Last Updated: 07/29/98

Applications

Stiffer front sway bars up front will cause car to understeer more.
Stiffer rear sway bars at rear will cause car to oversteer more.
Generally, a thicker bar will be stiffer. However, overall roll stiffness exerted by the bar will include factors such as the end-link placement, bushing stiffness, and whether it is an add-on.

Comptech Rear Anti-sway Bar

From: J. Daniels
It took me about 4 hours working alone. Their instructions are adequate, but I had to read them a few times to really understand what they meant.

You'll have to unbolt the inboard end of the lower control arms. This'll give you access into the frame rail that the sway bar brackets mount onto. Then you'll have to remove two small nuts that are tack-welded onto the
inside of this frame rail (they are for the ABS sensor wire brackets). Comptech has you use a cold chisel to chisel these nuts out from the side. I found it was easier to thread a bolt partially into these nuts, then pound on the head of the bolt with a big hammer. This forces the nuts directly backward (towards the front of the car) and pops 'em right out of their welds on the inside of the frame rail.

Then you have to drill holes in the frame rail to fit the new larger mounting bolts of the Comptech bar. Finally, you'll need to trim the ABS sensor wire brackets to clear the new large Comptech mounting blocks. I used a Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel to do this, and it was a snap.

When you're all done, getting the inboard lower control arm bolts back in can be a pain. Once again, my big hammer was used to tap the control arms up to get the bolt holes to align.

I was also planning to install a Z-Speed lower control arm bar, but with the Comptech bar on, the Z-Speed bar will not clear the Comptech mounting brackets. :-(

The bar works great! I've got a 94 LS 4-door, with Tokico Illuminas and stock springs. I autocross this car, and the Comptech bar really makes the rear of the car rotate nicely on turn-in. Watch out though... if you lift abruptly off of the throttle in a fast corner, the rear will come around quickly!

by Dan Ponze
I was considering ordering the Neuspeed or the Z-speed rear sway bar for quite some time when I came across the CompTech rear sway bar. I wanted a 22mm bar (the Neuspeed is 19mm) and I've heard horror stories about the fitament of Z-Speed products in general so I decided to swallow the $260 delivered price for the CompTech bar. I was amazed at how heavy and massive this bar is. From what I hear, this bar is either the same one or similar to the bar found on the Type R.

It comes with polyurethane bushings and all the hardware necessary. The hardware is quite extensive to make this bar fit GSR's, LS's, and RS's (I have a GSR). All the pieces are nicely finished and the adjustable links are of excellent quality. The instructions are a little confusing as there is a back page with added directions for installing the bar on non-Type R's. Why anyone would want to install this piece on a Type R is beyond me. Install took about an hour and was relatively straightforward once you separate all the pieces and figure out where they go. The only hard part is adjusting the end links. The directions do not say how to do this and I had to call CompTech to ask. I guess you have to connect one link at about the middle setting and lower the car. Then you line up the opposite side and attach it. Once done, you repeat the process for the other side. Sounds easy, but doing it on a lowered car is quite difficult as you have to crawl underneath it.

Once on, the bar performed superbly. The car is perfectly neutral even with the shocks set equally at all four corners. This is a much easier way to get rid of all that understeer than changing the shocks and springs. Ride quality is unaffected to any noticeable degree. The rear end feels more solid and planted with just a hint of oversteer when pushed. The car leans much less and generally feels more responsive. Turn in is crisper and the car can be pushed to higher limits more confidently. If you want to go crazy with the oversteer you can mess with the shock settings but you may get too much this way and render the car a little dangerous under certain conditions.

Overall I was very impressed with the quality of the product and fitament. Install was not too bad (other than the link adjustment) and the fact that Acura sells it at all dealers reassures my confidence in the product. The only bad part is the high cost, but you get what you pay for. I'm anxiously awaiting CompTech's limited slip dif for GSR's which should be out before springtime.

Type-R Rear Anti-Sway Bar

From: Shawn Church
Well, I ordered the Type-R rear bar on Monday and received it on Friday. I ordered all the parts I thought I might need and paid $120 with tax. Turns out, I didn't need all the parts, so it really is cheaper, but that isn't why I'm writing. You see, the rear bar does not use the same mounting method as the GS-R, well, at least my '94.

