Question about strut bars

[DogAteCat]

I'm looking to purchase a rear strut bar however what confuses me is that whether i should be purchasing a 'Rear Lower Strut Bar' or a 'Rear Strut Bar Brace'?

What are the key differences? Should i be getting both or is one of them more suitable than the other?

One last thing... do ebay strut bars do absolutely nothing in comparison to say cusco branded ones? i.e. am i wasting my money on bling?

rear lower strut bar (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-LOWER-STRUT-BAR-FOR-94-97-98-01-HONDA-INTEGRA-VTI_W0QQitemZ370278601516QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car _Parts_Accessories?hash=item563653132c)

rear strut brace (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-STRUT-BAR-BRACE-FOR-94-95-96-97-2001-HONDA-INTEGRA_W0QQitemZ370277617113QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU _Car_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5636440dd9)

Furthermore, will sway bar links be a better upgrade in handling?
sway bar links (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-FRONT-REAR-Sway-Bar-Links-HONDA-INTEGRA-LS-RS-90-01_W0QQitemZ180411393770QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car_ Parts_Accessories?hash=item2a015b66ea)

[aaronng]

I'm looking to purchase a rear strut bar however what confuses me is that whether i should be purchasing a 'Rear Lower Strut Bar' or a 'Rear Strut Bar Brace'?

What are the key differences? Should i be getting both or is one of them more suitable than the other?

One last thing... do ebay strut bars do absolutely nothing in comparison to say cusco branded ones? i.e. am i wasting my money on bling?

rear lower strut bar (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-LOWER-STRUT-BAR-FOR-94-97-98-01-HONDA-INTEGRA-VTI_W0QQitemZ370278601516QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car _Parts_Accessories?hash=item563653132c)

rear strut brace (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-STRUT-BAR-BRACE-FOR-94-95-96-97-2001-HONDA-INTEGRA_W0QQitemZ370277617113QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU _Car_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5636440dd9)

Furthermore, will sway bar links be a better upgrade in handling?
sway bar links (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-FRONT-REAR-Sway-Bar-Links-HONDA-INTEGRA-LS-RS-90-01_W0QQitemZ180411393770QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car_ Parts_Accessories?hash=item2a015b66ea)

Do a bit more research on the effect of each part before you spend money. The strut bars reduce chassis flex. But there is no point getting them if you have stock or lowered suspension as they are softer than your chassis. If you do have coilovers and/or a stiffer rear sway bar, then the strut bars may be of use.

The sway bar links are for replacing the stock ones if you break them. Read up on the sway bar itself and you will see that the sway bar would be one of the best first suspension mods to do. However, on certain models, the subframe can be torn by the rear sway bar, so look at a good reinforcement kit to go with it.

[b18ctrb]

If you are going to do some racing you might as well get all the bracing you can, if not then you can get a way with not using anything! A lot of guys buy them for the bling factor. If your car is lowered and you are using after market suspension get your self some front and rear strut bars.
I personally would not trust any e-bay junk, especially something of this magnitude as it also is a safety factor

[Nepolian]

I'm looking to purchase a rear strut bar however what confuses me is that whether i should be purchasing a 'Rear Lower Strut Bar' or a 'Rear Strut Bar Brace'?

What are the key differences? Should i be getting both or is one of them more suitable than the other?

One last thing... do ebay strut bars do absolutely nothing in comparison to say cusco branded ones? i.e. am i wasting my money on bling?

rear lower strut bar (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-LOWER-STRUT-BAR-FOR-94-97-98-01-HONDA-INTEGRA-VTI_W0QQitemZ370278601516QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car _Parts_Accessories?hash=item563653132c)

rear strut brace (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-STRUT-BAR-BRACE-FOR-94-95-96-97-2001-HONDA-INTEGRA_W0QQitemZ370277617113QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU _Car_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5636440dd9)

Furthermore, will sway bar links be a better upgrade in handling?
sway bar links (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-FRONT-REAR-Sway-Bar-Links-HONDA-INTEGRA-LS-RS-90-01_W0QQitemZ180411393770QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car_ Parts_Accessories?hash=item2a015b66ea)

The stated braces serve different purposes...

