I recently sold an old Buick to jump on a deal I couldnt resist, for a little less than 4 grand I bought a 95 Del Sol S, with less than 50k miles on it. Its in great condition, bought it from the original owner (who I know personaly) so I know its history, Its been well maintained and that its never been in worse than a minor fender bender.

Anyway, after driving the car for a while I noticed the worst problem I could find with the handeling was the oversteering and the body flex that seems to exagerate it. After talking to several people that know more about it than I do and doing some online research I pretty much found that some combination of Strut Tower bars and lower Tie bars/H Bar seem the logical cheapest first step in fixing this. This has left me with 2 big questions though, especialy after looking into some of the products available.

First off, Whats the main diffrence between the diferent styles of strut tower bars?
I see Neuspeed style (makes sense to me, one piece = less flex right?); Mugen style that look beefy and heavy but also solid; and I see simpler bars that bolt to sheet metal brackets, and are made of anything from billet or tube aluminum to steel or carbon fiber (some of these look light but also kinda flimsy).

Second question, how much do I need? I dont know the model that well so I dont know if there are any spots that are inherintly stiff and dont need anything, also have to consider my driving habits: I dont race, the car is my daily driver, BUT daily driving for me means having fun while I'm driving the county/mountian roads of Virginia that would give any pro rally driver a tent in his pants

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

To address your second question first, you'll find that the only real place that any sort of bar will make a real noticeable difference is the swaybar (front and rear). Other bars don't seem to make much of a difference (if any) in terms of handling, so you might just want to concentrate your time and money on a good swaybar. In addition to the swaybar, more and more people are looking into subframe braces/reinforcements these days due to fear of subframe tearout with the use of some of the stiffer bars out there. Personally, I'm not very clear about the situations that result in tear-out, but IIRC its with 96-00 Civics mostly, due to the swaybar mounting to the chassis further out towards the sides, where the metal is thin... or something lol, someone will clear this up I'm sure. So for example people have been looking at A-Spec Racing/BSQ/Beak's/Comptech subframe reinforcement kits to guard against this sort of thing.
I don't see much of a difference between the different types of tower bars out there, as the purpose is the same really. Maybe the 3-point ones offer more rigidity, maybe not, I don't think anything has been proven unless you choose to listen to personal opinion. Again, I don't think that there will be a noticeable change in handling with the removal/addition of a tower bar. But, interesting note: in Taiwan, a lot of people love their tower bars, and all the people that I talked to noted that there was a definite improvement in handling with the addition of a tower bar to their cars. I thought it was odd that they would see a diff there, but lots of people here did not, and I did some asking around, and apparently they use cheaper/thinner steel for many of the cars in Taiwan, which allows for more chassis flex. I suppose various chassis reinforcement bars would have an effect in that case. Also I noted that if you swing the a door open on an EG (I tested this on an EG), the door will very noticeably sag and droop when its fully open, so that when you close it, it actually moves in a slightly upward arc. I was told that this was also due to the cheap steel.
Maybe it was body roll you were feeling, and not flex. The stock suspension is probably going to exhibit a good amount of body roll, which can be solved with a good damper/spring combo, and/or swaybars. So if you were really looking to improve your suspension, I'd start with those two right there.
Oh, your Del Sol won't typically exhibit oversteer. Its actually understeer, a common problem with our front biased Hondas. Good kill on the car though, awesome find.

 

Thanks for all the info, Swaybars are deffinately on my to do list. The chassis reinforcement kits you mention are just sets of tower bars and lower tie bars, I did look a little more into swaybars and found that some of the kits (esp for the rear) include a lower tie bar. I just figured I would do the reinforcement first, it seems to be the cheaper step.

I am still curious about the diffrent types of strut tower bars and wondering if anyone knows the Del Sol well enough to make any suggestions.

 

if your car oversteers, then upgrade o a bigger front bar.

and as for tower bars, i really like the password jdm bars. they look real soilid.