If you look at Tuan's pictures (which were quite helpful by the way), you'll note that the bar looks to be directly bolted to the cross member. On my GS-R, there is a bracket that bolts to the frame cross member which the sway bar bushing brace is bolted to. In fact, the bushing brace for the GS-R will barely fit over just the Type-R bar itself, let alone the bushing!

So anyway, we bolted up the bar to the end links and looked at whether or not we could fab something. Turns out that with a half inch spacer, we could use one of the existing holes in the frame rail (needed a longer bolt too), but for the top bracket bolt, we had to drill a hole, actually, kind of a big hole so that we could weld in a flange nut (the normal bracket holes have a nut welded to the backside, there wasn't room on the GS-R nor would it have been easy to weld up inside the rail). Once we decided what to do, it took about 20 minutes with a big drill and an arc welder to get everything all set. The bar bolted right up and, so far, no binding problems.

Got the bar Friday, put it in Saturday. Didn't get to do a whole lot of driving on Saturday, but what I did was interesting. The car immediately felt, well, more nimble in the corners. Turn in was crisper for sure. In fact, I was turning in a tad too much till I got acclimated. One thing I really noticed was that I could put power down on exiting turns much sooner and harder because the car was rotating better. Very cool indeed. Took the car to a big circular turn around at the end of dead end street and did some skidpads. At even throttle, the car was almost completely neutral. Under power the front end would start to come out, lift or braking and the rear would drift. It was very controllable and didn't oversteer like I thought it might (since the rest of the suspension is stock). I kept this up till the oil light came on (oops, I have about 300 miles till my next change and was about a half quart low). On my way home, I noticed that I seemed to be driving about 5-10 mph faster than normal, but I wasn't doing it consciously, the car was just better planted.

This was the first time in quite a while where I was really eager to get out and just drive. I mean, I love my car, but I normally don't have a hard time getting to sleep unless I've got an autocross or drag race the next day :-). Got up bright and early and checked the tire pressures and set off for Mulholland Dr. just off of Malibu Canyon. I drive this road once a week, so I'm very familiar with it and what my car will do. Most corners are in the 55-65 range indicated. I ran it several times and was completely impressed.

The first time through, I took it easy to make sure I didn't spin off the road. Frankly, I was going about 5-7 mph slower than normal, but it felt like I was crawling. The car was so well planted in the corners and so neutral, that it was virtually effortless. The next pass I turned up the wick to my normal pace and felt very comfortable. I lifted the throttle in some corners to see what happened and was very pleased. The back end rotated smoothly and controllably. Going into a corner with trail braking was really fun as it increased the speed of rotation, but it wasn't scary. During this run, the car still felt unstressed. The next run, I decided to dial it up to what I felt would be 8/10ths or a little more. On the throttle, the car will still push a bit, but it was nothing like stock, just a comforting little scrub. I was going 7-8 mph faster than normal on most corners, and I think there is more speed to be found. Absolute grip doesn't really feel different, its just that the car is so much more controllable. To take advantage of the car now, I need to re-calibrate my turn in so that I turn in later and quicker, thus allowing me to brake later. I also need to start accelerating sooner out of corners. Many times I found myself accelerating before the apex indicating I was going _way_ too slow.

Update: Install Info 7/29/98

Take off the existing bar. Mount the new bar to the endlinks. Put the bushings and brackets on the bar (lubricate so you can slide them easily back and forth). Rotate the bar so that the bushing and bracket hit the body. Move the bushing and bracket horizontally till they line up with one of the existing bolt holes. You'll need a spacer and a longer bolt to mount there (later, when you've created the other hole). Now mark where the top hole needs to be.
Drill and oversize hole, weld in a flange nut of the appropriate size and bolt everything up - Voila!

From: Henry Kwan
11/16/97
The shop that installed my Type-R anti-sway bar is in Mountain View, CA and called Customer Alignment. The shop is very clean and the people and equipment looked very professional. I got the bar at the dealer in southern CA, Acura SouthWest 101, as suggested by Shawn Church 2 months ago. It took the guy about 2 month to order it, and they did not charge me first. I thought they had forgotten my request, but they called me 2 weeks before I left for Taiwan, telling me the bar was in. I left the manager a message back, and told him to save it for me. The delivered price of the bar plus parts (bushings, brkt, etc) is 90 bucks. Cheaper than what Shawn paid. The installation is about 150, so the total price installed is 260 bucks. Looks like it is the same price as the Comptech bar which is reviewed in your web.