From what I can see, the lower strut bar is fitted to the inner lower control arm bolts for bracing.

Where the strut bar brace is to stiffen the chassis between the rear strut tops.

IMO....both would probably do next to nothing in terms of bracing, but will serve the purpose for most people in looking nice and racey....

If you want something that would actually work....look at Carbing or Ultra Racing products as these are 1 piece and will not flex unlike the 3 piece designs.

But having said that, this is good enough for most people who are chasing form over function.

Hope this helped :)

[string]

The two ebay bars you could bend with your hands - they will do nothing for performance.

[mocchi]

The two ebay bars you could bend with your hands - they will do nothing for performance.

bs. youtube it. lol

[kcokla]

If you want something that would actually work....look at Carbing or Ultra Racing products as these are 1 piece and will not flex unlike the 3 piece designs.



I second Ultra Racing!
although the difference is small alone - combined with sway bars coil overs etc will assist even further, every litle bit counts!

if you are purely after handling and generally stiffer feel, move away from strut bars first and go get a rear sway bar and a brace, or coil overs, and then think about strut bars later on.

If you've got good connections you can get ultra racing for very very cheaply in Malaysia (its a malaysian brand).

[string]

bs. youtube it. lol

?????

[mocchi]

?????

bend the bars with your hand, i wanna see.

[connorling]

I'm looking to purchase a rear strut bar however what confuses me is that whether i should be purchasing a 'Rear Lower Strut Bar' or a 'Rear Strut Bar Brace'?

What are the key differences? Should i be getting both or is one of them more suitable than the other?

One last thing... do ebay strut bars do absolutely nothing in comparison to say cusco branded ones? i.e. am i wasting my money on bling?

rear lower strut bar (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-LOWER-STRUT-BAR-FOR-94-97-98-01-HONDA-INTEGRA-VTI_W0QQitemZ370278601516QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car _Parts_Accessories?hash=item563653132c)

rear strut brace (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/REAR-STRUT-BAR-BRACE-FOR-94-95-96-97-2001-HONDA-INTEGRA_W0QQitemZ370277617113QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU _Car_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5636440dd9)

Furthermore, will sway bar links be a better upgrade in handling?
sway bar links (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/4-FRONT-REAR-Sway-Bar-Links-HONDA-INTEGRA-LS-RS-90-01_W0QQitemZ180411393770QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Car_ Parts_Accessories?hash=item2a015b66ea)

lower strut bar u mention is also called lower tie bar, which is located the inside of low control arm. whereas the other one is to go inside ur car, above the suspensions. to be honest, lower tie bar does nothing imo.

dont go for ebay either, i have seen some bad result from using cheap sh!t.

[clutch]

personally, i think the engine brace on top of the engine is good even for street as i noticed the difference when i put mine on, as for the rest, they are a bit much unless tracking?

[mocchi]

personally, i think the engine brace on top of the engine is good even for street as i noticed the difference when i put mine on, as for the rest, they are a bit much unless tracking?

really? lol i couldn't tell the difference at all. only rsb made a difference to me.

[b18ctrb]

I can vouch for Ultra Racing and Carbing along with some other company's like Cusco, JIC, Benen. I am currently using a Carbing 3 point front upper strut bar along with a Ultra Racing 4 point rear upper strut bar, Ultra Racing fender braces ( Which work GREAT ) Carbing rear lower bar, ASR rear sub frame brace, Blox 19mm rear sway, OEM front sway bar, BC Top Fuel bars along with my Cusco interior side pillar bars.
In all honesty before I even put my front strut bar and interior Cusco B-pillar bars on the Ultra Racing fender braces made a HUGE difference. If you will be doing a lot of road coarse racing with cornering I would recomend getting these.

[clutch]

really? lol i couldn't tell the difference at all. only rsb made a difference to me.

yea i felt a bit of a difference, i go through windeys to get to the gf's house and felt a difference

[xclusive_eg8]

been running ultra racing, bars for 3 months now. they cost a bit but when you can corner around 30km more then when you were running stock you then know where your cash went

[kcokla]

been running ultra racing, bars for 3 months now. they cost a bit but when you can corner around 30km more then when you were running stock you then know where your cash went

ultra racing is actually one of the cheapest quality makes,
their only downside is there abit heavy comparitively, but there extremely sterdy and do the job really well.

