended side effects of decreased traction in the wet/snow and increased tire wear as a result of the physical changes they induce to the suspension travel, but they perform their intended function well.

Shawn

miataguy

What front strut bar would you guys suggest for a 93 si that will mount on the stock mounts? I just bought my car and it is missing a front strut bar, so I need a replacement. There is a rear tie bar laying in the trunk; I assume its a DC sports tie bar since practically everything else on the car is DC sports.