Anyway, as your web say, it is not a directly bolt on. The stock bar has a flat spot where the bushing bracket goes on. The mounting point for the TypeR bar has a bend to it. The bend would do funny thing to the bushing if mounted on it like that. So, the guy decided to reverse the left and right bracket so the mounting place of the bar from the bushing bracket is closer to the center of the bar, avoiding the bend.

Back to the bushing brkt.... As Shawn was saying, the bolt pattern on the lower member of the car is different between the stock and Type R bar. What Shawn did was drill the hole on the lower member bigger and welded on a flange nut to it, so the bushing brkt could go on. At this place, they totally re-fab the bracket for me. They took out the bracket, welded on a piece of metal for extension. Then on the new piece of metal, at the extended part, they drilled another hole and welded on a flange nut. Now, the original bracket has an extra hole which is about 1/4 inch away from the original hole. The new hole is in line with the original hole and they did it because the new bar is bigger, so the bushing is definitely bigger, so the bracket is bigger. Then before they put the bracket on the lower member, the had to grind away a bracket which is also mounted on that member. Looks like, the bracket is to hold up the rear brake line. The reason for the grinding is that the corner of the bracket is in the way when trying to install the bracket for the bushing brkt. It did fit is because we reversed the left and right, remember? If we didn't reverse the bracket, that particular bracket would contour to the original area.

Neuspeed Rear Anti-Sway Bar and Lower Brace for '94+ Integra

From: Eddie Sun (sunedwa@mail.auburn.edu)
I just purchased and installed the Neuspeed rear control arm and rear anti-sway bar kits for the Civic. They bolt on just fine on my '95 Integra GS-R. I also installed some polyurethane bushings on the front anti-sway bar. The car handles great. It has a more neutral feeling to it. The installation was quite easy and only took me about an hour and a half. Follow the instructions given by NEUSPEED. They are pretty good. The only problem I had was aligning the bolt that goes through the rear control arm on both sides. You have to take this bolt out to mount the Neuspeed rear control arm piece.

Here is a picture of the rear setup. The bars came in black, but I painted them yellow.

The yellow paint really makes them stand out!

They are the lowest part of the suspension. I don't have a problem with them scraping the ground. My exhaust still hangs the lowest. The B pipe always seems to scrub before anything else does. The front anti-sway bar kit does not fit the Integra GS-R. Neuspeed does not make a sway bar for the front of the Civics, but they do make a bushing kit for the Civics. The only problem is that the bushing kit is designed for Civics and RS/LS. I purchased the kit and found out later that it would not fit. I had to go out and buy some EnergySuspension bushings to replace on the front.

From: Steve Palmer (Steve.Palmer@lmco.com)
Excessive stock understeer can be fixed on the cheap by the old shade tree autocrosser trick of beefing up the rear roll bar. Just use two cable clamps on each end of the center section of the stock rear bar to clamp on a similar short length of bar. I cut the ends off of an old stock bar from my Accord and used it. This is a fairly limited trick, but it sure is cheap! Careful, you can get too much rear bar and go into oversteer this way.

Suspension Technique Anti-sway Bar on '90 4dr

From: Howder Lee
I have a 90 Integra GS 4DR. I've had the Tokico Illuminas and Neuspeed Sport Springs since summer of 95. The Tokico struts are shorter than the factory ones so the height is even lower. 2" is about right. The ride is definitely stiffer compared to the factory ones but has improved tremendously.

I never had any problems with bottoming out but the mud guards do scratch on speed bumps. Even a diagonal entrance into a speed bump will scratch the mud guards. The car is even lower when I carry passengers. Mind you I have a 4 door. I ride on 1 for all corners on the street pretty comfortably. I'm also riding on 60 series stock wheels. So the abundant rubber helps in the shock absorption.

On the contrary, the car still has quite a noticeable roll. So when I installed the Suspension Techniques front and rear sway-bars, the car transformed into an F-1 handling capability. The steering was so sensitive that you can do some pretty aggressive lane changes and the car would stick like glue. It's incredible!