[aaronng]

been running ultra racing, bars for 3 months now. they cost a bit but when you can corner around 30km more then when you were running stock you then know where your cash went

Ultra racing is very very cheap. Cheap and does the job. :thumbsup:

[aaronng]

I can vouch for Ultra Racing and Carbing along with some other company's like Cusco, JIC, Benen. I am currently using a Carbing 3 point front upper strut bar along with a Ultra Racing 4 point rear upper strut bar, Ultra Racing fender braces ( Which work GREAT ) Carbing rear lower bar, ASR rear sub frame brace, Blox 19mm rear sway, OEM front sway bar, BC Top Fuel bars along with my Cusco interior side pillar bars.
In all honesty before I even put my front strut bar and interior Cusco B-pillar bars on the Ultra Racing fender braces made a HUGE difference. If you will be doing a lot of road coarse racing with cornering I would recomend getting these.

I have Cusco, and I have to say that they do bend after driving hard for a over a year. More for bling I reckon. Eventhough Ultra Racing is cheap, at least the material that they use is more rigid.

[xclusive_eg8]

ok, whats the best brand in terms of solidness and price??

[kcokla]

did u not read what everyone has said dude lol;

ultra racing!

[ewendc2r]

I bought mugen for the bling, very sturdy item..

Seriously guys, to claim you get 30kmh out of a chassis reinforcement is just ludicrous. If anything, the reduced flex in the chassis may make the car less willing to travel at speed around a corner as you are reducing flex (mech grip). The main benefit in stiffening the chassis is to then tune your suspension (i.e. dial in settings) and then with only a small adjustment a change can be felt. Basically rids / reduces the additional variable of chassis stiffness when trying to dial in a car..

So yeah, definitely worthwhile to have them across the strut towers, as this is a weakpoint.

Interesting about the Fender Braces .. I've heard many mixed reports, for the DC2R anyway.. Will have to try them out, haven't seen many designs that triangulate effectively though (most have resultant vector forces acting on a bend etc).

I've heard ultra racing is fine -- so if they are at the right price go for it.

And of course you'll notice a rear sway bar change, it directly effects the effective spring rate across both wheels.

[redefine]

I bought mugen for the bling, very sturdy item..

Seriously guys, to claim you get 30kmh out of a chassis reinforcement is just ludicrous. If anything, the reduced flex in the chassis may make the car less willing to travel at speed around a corner as you are reducing flex (mech grip). The main benefit in stiffening the chassis is to then tune your suspension (i.e. dial in settings) and then with only a small adjustment a change can be felt. Basically rids / reduces the additional variable of chassis stiffness when trying to dial in a car..

its actually more to make handling more predictable. as you move up into stiffer suspension and bigger sway bars more stress is applied through the chassis, especially through the shock mounts. strut bars reduce this chassis flex and therefore make the car more predictable around the corners. i can see you getting alot of extra speed through turns with a stiff chassis compared to a weak one, but but considering the stiffness that these bars add to the chassis, its as you said, not 30km/h

also, flex does not mean mechanical grip at all. otherwise the racers will be using soft sussy and weak but light chassis as that would result in more mechanical grip. and you never see this happen.



And of course you'll notice a rear sway bar change, it directly effects the effective spring rate across both wheels.
only with respect to body roll though...on a strait with no body roll the sway bar does nothing at all. however they are brilliant in reducing body roll.

[ewendc2r]

its actually more to make handling more predictable. as you move up into stiffer suspension and bigger sway bars more stress is applied through the chassis, especially through the shock mounts. strut bars reduce this chassis flex and therefore make the car more predictable around the corners. i can see you getting alot of extra speed through turns with a stiff chassis compared to a weak one, but but considering the stiffness that these bars add to the chassis, its as you said, not 30km/h

also, flex does not mean mechanical grip at all. otherwise the racers will be using soft sussy and weak but light chassis as that would result in more mechanical grip. and you never see this happen.


only with respect to body roll though...on a strait with no body roll the sway bar does nothing at all. however they are brilliant in reducing body roll.

