So, I appologize for the noob question, but its pretty straight forward.

What parts are available for upgrading suspension?
I have the strut tower brace, and I know springs are always an option,
But what else is there?

A friend of mine once did an upgrade to his car, and I dont talk to this friend anymore, otherwise I would ask him, but he put something on his suspension, and it made his handling super tight, to the point where he was driving right after doing the upgrade, and had to swerve to dodge bambi, and ended up in the guard rail because the steering was so much tighter.

What upgrade would do this? I know it wasnt springs, or lowering it, because he showed me the part, and I had no idea what it was. It definately wasnt a spring, or shock/strut.

But it apparently did very well, and I would like to acheive the same results.

This is where I need help. What options are available?

Thanks guys!

 

hey do you know if you can jack your car up with the strut bar still in place... in my opinion i would think it would bend the other strut tower??? sorry i have no idea what part your friend used.. but someone on this site will prolly know.

 

I believe your talking about a anti-roll bar or anti-sway bar eibach has the for the 2.2

 

can anyone verify this?

 

My bro has a strut tower brace on his car and jacks it up all the time with no problems

 

I have not tried this yet. I wouldnt think it would bend though. The bars are pretty solid...

Anti Sway bar, okay, I will look into that, thanks! The part he showed me though fit in his band. While I dont know what a sway bar looks like exactly, I would imagine that it would be pretty big? I will go look at those now, and I appreciate the help. If anyone can shed some more light into this, it is much appreciated!

 

sway bars are the most noticiable suspension mod you can do so that has to be it

 

Okay, fair enough, so I guess my next question would be, on a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being building a car from scratch and 1 being changing an air filter, how hard is it to install the anti-roll kit?

I dont know a WHOLE lot about what I am doing, but I am at least competant enough to do things like install my own intake, and basic stuff like that.

Is this easily done by ones self?

 

why would jacking your car up bend a strut tower bar? I don't get it...

 

well i dont' have a strut bar but my theory is that it will bend the strut tower. If you jack one side of your car up, one tower will be higher than the other causing you to bend the other strut tower or its bolts... does someone actually know if this is possible or not??

 

ive never heard of that happening

 

from my understanding the back sways are usually pretty easy on most cars to do yourself but the fronts tend to be alot more difficult

 

I Don't Think So, I had Strut Tower Braces on my GP and I Never had a problem. This is the first time I ever seen this come up before

 

Lets clear this up...

A STRUT bar is a very simple device that help reduce the cars welded body frame from flexing by simply reinforcing the tops of the strut towers together. Nothing you do by jacking up one side of the car could possibly be damaged by having a strut bar installed. When jack up a single wheel on the car, you are in fact lifting the entire frame of the car, not just one corner of it. All it does is tranfer the weight normally carried by that wheel onto the jack.

A SWAY bar is attaches each of your front or rear wheels together. There is a separate bar for each, the front and back. Here's how it works. When one wheels suspension is compressed, a sway bar transfers some of that movement over to the other wheel as well, causing it to also compress. The opposite is also true, should one wheels suspension extend, it cause the opposite side to also extend. The benefit of this is in turns. When a car normally "sways" to the outside of a turn, the outside wheel compresses while the inside wheel extends, causes the car to lean. A Swar bar balances those forces, keeping the car more level in the turns. Jack a car up with this installed would also not create a problem. All that would happen is as the wheel being jacked up was lifted, the wheel on the opposite would start to be lifted as well. It does impose a spring load force into the sway bar, but that is exactly what it is designed to do.

 

I don't see how the strut towers would move anyway...I'm confused. I wanna say we could be talking about different things but you obviously know what a strut bar is since you know where its located.

 

Strut towers don't "move", but they can flex a bit. Since the support for the front wheels of the car is in the box structure of the engine compartment, there is plenty of room there for the frame of the car to flex. It's small, but it does do it. The strut bar helps reduce it. For most people, the improvement is nearly imperceivable.

 

Halfcent, great information, thanks! So, do you have experiance with installing sway bars? How difficult would you say it is?

Is it something I would be better off taking someplace to get done?

 

The rear sway bar can be installed with a set of sockets and maybey some open end wrenches. It really isn't hard at all. I would rate it somewhere in the 2-3 range on your scale. Now the front would be alot more difficult, i've never done a front but i believe you have to take more off and really get in there. I would say thats in the 4-6 range on your scale.