Rep Power: 529

Two questions:

1. For those of you who installed one, did you notice a difference?

2. Is this eBay one decent? It says 35mm. Is that a good thickness or are better ones thicker.

Thanks,

IronFist

 
Rep Power: 420

I don't know where they got 35mm from? What are they measuring? That Ebay lower tie bar is allright, but I prefer ones that tie into more than just two bolts. The one that comes with the Progress rear sway bar is nice. Same with the Comptech one for their rear sway bar. Nice, but expensive. Same with the Neuspeed design. Again, nice. Expensive though. There's only one choice IMO. Progress rear sway bar and integrated tie bar!

 
Rep Power: 529

Did you notice any improvement in handling from the lower tie bar? My rear sway bar gave some good improvements, but I think I remember hearing somewhere that the lower tie bar by itself won't make a noticible difference.

Thanks.

IronFist

 
Rep Power: 420

Exactly. You won't be able to feel it that much. It does help though. Every bit helps. It prevents flexing of the chassis in that area. Hence a Progress sway bar without that tie bar installed will be less effective. They're meant to work together. The tie bar stiffens the chassis so that the forces produced by the Progress sway bar can go straight into the lower control arms and not be dissipated in flexing the chassis.

I'm overcomplicating things though. The simple way to explain it is that the stiffer everything is, the better other compoenents can work since their attachment points don't flex. Like the sway bar, or the strut bar, or the tie bar, or anything else. You want to get rid of as much flex as possible. That's why injecting closed cell foam into the open compartments of our cars does a ton for handling. It stiffens everything up so that the modifications you already have (like strut bars, sway bars, tie bars) can work more effectively.

Then there are the bushings. Rubber flexes a lot, so making one thing stiff will only help up to the point where the bushings start to flex. Get it? You need to make all of the suspension components and the parts linking them as stiff as possible. Only then can they work effectively together. This is sort of a dilema of having the car handle as well as it's most flexible part. Again an oversimplification, but you get what I'm getting at.

 
Rep Power: 308

Grey's absolutely right.

Fortunately, I did almost all my stiffening at the same time. Added the Neuspeed lower rear tiebar/swaybar combo, Neuspeed upper front strut bar, and Neuspeed lower front x-brace. WOW, what a difference. Add to that the H&R sport springs (true progressive-rate) and the Koni yellows on every corner. . . and taking corners is a blast!

Only thing for me left to do now is replace all the bushings. I can still feel some body roll, and I KNOW it's the bushings. It's going to be a lot of work, so I think I'll wait until I'm ready to drop in the K20. Half the front end will be in pieces anyway. . . so that'll be as good a time as any to replace all the bushings.

But if you do all this, at least make sure the front and rear swaybar bushings are upgraded. . . and that'll help a lot for sure.

 
Rep Power: 0

ya what the others were saying. I've got the RSX (19mm) sway in the rear with the neuspeed strut back there with polyurethane bushings throughout my cars suspension, front has neuspeed upper strut. From stock there is a HUGE improvement, but with all the bushings if there's no radio on, I can hear the chasis making noises when I turn and or hit bumps. Not a bad sounds but you can hear some noise going on.

 
Rep Power: 308

If you love the sounds of racecars, it's music to your ears.

After my swap and the full workup, chassis-wise, I'm sure I'll hear tons of ish most people would feign from wanting in their car. I'll love it.

 
Rep Power: 529

What exactly does the X-brace do for you?

Thanks,

IronFist

 
Rep Power: 0

WTF? Tie bars don't increase handling what so ever. It's purpose is to just prevent an oversized sway bar from flexing the subframe. The chassis will flex due to the weight forced on a thicker anti sway bar and doesn't do anything for thinner bars. How is such a small bar going to improve handling by being bolted up in the center of the subframe? It has nothing to do with suspension dynamics which begin with the springs and a tie bar can NOT what-so-EVER reduce spring compression to allow the car to handle better.

That is all.