Strut bar: tanabe or cusco?

Cusco bling

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I see that you modified the air intake. Is it C.A.R.B. compliant? I see tat you live in California.

I have the HPS with the K&N filter.

 

Tanabe made a design change, apparently last year, that makes the driver side (I think) a two-piece mount so that the fuse box isn't (permanently) blocked off (?). But the Tanabe brackets bring the bar forward instead of being over the strut tower itself. Seems that the extra length of the bracket would make the system a rectangle, which is a geometry known to be weak. But perhaps it is strong enough if you want some improvement in handling, but aren't necessarily looking for the absolute best handling. The picture I've seen of Cusco appears to mount closer to the strut tower.

My old Mazda Protege5 (RMV classified it as a station wagon) had a strut tower brace, and overall, the car was really tight and fun to drive (if not kind of harsh), but Mazda has been marketing themselves as the zoom-zoom company, so maybe the Mazda (MPV) wasn't the best comparison vehicle.

But I'm also wondering about the comparison of strut tower braces. It seems there's at least one happy Cusco customer. Anyone comments from a Tanabe user?

 

The 1998 MPV was based on the same chassis as the rear wheel drive 929 and had both front and rear sway bars. The 929 was meant to compete with the BMW 7 series.

 

Hi Fella, Fitting a Sway bar to the rear of any car with a fixed beam rear suspension to reduce sway is a total waste of time. If your Prius is Swaying its because your shock absorbers are shot! You need to return that sway bar and purchase a good set of shock absorbers.

Fitting a sway bar to fixed beam suspension.

On a vehicle with independent suspension a sway bar is required to work with the independent suspension to stop the sway, with a fixed beam rear suspension its FIXED so there cant be any sway from the suspension except the shock absorbers!

To stiffen up the front Yes, Because the front has independent suspension so if you look you'll find a sway bar.

On the front you can fit an upper strut bar which will hold the top of the suspension together and stiffen up the suspension however if your shock absorbers are shot then it will still caused sway just not as bad.

Fitting this sway bar WILL effect the longevity of the electric power assisted steering as greater pressure will be put on the motor when steering.

My advice, forget the Sway bars just buy a good set of shock absorbers!

 

That one I can explain, it depends on the under hood sticker on the car. The Under hood sticker. list all the emission related equipment the car has to have, the Air Box/Filter is not included on the sticker so even in Ca, you can change it.

Now whether or not changing it to a ram air filter, is an improvement is subject to debate. The stock air boxes tend to have a lot of bends and chamber's to reduce noise, but they take in cool air for the engine down low where the air is denser. When you use a short ram intake, the engine is getting hot air from the engine bay.

But hey they look cool and sound great.

 

That FWD's cars with Beam Axles, don't need a rear sway bar? Would come as quite a surprise to a whole bunch of OEM's? And rest assured if there (Sportier FWD car's with Beam Axle's) did not "need," a rear sway bar? They would not have put them on.

You tune a suspension using shock's, springs and sway bar's and chassis braces. Sway's bar's control uh, Sway. Hence the name or anti roll bars if you want. And Strut braces are used to control the deflection at the top of the strut towers on McPherson Strut equipped cars. Under heavy load the top's of the Strut Tower Deflect, and can change the "camber angle." The tires contact patch with the road is reduced as the top of the towers deflect inwards. And at speed that can result in an "unexpected," change of direction, to be kind.

Shock's don't control sway that is not there job. Shock's control the wheel, the Jounce and Rebound. Looks like this.:



And you want the shock's to be soft on jounce and fast on rebound, other wise the car will skip over bump's. Which can result in an unexpected change of direction?

And lastly the spring's. If you don't want your Prius to sway, you drop it with a quality Sport Spring Set along with front and rear sway bar's. That would be the best comprise between ride quality and handling. But it will ride a bit rougher than stock over bumpy roads, with stiffer and shorter spring's?

 

You can reduce understeer and possibly induce a little oversteer by adding a rear sway bar. I have the Hotchkis rear sway bar balanced out with a RAV4 front sway bar sourced from of a wrecking yard.

 

The best thing is that there is no way for any rodent to enter into the air intake and nest there.

Mine has been there for over four years with no issues or a CEL.

 

The car won't throw a CEL, because the Air Box, is not a part of the required smog equipment. On some car's back in the day anyway, the Air Temperature Sensor, was in the air box. On those car's there was a hole with a grommet, in the short ram for the ATS.

The car still, see's everything it expects to see, so no CEL. The argument can still be made the engine is breathing warmer air instead of cooler denser air? But whatever that is what dynamometer's are for. If one cares that much, I don't. I have short ram intakes on a couple of my car's.

And the rodent thing?? I got nothing.