DIY: New hardware for Spoon Sports strut bars.

Grey · 05-18-2003

The Spoon Sports strut bars come with M10 bolts and are threaded for M10 bolts. The thing is that the brackets that attach to the chassis have M12 sized holes in them! Why is this stupid? Well... Once you put on the strut bar and don't torque it down, there's 4mm of play from side to side. The chassis has to flex extraordinarily before you'll feel the strut bar kick in to prevent further flexing.

The solution is not to torque down the bolts as hard as you can. Believe me, I tried. I stripped one of the holes. The damn thing still moved though because I saw little markings on the brackets where te aluminum slid back and forth.

The correct way to deal with this problem is to buy an M12 bolt and re-thread the hole for an M12 bolt. However, I live in the good 'ole US of A. Therefore metric bolts aren't easy to come by. A wonderful thing is that a half inch diameter bolt fits perfectly with less than a 20th of a mm of play on either side!

Now that's tight!

Allright, on to the DIY...

Time:
This procedure takes a total time of two hours to complete for the meticulous DIYer. The fast working DIYer that can tolerate a scratch or two and a possible screw-up should be able to finish in an hour.

Complexity:
To complete this procuedure one has to have a certain degree of proficiency with hand tools. No other skills are required, although an understanding of how maliable aluminum is is useful in not messing up.

Tools:
- electric drill
- 1/2" drill bit
- 27/64" drill bit (about $7.00)
- 1/2" - 13 (threads per inch) tap (about $3.50)
- monkey wrench

Materials:
- four 1/2" stainless lock washers
- four 2" long (I think?) 1/2" - 13 grade 8 bolts
- WD-40

Procedure:
1. First take the strut bars off of the car. Take the base brackets off as well.
- The base brackets should come off because the strut bars will need to be put on by piecing them together before putting the whole thing on the car. Then torquing to press the base brackets into place. The rear strut bar seems to be an especially tight fit after this modification.

2. Drill out the one unthreaded hole on each side of each strut bar to 1/2".
- If you're not comfortable enough with a drill to control your drilling so that you don't drill into the threaded hole, then do not proceed! Find a thin piece of steel to put behind the small hole so that the drill will contact the scrap piece of metal before it reaches the threaded hole.

3. Drill out the threaded holes on each side of each strut bar to 27/64".
- You should start by putting the drill bit through the 1/2" hole that you just drilled and center it based on that hole. That way the bolt will fit through that hole and thread straight in. If you don't align the two holes the bolt might not find the thread and you won't be able to screw it in.

4. Tap the 27/64" hole with the 1/2" - 13 tap using the monkey wrench to hold the tap.
- I used a monkey wrench because I didn't feel like spending more money to buy something to hold the tap. The holder I had wasn't large enough to hold that size tap.

Remember to thread the hole so that you can screw in the bolt straight in through the 1/2" opening. You'll have to look at it as you thread it to align the two holes.

5. Now put the three pieces of each strut bar together and mount each strut bar to the strut towers.
- Fit the strut bar base brackets on top of the strut tower bolts and tighten them down all the way with the stock nuts. If you have a torque wrench, then torque them to 33 foot pounds.

6. Tighten down the new hardware to 33 foot pounds, or until the lock washer is seated.
- You don't have to tighten the hardware down too much. I tightened it down to 33 foot pounds and I didn't strip the threads. If you tighten it down until the lock washer is seated, then it should be enough as well. The bolt contacts the base brackets, so now the stiffness of the strut bar no longer depends upon the torque of those bolts.

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vincenzobar · 05-19-2003

you have got to be kidding me. i am about to buy a lower front Spoon bar. And i have to do all this in order to get it to work right. Hmmmm!

Grey · 05-19-2003

Lower front? I'm talking about the upper front and upper rear. You know, strut bars. You're talking about a tie bar I think. That's different. I don't know what's up with those.

Boilermaker1 · 05-19-2003

The spoon bar only has 12 mm hardware???
HAHA!!!! Cusco OWNZ! 16mm bolts!

BTW... I had no slop at all in the spoon lower rear tie... so I shouldn't think the front lower was any different.

vincenzobar · 05-20-2003

oh my bad lil misuner standing. LOL Thanks for clearing that up! Great DIY BTW. I am the acronym king lol

CapYoda · 05-20-2003

mmm metric system.

Voiceofid · 05-20-2003

or we can all just bow to the one piece designs of the neuspeed bar (even though the bmw bars are 3 times the size of it)

opto_isolator · 07-25-2003

Resurected - Grey, did you (or anyone else) have problems with their bars fitting? I have the Spoon sports rear upper bar - and its TIGHT, I mean literally! To install it I have to bolt the whole thing together, than slip it over the rear strut bolts, and THAN torque them down. I can see that this is changing my camber too, since its so freaken tight. I just put KW coilovers on today, and noticed that after I torqued it - the rear wheel chamber was negative on both sides......Hope this isn't going to to do any damage (going to get an alignment anyways).....

Grey · 07-26-2003

Yes! That's why I created this DIY. The rear bar is tight as you say, but that's not a bad thing. Then again, it might be a bad thing if the forces work to also expand the bar. Then it'll become usless since there's enough space for the bolt to move. My front bar was too loose. It rattled! It did nothing for the handling 'cause I would have to tighten down the bolts to make it tight. That's stupid IMO because all of the force holding the bar together is in the torque that's applied to those bolts. That's why I created this DIY.

HondaLuver · 07-26-2003

Mugen own spoon and cusco, it has no bolts, just a solid design with tig welded edges...muhahah

civictuner · 10-20-2004

Spoon is way better advanced than Mugen

chawski · 04-06-2007

I dont know if anyone else had the same problem as I did, but when i did my strut bar, i had to lower the small brake fluid reservoir that is mounted on the driver side strut tower. to do this i just removed it and cut about an inch off and redrilled holes. i also had to bend the bracket slightly, which i did with a torch and a clamp. i recommend throwing a light coat of rustoleum just to keep it from rusting. this was on a 01, so i dont know if other years have the same problem. good luck!

skipbarber · 04-06-2007

damn, old thread. i had to move my clutch fluid reseviour down too, but the strut tower already had another threaded hole below the one that was there for the reseviour originally. so the solution was to just move it down.