On my Acura Integra, I have already started to improve on the stock suspension. My goal with the car is to be able to take it to weekend track events, whether it be fun road race events or auto crossing. Having bought this cheap beater car, it had all the stock suspension components on it, and was missing the rear sway bar. After installing the Koni Yellow sport shocks with Ground Control coilovers, the handling on the car greatly improved but still did nothing for body roll.

Doing some looking around at sway bars on the market, I wanted a good quality part, and also one with some tunabillity. The Suspension Techniques SpeedTech rear competition kit looked really attractive. The end links consist of spherical links which you can adjust, and the kit comes with a lower tie bar. The tie bar also mounts to more than just the lower control arm bolt and uses a aluminum mounting plate to reinforce the stock sub frame. Just looking at the kit, I would guess that it would make the car want to over steer, so this kit was installed first and road tested before moving onto changing the front sway bar.



First, we jacked up the rear of the car and placed it on jack stands. There's enough room to do all the work with the wheels on, so we left them on. This is what we had to start with, a bare rear sub frame. At some point someone must have installed an aftermarket one and just decided to keep it and not leave us one! No wonder the car feels like a pig in the corners!



Taking a closer look at each side, there are not even the stock brackets holding the ABS cables in place. This is no surprise, since the car has been full of surprises since the shock and spring install back in July! The only good part, there's nothing to remove like most people will have to do. First step, we cleaned off the sub frame with brake cleaner and removed the lower control are bolt from the sub frame.





Now we can get right to work and hang the lower brace. You will have to lengthen the tie bar by twisting it until you can line up the bolt holes on both side of the sub frame. We placed the top countersunk screw in place and got the bolt holes lined up on the center of each bolt.



You can now install the new longer lower control arm bolts. Make sure to put the spacer block between the sub frame and the bracket. you will need to use one of the bushing screws to line up the block until the lower control arm bolts are tight. The lower control are bolts are a little difficult since the ends aren't cone shaped like the factory ones. As you can see here, we had to pull on the control arm to get it to line up. The drivers side was more of a pain, here the yet-to-be-installed sway bar came in handy to raise the wheel up which aligned the control arm to the sub fame, and Gabe didn't have to complain about getting tired holding up the wheel anymore!





Now, if you are as lucky as we are and don't have air tools on hand, get in there and use your allen wrench and tighten the top countersink screw.



Time to break out the lube!! You got it, use the supplied bushing grease and coat the insides of the two rear sway bushings, throw them on the sway bar and get it loosely mounted in place. Note the sway orientation of the bar.

[img]http://www.motorsportmasters.com/stinstall/images/strearinstall08.jpg[img]

Then get back under there with the allen wrench, time to tighten up the sway bar bolts. Once those are all tight, then you can torque the lower control are bolt.



Now you can assemble the spherical ends and bolt them in place to the sway bar and then to the lower control arm. Be sure to start them both off at the same length, 4.5". You can play with these adjustable end links to set the preload on the sway bar. Remember to keep a setup log on the car so you can compare your lap times vs. car setup. Very important for finding out what makes your car better....or worse!





Then you'll want to tighten the four allen bolts between the brace and tie bar. Once that's done you can tighten the brace and tighten the lock nuts against the bar. For those of you who have the stock bolts for the ABS cable, you can use the supplied cable ties and resecure the wires in place. We will have to make a trip to the hardware store to pick some up!



Driving impressions: So now that its installed we took the car for a test drive. Wow! After not having a rear sway at all, the car sure feels better just cruising the neighborhood. We eventually found a really nice twisting road on the coast and tested the handling out. Lets just say my copilot wanted to kick me....it sure cornered harder! It definitely likes to over steer now, luckily I have a set of Falken Azeni Sport tires on the car, which allowed me to push the car to start slipping the rear, but never lost it. We took the short stretch with the Koni's at full soft, and then adjusted them full firm for the return trip. Oh what a feeling! I can't wait to take this car to a real road course once its done!

 

nice write up looks good.. how much did it cost u?

 

Good job bro

 

looks great bro....nice writeup

 

Looks awesome! How much, where, and how big is the swaybar?

 

thanks for the write up

 

Thanks for the props guys!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JamaicanDM &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">nice write up looks good.. how much did it cost u?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm a dealer, so I only paid my cost, under $300 for the kit.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ALF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Looks awesome! How much, where, and how big is the swaybar?</TD></TR></TABLE>

The back is 19 and the front is 25

 

that tie bar is beefy, looks like a quality kit

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Spade &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The back is 19 and the front is 25</TD></TR></TABLE>

The actual advertised numbers is a 7/8" rear sway.

The tie bar is like an inch or more.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Marauder &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The actual advertised numbers is a 7/8" rear sway.

The tie bar is like an inch or more. </TD></TR></TABLE>

So is it 19mm (3/4") or 22mm (7/8")?

 

The standard Suspension Techniques car is a 3/4", but with this kit they use the 7/8"