I heard that upper strut/tower bars can and do affect under/over, although they are theoreticaly designed only for stiffening the chassis

so forget about them, I'm interested can lower ones have same effect on handling at all ?

 

NO.

The only ones I would say do a damn thing is ASR/F7. The other are simply for looks.


I noticed no increase in oversteer or understeer after I installed my nuespeed "4 point" strut bar. I have never once heard of a strut bar causing over or understeer.

 

makes your car feel faster in corners...but it's really all in your head

 

I want to bight the bullet and by "some bars" but they don't do ****. My 99 had NRG front/rear strut bars (when they first came out, they looked hot though in the gold) and a carbing lower tie bar and it didn't do anything.

 

a stiffer chassis affects handling indirectly. as the flex of the car does play a role in how the car handles, its like a "5th spring".

you CAN feel it with a upper front bar, where stiffening is effective. i dont think a lower bar is effective, so probably not.

does an upper front bar help over/under steer? not exactly. it just makes it feel more planted, theres a quicker response.


on my S2000, i had a lower subframe brace. that was definitely effective for increasing chassis response. you definitely feel it going over bumps like the train tracks i went over every day. but it didnt turn it into any kind of handling beast automatically. it just did what its supposed to do, make the lower end more rigid by tying up the bottom corners of the the engine bay. which probably were the way they were for crash protection... but whatever.

 

The ASR subframe brace is definitely the way to go. I've had it on for a couple of years and the feeling is not noticeable much I guess but you have a bit better steering/turn in response I'd say. If you want some real suspension gain, go for a coilover suspension setup and you'll see a big leap in handling.

 

THe only reason I can see the ASR doing squat is the reduced movement of the sway bar. Otherwise that area has such small projections ("legs" that form the inner LCA mount locations) that there isn't much movement. It needs a huge amount of force to twist it more than a millimeter. An upper would help loads more.