As Strut Bars Go...

[i<3mycb7coupe]

I am sorry to bring this up after so many threads have been posted over & over, but which do you guys prefer
-front tower strut bar
-conventional(Neuspeed) front strut bar

[ExplodingCake]

neuspeed.

[i<3mycb7coupe]

Which one? The 94 accord 4 point?

[johnl]

Whatever strut tower bars you use, they need to be rigid. A lot of strut bars have rigid enough bars, but are sadly let down by the flimsiness of the brackets that attach the bar to the tops of the strut towers. Many of these brackets are made from steel that is just too thin to supply the required rigidity, and this defeats the purpose of the bar, regardless of how rigid the bar itself may be.

I suspect this is why some people swear by their strut bars and others think they are a wank that do nothing but look cool, i.e some (many) people are using bars that are for whatever reason not able to do what they were supposedly designed to do, whether this be because the bar itself is too weak in compression (tension doesn't matter, a length of wire is probably adequate in tension), or the brackets are not robust enough.

I have home made strut bars front and rear on my CB7 and I was amazed at the difference in feel and responsiveness they made. These bars feature very robust brackets, more so than any comercially available units I've seen. My brackets are made from 5mm thick steel plate, and designed to carrry the loads in a geometrically correct manner (many aren't). It's also important that the bar itself be straight, or if this is not possible then VERY much larger OD and / or thick in the wall (preferably both). Good bars work, bad bars don't.

Also (and I've seen this debated ad nauseum elsewhere), it makes no difference whether the bar is attached to each bracket with one or two bolts, or indeed whether the whole thing is welded up as a single piece. This makes no difference to the strength of the bar in the direction in which forces work within the bar, being to transmit force laterally from one strut tower to the other in a purely lateral manner. No vertical forces are or can be significantly resisted by strut tower bars, that just don't work this way. To do so they would need to be substantial girders or complex triangulated structures, and none are.

[Camurai]

I get the feeling this guy ^^^ is going to become a very important part of this forum.