I wanted to order a JDM ITR rear upper brace or a Benen strut brace. So far, I have a Neuspeed 4 point strut tower brace, GC coilovers with Koni Yellows, stock ITR rear lower tie bar and 22mm rear sway bar. Will the rear upper strut brace give any noticible differences in handling? TIA

 

You will probably feel a lighter wallet when turning into corners...

Strut braces on for street cars are, for all practical intents, designed primarily to look tough. They are simple to install, hard to screw up (no wires), easy to see (to ooh and ahh about), and commonly understood to be something that people put on race cars - perfect for the aftermarket shops' bottom lines.

On a rally car? Yes - helps save the shell. On a road racing car with really high spring rates? Yes - probably - but you are going to have a cage in a car like that anyway, to do the same thing. Street car? Spend the money on something fun and educational, like autocross entry fees...

Have fun!

Kirk

 

buy one so i can smack you upside your head with it. wannabe internet gangsta. quit postin nonsense in every thread i respond to, you damn loser. how does it feel to happen to you?

 

Kirk, gotta disagree, the front neuspeed strut bar made definate positive results in the feel of my street crx, even on stock suspension 9 years old probably at the time. ive heard very little positive feedback on the rear.

 

I also disagree..... Granted I have only the stock springs and shocks, but I have the ITR sway bar and upper strut tower bar and I noticed a big difference. It really stiffened it up, but again this is with the stock parts, with koni's, etc you results may not be as drastic

 

I think the front and rear strut tower bar are largely two different stories. Whether a tower bar is worth it or not is depends on the amount of chassis flex it will take out by putting it in. Up front where you've got a large hole in the structure (the hood, etc.) and you're supporting heavy chunk of metal (the engine) and you're running stiffer springs (on a stock vehicle), one can imagine a tower bar making a difference.

The rear has less weight, softer springs (stock), and a stiffer structure. I'd say that it's not hard to see the front tower bar as being far more important.

As to whether the rear tower bar does anything worthwhile on a street driven car, I would say most likely not (other than placebo effect). Unfortunately, this is not because I have experience testing this scientifically, but rather from I say this based merely intuition gained from my job. In general, the softest spring dominates the system's response, and on a street-driven car, the effective spring constant of the structure of the rear of the car is considerably higher than that of the springs in your suspension.

Now, I say "street driven car" because that tends to put an intuitive limit on what kind of rates I am talking about. Some people claim to run 800 lb springs on the street with no problems.. but I'm thinking more of the sub-400# range.. anyway, it's a sliding scale..

In summary, my point is: the higher your spring rates, the more important reducing chassis flex becomes. On the street, I probably wouldn't worry about it if I wanted to save my money for entry fees/seat time.

Of course, you can do whatever you want, and what would be really cool would be to install the tower brace, take your car to an autocross or a track with a log book, a cover for the hatch area, and a buddy. Your buddy randomly attaches or unattaches the bar between runs without you knowing, and you make notes on how the car feels each run. That's as close to a scientific answer as you are likely to get. If anyone wants to donate a bar to me, I've got a GSR sedan that would make hiding the state of the bar easy.. I'll happily perform the tests.. heh

VTECAcuraGSR: I'm not sure if you intended to say it that way, but your message gives the impression that the "big difference" comes from adding both the rear sway and the tower bar. Is this what you meant? I think that unless the before/after picture is only different by the addition of the rear tower bar, it's not really of much educational value in this subject.

 

OK Guys,
I did not do both mods at the same time. I did them about 6 months apart, so I do know the difference. However this was on my GSR, not an ITR which has already been stiffened...

 

What he said.

Also, just because I don't know . . . is it a strut or shock on the rear of an ITR?

 

I just installed the Mugen Rear Strut Bar for the Solo2 National Tour last weekend and I can say it helps but only in big sweeper turns while at full throttle. It makes the rear feel more solid, kept the inside rear tire from lifting on 180 turns and seemed to promote a little oversteer. Street driving feels exactly the same.