I know everybody and their mother has one of these already, but all I can say is "wow". It's rediculous that the car didn't come with one of these, if only for safety reasons. Every day going to work, I go round a curved bridge that follows the edge of a river valley bank, leading up into town. This bridge has some of the most vicious expansion joints, which combined with the high-speed corner, make any vehicle "buck" given enough speed. I think I gained about 20mph of safety margin with this one simple upgrade. Even the crosswinds that plague the area seem to have less effect on the vehicle.
I pick it up from Never Enough Auto, via eBay. I was also a bit surprised, but quite pleased to find it came with a black paint finish. All of the Addco bars I've seen have the natural metal look. Black looks good. It took me about two hours to install, but only because I had to hunt for tools in an unfamiliar shop, and I'm more comfortable inside the case of a computer than under a car. It's a good thing this forum gave me access to some good installed photos, because the instructions were four kinds of useless. I think they'd been photocopied a few thousand times from the generic instructions they include with every swaybar they ever produced. Some parts weren't even accounted for, and the instructions included some critical steps as "OEM anti-sway bar MUST be removed before proceding with installation". Great advice, perhaps, if it even applied.
Anyways, the value of an anti-sway bar has been proved to me without question. Now I'm looking at whether I need the front bar to match. I've noticed that the rear end of the car is almost too rigid compared to the front, making for some interesting "skittering" when the rear starts to come loose. I'll be lowering on Sportlines and D-specs fairly soon, which will no doubt tighten things up considerably, so I'll decide what to do after running that setup for a while.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edited Sunday, March 18, 2007 10:44 AM
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Yeah those instructions were pretty useless... they kept referring to it as a front swaybar... If I hadn't had the good old JBO open up on a laptop in the garage, it probably would have taken another half hour to install it. I didn't notice it as much as you did, but once you get your suspension on the car you will be loving every corner.
" To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous. "
I love my addco front sway bar
I'm thinking about getting the newer style rear sway bar however.. since I have yet to install my older addco rear sway.
it looks good and not having to drill my trailing arms is definetly a plus
your's came black?! i'm jealous. mine is the normal bronze color I have always seen them in. so when are you gonna start 3-wheelin the corners?
AutoFreak57 wrote:your's came black?! i'm jealous. mine is the normal bronze color I have always seen them in. so when are you gonna start 3-wheelin the corners?
When I find a closed course. In the "retirement town" where I live, I'd likely slide around the old-folks' home and wipe out a row of parked Ford Fiestas.
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