I was looking through their website, and saw that they've got one coming up.

Seems like an easy mod that would cause no problems, warranty-wise or other. Plus, I could get it powdercoated in Orion.

Has anyone talked to them about it, or have any details?

TIA!

 

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but what is a towerbar?

 

The tower bar gets bolted to each of the shock towers and goes between them. It tries to tighten the rigidity of the shock assemblies so that they remain parallel through turns. Steering feel is improved a little, at least it did in my crx. On some cars, they make them for the rears as well.

I'm sure that someone will either correct me, or do a better job of explaining the advantage. The best thing is that it should be relatively cheap, and whining from the service dept.-proof as well.

 

i got a question. why do people lower the cars? is it for looks or are there performance benefits? i was told by a friend about lowering the center of gravity but is it significantly better?

btw, the car feels very different w/ the snow tires - kinda bouncy and softer. and as i was sliding down my icy driveway, i thought about that vw passat commercial. 'what was that all-wheel drive system?'

 

I got ya. Where I come from we always called them "sway bars".
Thanks

 

Timmy, I think you're confused a little. Sway bars, or anti-sway bars, or anti-roll bars are on the bottom of the suspension (Brabus and Renntech both have them for the ccoupe already, I think), while the tower bars are on the top, going across the valve cover.

If you're not, and they do call them sway bars, that's even more confusing.

 

As I recall, there is a seal on top of the partition wall that wraps around the engine, which separates the battery on the left side, and (can’t remember) on the right side from the engine. In addition, the tops of the shock towers are on the outside of this sealed wall as well. I also believe the seal meets up with the insulation / soundproofing mounted to the underside of the hood when it's closed, so won't you have to cut into this rubber seal /wall to install the bar?

 

It's also entirely possible that the Coupe may not even need a tower/strut bar. (You were correct tommy, a sway/roll bar provides entirely different changes to vehicular dynamics). If the car is stiff enough already there may be enough rigidity inherently present in the chassis to make bracing the shock towers a moot point. This I can easily imagine since it's a MB - on the testing/crash pictures (on a previous thread) slamming a C-class into a wall at 40-mph didn't even push the wheel into the passenger compartment, suggesting that the overall safety/crash box of the MB is likely strong enough to prevent torsional chassis flexing.

With a FWD Japanese car these bars do provide an amazing amount of chassis stability (I have one in my Acura, which as I mentioned before is made of old beer cans). Part of the reason they improve the handling so much is because keeping the wheels stablized is more important with FWD.

Regarding lowering, the main reason people do this with street cars is for looks, performance gains are usually minimal from the lowering process itself, but most of the aftermarket springs put in to lower cars are stiffer and do offer a performance benefit, keeping the all-important contact patch in better contact with the road. Most race cars are lower primarily to keep air from underneath the vehicle (which is a drag ), also why they have chin spoilers and side skirts.

The touring cars also usually run 18 or 19 inch rims, which is why these are also a popular look. Although the main reason they use these big rims is not for any performance benefit from the wheel itself (actually the additional unsprung weight is the last thing a race engineer wants as it hurts performance). The benefit comes from being able to run much larger brakes, which decreases the amount of time spent stopping. The amount of time saved with better brake efficiency is greater than the amount lost by running big-*** wheels. This fact always makes me chuckle when I see a Civic with 19-inch rims with 9-inch brake discs, those ******** aren't gaining anything.

Cheers, BT

 

He didn't know much, but said that it's still being developed, and will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Trench, good write-up. One thing, though. For those who got the sunroof (and who wouldn't?), a tower bar might help to bring back a little of that rigidity that was lost. A crossmember running right behind the front seats would be better, but you can only get what you can buy. I'll post an update when I know more.

 

If you run race tires and drive you car in high speed autocross or racing, then you can benefit from the extra support. Otherwise think it's more for "show" and does not add to over all performance in everyday driving. I will fine out first hand, next month,when I will give my car a autocross run.

Tom