SS33

I know I've been a picture ***** lately, but this should be the last install thread for a bit.

Much to my surprise my strut bar showed up only one day after the CAI,,, sweet. Though it may not be a huge difference, I can definitely tell that it tightened things up a bit. Accelerating while turning is much more stable now.

I love the piece, it looks great in the engine bay, but the fitment and welds on the brackets could cetainly have been better. I had to "manipulate" the **** out of the driver side bracket to get the bar installed. Other than that the install is cake took me about twenty minutes, including the time fighting with the driver side bracket. You will only need a 13mm socket for the strut tower bolts, a large hex key (I dont remember the size) and a crescent or open ended wrench to adjust/tighten the bar itself.

I really hope that the welds are better than they look. That's the bad thing about painted parts is that you really can't tell. They could be shitty welds, or the welder could have just decided that the brackets needed several passes, and loads of filler. I guess we'll see how they hold up over time.

Onto the pics. Like I said, the bar itself, looks awesome, but Aerospeed makes that part.


Passenger side bracket
You can kind of see what I was talking about with the welds in the next couple of pics


Driver side bracket


Me installing the bar


And some overview shots




Overall I'm glad I bought the CA strut bar, so long as the welds hold. But once again quick shipping, and good correspondance.
Thanks for looking, and I swear I'll lay of the picture whoring for a bit now.

RedBaseBolt

Looks good, It may even perform better than the DC Strut bar.

But I still like the look of the DC personally.

SS33

Thanks, sadly it came down to looks for me too though, lol. And after I ordered the ShowMeCustoms pieces I thought this CAI and strut bar would look great together. I do like that this bar is adjustable, I'm just a little hesitant to pre-load it all until I see how the welds hold up under daily driving

I do like the look of the DC bar too, but I decided to go all chrome and shine under the hood. I still don't know why, I ussually hate chrome, lol.

BooSSted

iTrader: (3)

I like the DC because you don't even know it is there unless your looking for it!

CTCOBALTSSS

Looks good bro. I had a DC strut brace on my 02' eclipse. It's made by Vibrant. I didn't have good luck with it though. Where the brace connects to the part that connects to the strut mount is. That part comes loose a lot. It's not just one solid peice. I hope you have better luck bro. This part is what i'm talking about.

SS33

Are saying the bolt that attaches the rod to the brackets came loose?

Or the adjustable ends of the rod itself came loose?

I tightened the bolts you circled pretty well, but thanks for the heads up, I'll check them regularly

biohazard

get some locktight or something... im going with that bay and thehn powdercoating a metallic green

CTCOBALTSSS

Yeah it's the bolts that I circled. Good call on checking them often. That's realy all you should have to do and you'll be fine. After about a year the tightening becomes more frequent. It's all good though. Looks awsome bro and you know i'm loving the engine compartment. Nice and clean.

If you keep up that clean look you'll be getting so much

SS33

LOL, thanks alot bro, your engine bay was def. my inspiration. I want to do either the torque forward dual torque brace or the Ingalls ETD next. But I haven't been able to find a pic of the torque forward pieces installed. And I wanna wait and see if the Ingalls bracket issues get worked out.

I think I'll take biohazards advice and use some Loc-tite on them eventually. I want to drive on it a bit first and do all the final adjusting before that though.

Thanks for all the comments everyone

biohazard

i love sommenting lol jk

SS33

lol, maybe I should start reading what I type