Hey guys i have a 01 SH and i already have a tanabe full suspension now i wanted to get a little more handling out of it but i want it for the street not the track. Is the front strut bar and rear sway bar the way to go or no? If not can you guys give me your opinion on what is? Also with this setup will it cause any damage on my car? I've already searched.

 

The rear sway bar will make the biggest difference of all. Some people will argue that strut bars don't do anything. I think they do. Front upper and rear upper strut bar.

 

anyone else have opinions on what i should do?

 

A rear sway bar will make the biggest difference. A front and rear strut tower bar will tighten things up, but they will be nowhere near as noticeable. Also, a lot of the difference made by the strut tower bar will have to do with the quality of the bar.

 

there really isn't any need to buy a front sway bar correct?

 

Front swaybars will help reduce body roll even further than the rear alone. They're fine for the street but generally anyone that tracks the car won't use one because it will increase understeer a little bit.

I run a Neuspeed rear only - I sold the Neuspeed front after driving for a year with the rear only - the car felt more neutral and had less push in the corners and I saw no need to install the front. I wouldn't mind a little less body roll, but if you have stiffer springs all around, body roll is less of a problem anyways.

In response to your first post - properly installing a rear sway will not damage your car. Neuspeed includes heavy duty brackets for their rear sway as does Progress (the 2 best bars out there in my opinion). With the Progress bar (its adjustable), if you run it on the stiffest setting, you may over-stress the endlinks. Guys that track the car and are using a Progress bar usually build custom endlinks using Aurora rod ends or something similar.

 

honestly, if you don't plan on tracking the car, i wouldn't bother with the strut bars. you won't notice anything on the street, and you probably won't even notice the sway bar just driving around on streets. these suspension mods really show when the car is being pushed, which you won't notice on the street.

 

i really don't get why people feel the need to completely remove their front swaybars just so they can "oversteer" when it can just as easily be done with suspension tuning, tire size and tire pressure. hell all you have to do is let your foot off the gas and you're sideways already

 

you never push your car on the street? c'mon man what about when you have to swerve to avoid something on the freeway, I have done most of my suspension upgrades BECAUSE i almost crashed when the car was stock and I had too much suspension/body roll when i went to avoid a car that went crazy one day. It's not just for fun I think an aftermarket suspension is much safer, swaybars included with that.

 

but what i was asking is if i get the strut bars and rear sway bar is it worth to get the front sway bar also or is the stock fine as it is?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by soundbomber &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i really don't get why people feel the need to completely remove their front swaybars just so they can "oversteer" when it can just as easily be done with suspension tuning, tire size and tire pressure. hell all you have to do is let your foot off the gas and you're sideways already </TD></TR></TABLE>

it's not just a question of net oversteer/understeer. all of those things you've mentiond have an effect on OS/US, however, they have a different feel.

Like for a lot of the people that run softish springs with lots and lots of rear sway bar--this will have a much snappier oversteer effect than say, stiff rear springs.

removing a front bar is a lot about feel. remember that swaybars do what they do at the expense of grip at the corners. in some cars, maximizing grip as well as tuning the car's balance is a priority.

also, the front bar is awful heavy. granted it's nice and low, it's 20 lbs some don't need to lug around.

aftermarket front sway bars are pretty useless, the OEM bar is 26mm IIRC. unless the aftermarket bar is thinner than the front in which case, it might be a nice compromise b/w no bar and OEM bar.

as far as strut bars, i'm on the record in a million places as saying that they don't do dick.

 

maybe on our cars they don't do anything. I promise you on a 3rd gen lude they made a big difference. I was sad to hear so many people say they are useless on a 5th gen.

front sway seems useless, why would you want understeer anyway (it's just for safety I think), but if you want one i'll sell you mine dude.

 

the guy has an SH if hes anything like me he will notice the sway bar/strut bar, I push my SH every chance I get around corners and especially windy roads and cloverleafs.

 

off topic.. how much does a neuspeed sway bar usually run for? and where would i be able to obtain one for a decent price?

