strut bar question

ok, so i bought a front and rear upper strut bar... now, i havent noticed much of a difference, someone told me i need 2 jack the car up so the suspension sags then tighten everything... is this right??
lemme know

NO! thats completely wrong. The car should be on the ground when tightening the nuts. BTW, there really isn't a difference w/ the bars - with quality bars the car won't feel like a civic anymore. The bar that will make the biggest difference is a rear sway bar.

I noticed a pretty big difference with just a upper rear strut bar. Then again, I have a DX with no sway bar....

My front and rear strut bars rank right up there in my all time list of usless mods.

I noticed a pretty big difference with just a upper rear strut bar. Then again, I have a DX with no sway bar....
Upper or lower strut/tie bars don't even do the samething as a rear sway bar. Tie bars provide bracing, sways control body roll by reducing suspension travel.

Learn something new every day...

Upper or lower strut/tie bars don't even do the samething as a rear sway bar. Tie bars provide bracing, sways control body roll by reducing suspension travel.

Could you please go deeper into that? Like explain it alittle better? Describe the differences, and what each does a bit more?
Thanks!

Could you please go deeper into that? Like explain it alittle better? Describe the differences, and what each does a bit more?


Tie bars simply "tie" your two struts together so they're all like one peice. They're meant to be braces that make the car more rigid. To the average driver that doesn't mean/do jack shit. Thats why they're one of my top usless mods.

Sway bars are meant to control the body roll of the car. Without a sway bar, when cornering the insde spring may be quite comrpessed, while the ousidse isn't. What a sway bar does is make them work together so when one is down quite a bit, the other will act with it, reducing body roll. That's why they're on the top of my "to do" mods.

On FWD cars, the large bar goes on the rear, not the front. Because the driving wheels are at the front of the car, you want increased roll stiffness at the rear. This improves traction at the driving wheels and reduces understeer which FWD set-ups almost ALWAYS have. A sway bar or larger one would be used at the front of FWD car only if the rear wheel lifts during steady cornering, and if the car leans too much. So use a front bar with caution unless you like heavy under-steer on your FWD car. Most sway bars are used on the front suspension, except FWD. It adds more roll stiffness to the front, which reduces rear suspension weight transfer in a turn. This delays or eliminates lifting one of the drive wheels, and may create an understeering by increasing the loading on the outside of the front tires.

Most production cars use a sway bar, usually in the front, but they are a compromise for average driving conditions. This means the sway is stiff enough to limit roll to acceptable point if the car is driven "normally". If hard driving is the normal operating condition for the car, typical production sways are not stiff enough. They allow so much roll that on a car with independent suspension the tires may operate at a positive camber angle in a turn. Stiffer/larger front sway make the car unpredictable. A car that rolls less is a lot more fun to drive. I could type a 5 page thing about sway bars on FWD, but I think this should do . . . . RWD is COMPLETELY opposite.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=147801

The primary function of Anti roll / sway bars is to control body roll by tieing the left/ride suspension together reducing suspension travel during a corner.

Upper tie bars tie the upper strut mounts(weak spot) together providing chassis stiffeness. Lower ties do the samething except for they brace the inboard lower control arm mounts (weak spot)