Originally Posted by KylexD
Ok, so the front is a strut bar, the rear is a sway, and the brace goes underneath. I would imagine with a combination of all 3 then you would be as tight and responsive as possible? Right? And does it matter if say the strut bar is Tanabe, and the sway bar is DCSport does it matter to mix them? And what are the differences in MM, you said you have a 19MM, I have seen people talk about the 20MM???[COLOR="Silver"]
And I'm not sure where to start with Ultra Racing, lol. They have me confused with like 6 diff. bars to choose from.
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ok so. strut tower bars go on top of the struts, (under the hood over the engine, or in the hatch from strut top to strut top.
sway bars go underneath and connect the left and right from the underneath. theres a rear trd option, and the front already has one (its what those silver links that hook up to the shock arms go to, hence theyre called "swaybar endlinks"
braces..... braces "reduce chassis flex" ........
ive never seen them do anything substantial. i personally dont believe in them. its pretty much a big argument as to whether or not they do anything, some people feel it on their butt dyno when cornering, others find they dont do a damn thing.
as far as strut tower bars go, they are good in cars that have their strut sections away from the body of the car, such as a 240sx, supra etc where theres a spacey engine bay and the wheels sit forward. it helps reduce the left and right side of the car from flexing seperately because there isnt much chassis support where the engine is sitting.
in the xd, strut tower bars will be mostly for decoration. our suspension is built right in front of the firewall and the chassis on the xd is pretty solid as it is.
for swaybars, upgrading both the front and back is good, but only if you carefully figure out what you want to run.
if you just slap 2 big ass bars on the front and back, you will increase your turning capacity and such, but you will miss out on one of the nice tricks about swaybars.
using ratios in swaybar size can help actually reduce/increase oversteer and understeer by changing roll stiffness.
the general idea is if you experience heavy understeer (like the xd's and most other fwd cars do) you pump up the size of the rear swaybar, you will change the roll coefficient of the rear, which will stiffen it up, and help to add an oversteer characteristic to the vehicle..
if you experience heavy oversteer (common in some of the older , heavily powered rwd cars), you pump up the front sway and it helps to balance it the otherway, changing the roll coefficient up front and providing an understeer characteristic.
id say either of the companies 19-22mm sway bars will do just fine for this, and just stick with the stock front sway (not even sure if they make a replacement)
if you get too big with your rear sway you could increase to a point where you start inducing snap oversteer too easily, which is generally a problem for fwd cars, and especially small hatches because the front is so heavy and the rear is so light.
tldr cliffs:
get the rear sway for some performance increase, rear stiffness and to help reduce understeer.
get the others if you want but prepare to be dissapointed.