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Rear Strut Tower Bar vs Thicker Rear Sway Bar


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Hi Guys,

 

My 03 WRX STi is making some clunking noises over bumps. Got AJ to investigate and it turns out my sway bar end links are shot as well as bushings. I'll be investing in some kartboy end links, not sure which bushings yet though. Don't have a massive budget, otherwise i would have possible upgraded the rear sway bar as well. But my question is, will adding a rear strut tower bar give me the same effect and stiffen up the rear end, giving me a balanced car, in combination with the stock sway bars and upgraded end links and bushings? 

 

Thinking something like a Cusco Rear Strut Tower Bar vs a Whiteline 22mm rear sway bar.

 

Also if anyone can enlighten me on what the stock diameters are for front and rear sway bars on the 03 STi that would be awesome. Don't have a set of verniers unfortunately!

 

 

Edited by Niran
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Go for the swaybar, while there get whiteline endlinks.

 

The whiteline bar has bushes in with it, now running a 24mm 3point adjustible in my wagon and the difference is HUGE.

 

Read up on whitelines "Rex on rails" pdf's, that'll point you in the right direction

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@kwi_fozze cheers dude. Will probably get one over the strut brace. Would it be better to go with a 22mm? Car is mostly a street weekend car and hoping to get it to the track one day! Re the end links, read a few reviews that the whiteline ones snap aye? Apparently the kartboy ones are better. Well on reviews anyway.   

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24mm adjustible if you can streach to it bro...

 

Any bigger bar has the potential to snap the factory end links, never heard of a whiteline link snapping as they are a farkin solid alloy link. 

 

A big bar also has the potential to snap the factory swaybar mounts (they flimsy a.f.) but whiteline also has a replacement kit for them too

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24mm is already big and capable of snapping the factory mounts and end links. 24mm is also big enough to quite noticeably reduce the independence of each wheel's movement... Though solid end links probably have a lot to do with that. I recommend you stick to a 22mm bar.... Though my experience is only with a lighter gc8... And the Rex on rails article also only deals with the gc8.

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22mm adjustable on GC8 here. Great fun, very easy to provoke sideways on stiffest setting on road tyres. Good for quick changes of direction. However will definitely make the car a bit twitchy on the limit. So personal preference really. How much of a fat slug is an 03 STI? It might need the bigger bar compared to a GC8?

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Even with the 03 being heavier, you couldn't go to a 24mm rear bar without upgrading the front as well.

 

I had a 24mm rear and 22m front bar on my last wrx... the rear bar was so stiff that with one side of the car jacked up so that the rear wheel was off the ground the opposite strut would be at full droop.  

Edited by loner
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16 hours ago, loner said:

solid end links and poly bushes will make the response of the rear bar sharper and also increase the effect bar rate as the plastic end links stretch a lot.

 

Cheers man. Will probably go ahead with that. Also probably smarter to learn all the characteristics of the car at the limit first (on track hopefully soon) before i start changing some of the fundamentals that will will affect understeeer / oversteer. 

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After measuring my sway bars, we found both front and rear to be 19mm? Odd i thought the front would have been 22mm as it feels like there's less roll on the front. Wanted to go down the cheaper route of just poly bushes and end links, but i cant find any uprated rear 19mm bushings? They are all 20mm and above. So the only option is stock really, with nolathane front bushings. Which would probably make it worse. 

 

If i go with a whiteline 22mm rear sway bar and leave the front sway bar at 19mm with nolathane bushings, am i going to dramatically make the car prone to oversteer?

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