well i figure i would chime in and try to contribute....the effect of upper strut bars on chassis rigidity differs car to car...however most cars use the roof-line and A ,B and C pillars to do most of the upper chassis strength...to understand what any of the suspension components do you need to know what forces they are trying to counter act and or decrease/increase. for example on my Honda the upper bars are useless because the pillars are right there there is no flex that high off the suspension...(across towers) a rear lower strut bar would help keep the rear suspension points slightly more rigid but a rear sway-bar reduces the need for such a bar dramatically as it controls roll to a degree....another thing to know is under-steer and over-steer....front sway bars are usually a tad large on fwd cars from the factory so that your grandmother can drive it...by using a smaller diameter front bar you can allow the front end to be looser and reduce "plowing" or over-steer.. from a performance standpoint on a fwd car the goal is to have the rear end extremely tight and the front end looser so the car naturally wants to dive in a bit more and not dive to the outside of a turn...as a real world example i ran a 22mm rear integra type R factory bar and racing end links on my civic and no bar up front at all and i also ran much higher spring and shock rates in the rear than in the front this in effect made the car naturally want to dive into the corner and the rear end was just pulled around with no argument. just my two cents into it....i try to help anyone i can.
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