Someone suggested I install a beaks kit on my car. What is it and how well does it work? Thanks.

 

It is a rear sway bar reinforcing kit....

if you drive your car in the street... don't bother... if you drive on road courses with a large rear bar buy one.

Will

 

i just installed an itr rear bar on a gs-r using the beaks kit. i was not impressed. anything that requires modification of the chassis is not good in my book. the whole removal of the blind nuts with a cold chisle part sucked. someone with half a brain and a machine shop could design something that was just as strong and utilized the blind nuts. overall, beaks =

 

I'd use it on the street just for peace of mind, especially when tackling the ridiculous ramp I have entering my driveway. Its hard to line up straight so as not to impose undue stress on the chassis.

I was nervous about "modding" the chassis (re: blind nut removal), but once dremeled off, things looked pretty good......a lot better than a torn subframe.

I also think that a lot of the problems people have reported are due to running a big bar with otherwise stock suspension, which doesn't help prevent suspension travel, and leads to higher stresses.

My 0.02......

Steve

 

Someone with half a brain would realize that its the blind nuts that are partly responsible for the tear-out....

The removal of the blind nuts is crucial in allowing the stress induced by a large bar to be evenly distributed through the subframe. I think the beaks kit is very nice and I would definatelly recommend it to anyone runnig larger than stock rear anit-sway bar


for the kit
and
to beaks....

 

someone with half a brain would also realize that there are 3 blind nut pick up points plus a minimum of 3 other pre-drilled holes on each side of the sub-frame that can be used to "distribute" the stresses. a recessed bolt hole on the inboard bolt plate would also eliminate the need to remove the blind nuts and still get a good force dispersion. once installed, the beaks kit works as advertised, i just think that there are better ways to do it.

 

The gold plate behind the d-bracket is the EK Beaks kit. There is a plate on both sides of the subframe to prevent tearing.

 

I've got the serieis 1 kit on my del Sol. Install was easy. Does the job as advertised, and I knew about chiseling the nuts off before I bought the kit. Two aspects that I don't like is the end-links are no longer perpendicular to the ground, and the ITR bar was bashing my abs line shields under heavy jounce. I've since modified the shields, and I don't know if these issues were addressed in the series 2 kits.

 

Hey Richard.

Can't tell you about the ABS shields as I don't have them. But here's a pic of my ITR bar set up....



Endlinks look pretty perpendicular there.....though the angle is kinda hard to tell....or do you mean the other perpendicular (front to back wrt length of the car)???

Steve

 

Hi Steve!

My end-links tend to lean forward from the lca up to the bar (the ends of the bar ended up forward of the lower end-link mounting point. I don't know if this is the result of a difference in lengths of the original 14mm and the ITR bar ends. or the fact that the ITR bar is mounted lower (where the Beaks kit puts it). I'll pull my old 14mm out of the box and compare it to the 22mm and see if there's a length difference.

I really don't know what affect this has on the situation, but conventional wisdom that I know of has been that sway bar endlinks should be as straight up and down as possible.

 

Ok, thats what mine do too. I'm using the ITR endlinks. It might be that the ITR LCA and subframe geometry is different from the Civic/del Sol arrangement, and that leads to the presumed difference in endlink orientation. Can someone with an ITR confirm that the endlinks are at or close to vertical when viewed from the side?

This might also be a result of lowering, since the LCA "flattens" out when lowered and as a result the endlink is actually connecting two points that should be further apart OEM. I can't think of any detrimental effect of this, aside from stress on the endlink bushing......its just like its running in "compressed" mode all the time......

Any thoughts?

Steve

 

beaks kit
props to wil

 

Beaks Kit OwNz!!!

 

can someone tell me. I have Si rear suspension on my 96 civic 4-door. I put the rear sway and all. Do i need to worry about subframe damage???? Is there gonna be a big difference between my stock bar and a ITR bar?

 

You should have no problems with an OEM non-ITR bar on your car. The difference between no bar to ITR bar is huge. I can't say about going from no bar to smaller bar, or from smaller bar to ITR bar personally. My thoughts are that subframe damage often results from soft or OEM suspension plus a big bar.

HTH!

Steve

 

i have a 96civic ex... no sway bar on my car yet... thinking of going with comptech sway bar kit or mugen setup... i believe the comptech is 22mm and mugen is 24mm
where do you buy the beaks kit??
also have apexi ws coilovers.. going with a stiffer spring... 500f and 550r

 

I have the Comptech setup (on an EG though) and 2 of the 3 exhaust I've tried to use don't clear the swaybar... and the one that did was too damn loud. I'm currently got a half-*** fix to get some clearance. BTW, these are all exhausts that go over the lca... ones that go under will certainly never clear. I'm not sure if the EK's have the same potential problem or not.

 

jeff how do you like the comptech sway bar?

 

Beaks kit is great

Highly recommended, I've used the Series 1 kit (with the BIG plates on a tearout), and the series 2 with the smaller less intrusive brackets for preventative measure...Both were well machined and and inexpensive alternative to replacing a subframe.

I've seen the $300 Comptech tie bar tear the alloy threads right out of it...Beaks kit, never failed... I've seen other peopels designes, and chiseling off 3 inferior 12mm nuts, is just plain smart...The load on the bracket gets dispersed right where it needs to be, around the bracket. Any other place you use, would create leverage on the bracket and either jeopardize the bracket design, or compromise the integrity of the subframe and possible tear a bigger hole in it.

Again, thanks for everything Wil,


[edit: added the Comptech thing]


[Modified by jasyatz, 6:21 PM 8/15/2002]

 

If I'd known that I'd have this much trouble finding an exhaust I certainly wouldn't have bought it. At the time I installed it, I was running a borrowed Thermal Exhaust, so the clearance issue meant I immediately had to go buy an exhaust. I bought the Buddy Club Spec II (since it was a track only car), but it was just too damn loud, so there's more money wasted. Then, I bought a cheap no-name exhaust because I had to get the car ready for an event in 2 days. Well, it didn't clear either. I ended up cutting the hangar in front of the lca, brazing on a new one and connecting it to the car via a hose clamp. It's held, but squeaks like crazy now. Long-term, I'm building an exhaust myself, but I'm too lazy to finish it so next week will probably be the third event I'll run with the generic.

To top it off, I found a Ground-Control bar used right after I bought the Comptech, so it's just sitting in the corner collecting dust until I buy a new heim joint for it. If I were buying something today, I'd either buy the Beaks/BSQ kit and an ITR bar, or look into one of the Saner Fabrication bars that's being released.

Oh well, wasting money is my specialty.

 

the itr rear lca's are alot different, they have a hollow center that the rear strut bolts into after you insert it in between the two arms so i believe it puts the mounting point closer to the front of the vehicle which would probably fix the perpendicular problem. I know because GTFREAK runs itr rear struts and control arms on his 94 eg hb. Does anyone know if he could run a itr rear sway bar with or w/out the beaks kit? he's running itr A'pexi World Sports and itr rear control arms with about a 3 inch drop.

 

I think that the major problem still exists, in that the "weak" Civic chassis/subframe is used for mounting the bar. That's where the tear-out problems occur. From what I understand, the ITR subframe has some heftier mounting points, not just the thin sheetmetal, and is therefore less prone to deformation.

IMO, the Beaks kit does its job admirably. There may be better ways to do it (welding on to increase sheetmetal thickness, etc) but bang for the buck and ease of installation, you can't go wrong with Beaks. For the peace of mind and the few bucks it costs, I'd take it every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Steve