Now not to say you’re wrong. But I don’t entirely agree with you. I think you’ve oversimplified the entire scenario. I’ll precurse this with a big I Think I’m Right”... I've really only started really getting into the physics of it all (and I've tried to 'dumb it down' as I would've appreciated when I was first trying to conceptualise it all)... From here go and read millikens books & Honda-Tech -- Both with excellent intelligent, logical & rational arguments for/against various setups. But yeah, I guess I was talking about a technicality, trying to make people 'ask the question' and then research the response..

Bring it to basics. Install steel rods in place of your dampers to create zero travel. One of the ways the car can then be tuned is by stiffening the chassis (or weakening it) to change the characteristic of grip. At the end of the day, flex represents an undamped movement. Look at go karts, where without suspension they are able to tune the kart for various track conditions – through the chassis.

To simply say everyone would be running soft suspension / soft chassis if that was the case is a massive oversight. At the end of the day, the increased stiffness (with a lateral / longitudinal strength approaching infinity) allows the suspension to 'better do its job' AND make it easier to dial in changes, log data etc. A soft chassis is impractical in any case, due to the forces acting upon it and the kinetic vs elastic energy. At some point, it would just bend and not act like a spring. Soft spring rates do create additional mechanical grip at the cost of roll rate (pitch and roll). The benefit of having a stable car platform again outweighs the mechanical grip benefit of a softer suspension setup.

The whole game is a matter of compromise. A little less here for a larger benefit there.

I will be running quite a soft front setup and a substantially stiffer rear setup, without front sway bar (meaning the wheel rate will take into account the effective ARB rate that has been deleted).

ARB’s will always control roll at the price of traction – The transfer of load is never 100% efficient. The benefit comes in the fact that you can adjust on the fly as tyres degrade (easier to do than change spring rates on the fly) and as at the end of the day any suspension setup should be based on the tyres they run (lateral / longitudinal g loading). Of course I have assumed people realise the function of the Sway bar / Anti Roll Bar. In a FWD car there is a benefit in linking the rear points to some extent, as the diagonal force applied by cornering will in fact assist load distribution onto the front wheels – Assisting traction. It will continue to transfer load until the inside rear tyre fully unloads at which point it can’t transfer any more load and any further lifting can be detrimental.

I think the op needs to go back to absolute basics and gain an understanding of how grip is achieved and how it can be optimised. Not talking down to you and I may have misunderstood you. Just want everyone to have a TOTAL picture, and not just the end game. People can’t make valid decisions based on other peoples applications and practices which may have no relevance to their own situation. In most cases if you aren't running high grip tyres, the majority of 'race suspension setups' with big camber, caster, toe out (Front) and high spring rates will perform worse than a performance street setup matched to the tyres..

[redefine]

dont have time to say what i want so for the moment...props on the awesome post!!

[redefine]

i guess what i was trying to say is that any dampening effect from a soft chassis will not result in mechanical grip in production cars for this reason. the dampenin that results cannot be an ideal dampening, because of the forces involved and the points they are acting at, the chassis will twist and bend throughout cornering and not only the suspension geometry will change, but other things, even down to the ackerman effect (albeit very small) will be effected which will both make suspension setups really really hard to come up with for a certain condition, but it will also make the car unpredictable around corners. yes gokarts may use chassis tuning to great effect, but the load on a go-kart, having a small light tubular steel chassis is much easier to predict what changes will do what compared to the chassis style of regular production cars (forget what its called) which is unpredictable and would change depending on the car

i guess what i was trying to say is deleting a strut bar in order to achieve a higher dampening effect is not the way to go around it. if you need to adjust the dampening you need to invest in adjustable dampners

oh and i forgot that ARB's only do nothing on a completely flat strait, something which dosent exist.haha

[ewendc2r]

dont have time to say what i want so for the moment...props on the awesome post!!

Hah .. I wrote that three bloody times, internet issues lol ..

Yep thats what I was getting at -- Glad we're on the same page. Suspension theory is very very interesting, and is very hard to draw a line where to stop lol .. SO SO SO many variables.

ahh the joy of vehicle dynamics ..