 

best price on Neuspeed is shox.com. bought all my Neuspeed parts from them. Neuspeed rear isn't cheap ($260 maybe? can't remember) but it comes with heavy duty brackets unlike ST or Tanabe. Progress is another excellent choice for a rear sway. coximport.com or nolimitmotorsport.com are the best places to get Progress parts.

 

i ripped the progress brackets off my chassis
hardcore autox + slicks = lots of stress on those things
its now welded on

 

is the front sway bar better handling with a thicker bar or thinner? and what is thicker stock or aftermarket?

 

yes, rear swaybar is great

but for strut bars, i have them, but i think the underbraces (front/back) helped more than the strut bars (front/back)

 

how come an aftermarket front sway bar doesn't do any good just the rear does?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jfingers8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">how come an aftermarket front sway bar doesn't do any good just the rear does?</TD></TR></TABLE>

because we drive a nose-heavy front wheel drive car It will tend to push or understeer in the corners much more than a rwd sports coupe/sports car. A rear sway bar increases the effective stiffness of the rear suspension during cornering which 1)decreases body roll and 2) decreases rear traction relative to the front. This additional looseness in the rear counteracts the understeering tendencies. With typical sport spring rates and a rear sway, you won't have to worry about snap oversteer or having the tail come loose on you all the time - you'll get more of a neutral feel. A Progress bar set to full stiff may be the one exception - it can give you some rotation if you want it on a relatively stock setup. In general, the road racers use a combination of high rear spring rates, a stiff rear bar, and sometimes a removed front bar to get lots of rotation and make the car tend to oversteer. make sense?

 

if i keep the rear springs stiffer than the front will that improve my handling ?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jfingers8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if i keep the rear springs stiffer than the front will that improve my handling ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

It will decrease understeer. With good shocks, it will improve handling. Keep in mind you can't just throw a set of stiffer springs on your stock rear Honda shocks though. The only way I know of to get custom spring rates without blowing a lot of $$ on Japanese coilovers and ordering 2 new springs for the rear on top of that would be to 1) buy a set of Koni sports (yellows) and 2) call up Ground Control and order coilover sleeves with custom rates. they're very knowledgable and can point you in the right direction when it comes to what rates to get for the kind of driving you do. Even with stiffer rear springs, an upgraded rear sway is still a good idea. If you skip anything, don't buy any strut braces until later on.

 

then why do companies like tein make suspensions that have stiffer front spring rates? More weight there?

I don't get it...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cruzin89lude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">then why do companies like tein make suspensions that have stiffer front spring rates? More weight there?

I don't get it...</TD></TR></TABLE>

a) because of comfort
b) because it covers their *** when people who can't drive for **** (aka 90% of the population) get into a bad situation, go for the brakes, and understeer into whatever they're going to hit, as opposed to start spinning and spinning, which is always worse. cars are always built to push, from the factory. tein is just making sure they keep that trend alive and keep the lawsuits from burning them and/or getting their customers killed.

some super jdm guy is going to come here and start talking about how stiffer front springs are better and faster, but he'll be wrong. almost every FWD race car i've ever seen, driven, or heard about is setup this way, and are setup this way for a reason. i'm not saying it's right for a car on the street (though i ran 450/550 for a long time and didn't notice a difference in street driving, re: vehicle dynamics), but if you're racing w2w, or solo I/II seriously, softer rear springs = understeer. lots of.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cruzin89lude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">then why do companies like tein make suspensions that have stiffer front spring rates? More weight there?

I don't get it...</TD></TR></TABLE>

The high front rates are for comfort and safety (they really overdid it though). For an inexperienced driver, heavy understeer is less likely to get you into an accident than too much oversteer - your tail won't suddenly flip around on you. Also, because there is so little weight in the rear compared to the front, stiff spring rates in the rear have the potential to make the ride pretty rough.

The complaint that most people have is that the spring rates are too conservative -not everyone is looking for a jarring ride and lots of oversteer, but reasonably higher spring rates in the rear to gve the car a neutral feel would be ideal for the typical car enthusiast. This is why you're seeing a backlash against the typical Japanese coilover setups and a lot of guys running Koni/Ground Control with custom rates.