strut tower bars

hello all, i have recenlty purchased a 1998 honda accord ex. i plan on doning some simple mods, i have already purchased the front and rear strut tower bars. the question that i have is as follows " is there anything special or anything that i need to worry about befor einstalling these, also they didnt come woth instructions, so is it just bolt them into place or is a little more complicated then that????" thanks everyone.

Have you ever replaced struts before?

Un-bolt the bolts to the sruts usually 2 or three slide the brace on then bolt them nice and tight, remember this is what keeps the car suspended above the so if its loose then you will have problems.

no i have never replace strurt before, is there anything that i should be careful of while doing this?? does the car need to be lifted off of the ground, are there any special adjustments that i have to make etc.?????

Nope, pretty self explanatory. Easy mod. The front is easy. The rear I'm not sure about, as I never put one on my honda. But on my Mitsu, I had to take out alot of the interior paneling in the trunk to get access to the top of the strut towers. And then once it was installed, I had to cut small holes in the paneling to allow for the bar.

Anyway, it is simply, the hardest part is getting the bolts loose. Get a breakerbar or just a long steel pipe on the end of your wrench, so you get generate enough torque to break them loose. Plop the bar down, and tighten them back up. Also keep in mind, some cars have a battery 'tie down' that secures itself to one of the front struts. If this is the case, you may have to remove it for fitment issues (if this happens, find an alternative way to secure your battery in the engine bay). Otherwise, if it does fit, be careful not to overtighten the battery tiedown, as I have seen people snap them while installing strut bars. If you don't have one, then ignore all that.

Good luck

ok i have now purchased the lower rear strut tower, i looked for the upper and couldnt find it no where, how is this one installed, thanks all for your help.

I found an upper strut bar without any problems. http://www.andysautosport.com/product/suspension/strut_bars?_v=vmd00187

I ended up getting the black Neuspeed, and it will be in sometime this week. They say parts are delivered in 5 to 7 days if they are in stock.

There are strut bars and sway bars. Sway bars are under the car, strut bars connect the top of the struts (under hood, and in trunk) I think you need to use different terminology if you are having a hard time finding a strut bar.

Sway bar replacements are a bit harder, as you will have to be under the car dealing with actual suspension work. What did you buy?

They do make lower strut braces for under the car, and im 100% sure its not a sway bar. Hell with the right struts, braces and sway bars you could make an economy car hanlde like a porsche, once again with the right parts.

sorry about the terminology, im new to this sort of stuff. i have purchased the strut tower bar to go under the hood, and i have (as it was called when i bought it "Rear Lower Tie bar"). how hard is it to install this particular item???? and what are some other inexpensive mods/upgrades that i can do (performance and appearance). thank you all for your input.

You should look at some shock/spring combos or some quality coil-over systems. Other basic mods are CAI/SRI/V2 intake, headers (recomend Comptech if you have money), and exhaust (greddy, tanabe, apex'i, and magnaflow are all good).

After that, save up for some rims and tires, then a basic body kit and paint job, like a BW2 or WW lip kit. You could also get some blackhoused OEM headlights, or get some HID or Retrofitted headlights.

Once you save up 10k, supercharge it with a Comptech S/C and a Dr. Evil transmission. If you save up even more, you can get a 3.2TL/CL swap and the boost that. That is considering that you have the V6 version, if you have the I4, look at turbos.

There are quite a few things that you could do, the 6th gen aftermarket is starting to pick up as of late. v6performance.net has a good 6th gen accord subforum. You can find some very nice 'Cords over there, great for ideas and questions.

return the front strut bar if you haven't installed it already and get your money back. the 98 has a firewall strut brace in it from the factory which is stiffer than a standard strut brace simply because it ties the strut towers to the firewall. then take that cash and get an aem cold air intake. AEM. Nothing compares. I highly recommend the Greddy Evo2 exhaust and Greddy header next. the whole system including the header will cost close to 1k but the f23 responds really well to more airflow. greddy has a good sound too, not too loud, just a nice deep tone and a very nice roar when the vtec hits. my biggest piece of advice to you is save your money and buy good, name brand parts the first time, you'll be much happier in the end. especially when it comes to suspension parts.

So your saying that instead of tying the struts directly to each other at one point its better to have them braced like this because the firewall is well a piece of sheet metal. Sheet metal flexes, and tying the struts to 2 points doesnt help much, creates moe flex. The strut brace ties the struts across the same piece so theres less flex in the brace and more in the car.

Oh yeah you sound like a spokes man for aem and greddy.

that firewall will flex, but not side to side, which is the type of load the strut brace will create. and i'm not a spokesperson, i've just wasted a lot of money on crappy parts and that intake exhaust combo is the best i've found. just giving my two cents, that's what forums are fuckin for.

just giving my two cents, that's what forums are fuckin for.
but forums aren't for giving bad advice :nono:

here's a pic of my upper and lower rear strut bars
http://www.photodump.com/direct/kicker1_solo/naws.jpg
http://www.photodump.com/direct/kicker1_solo/f7168181.jpg
the night I wrecked my car, you can see that it bent a little bit (just like everything else on my car :()
http://www.photodump.com/direct/kicker1_solo/f81d3578.jpg

Perhaps you dont understand the properties of metal, flex is one thing factory strut bars cant compare to anything aftermarket unless its a porsche, ferrari etc. The firewall also has torsional load. Yeah an intake and exhaust is one thing but once you start to get the extra power your car accelerates faster and can rev higher and faster, thus in turning when you accelerate out of a turn you are putting more torsional load on the firewall which leads to more stress on the stuts. Now i will admit your not rally driving so yeah an intake would be more of a priority, but some people want there car to have better looks and when you compare 70-100 for a strut brace and 100-250 for a CAI i think you see the difference.

Kicker i like the nitrous bottle.

Kicker i like the nitrous bottle.
thanks, wanna buy it

point taken.

No dont plan on juicing my car, im thinking h23/h22 hybrid with about 7-10 psi fully built bottom end light weight rods, pistons, flywheel i want to break 8500 redline in it long push for it but i think i can do it. I have the damn block sitting on a stand in my bedroom just got it back from getting hot tanked and honed.

Dont want to sound like an ass hondaboy but im pretty anal when it comes to cars.

after i read your retort to my post i decided to take a look under the hood of my car and i found that the stock stut brace is actually two angled braces attached to the firewall. which defininitely won't be as stiff as a tower brace. so good call on that one.

Hell im going to admit ive never seen under the hood of that year accord, its just that 95% of factory under hood braces are the dual setup mount about 5-10 inches from each other on the firewall to the struts. Usually meant to give the car better handling but like many other things nothing can compare to aftermarket. Il admit there better than nothing.

Im souping up an accord too but gen IV... i've done an engine swap jdm f20a, dc sports headers, greddy catback, intake, bodykit etc but I got some random strut bars not the best quality though, do you notice a significant difference with the bars in place or should i not bother with them?

The thread that wont die.

Yes they do make a difference. With the front bar, I noticed it at high speed (100mph) banking turns on the highway, where I could now go a few mph, maybe even 10mph, faster than before.
Are there better suspension mods? Yes Are they as cheap? No.

I've been reading this with great interest.

A strut tower brace (proper name) is the one that straddles across the top of the towers and ties them together. The reason is to keep the geometrical relationship of the two the same when the car is under high side loads. Normally the towers will flex slightly, and since the strut design eliminates the upper control arm and ball joints, the result is an asymmetrical condition caused in the front end geometry that affects mainly camber, that being how "planted" the tire is arcross the entire tread width, side to side. You don't want front wheel camber wandering around individually during a hard corner, as it translates to vague and sloppy steering feel and reduced response.

This wasn't a problem back in the days of full frame cars, because all the suspension members were mounted onto the frame itself, and the frame did not flex appricieably. The body itself being mounted to the frame provided any diagonal rigidity the frame lacked on it's own, so they completed each other.

The best setup, I would think, would involve not just side to side bracing of the towers to tie them together, but also diagonal bracing to the firewall to help eliminate front-rear flexing of the towers, which would prevent any variations in caster, and make the car REALLY feel positive and solid.

But unless you tie the towers together, with no intermediate sheet metal (like the core support or firewall) in the bracing, you just aren't going to get the rock solid feel and steering response you're after.