What's the best piece to buy for improved handling on a stock 2006 MR for under $500?

I have been told that rear strut bars are a waste of cash, but rear anti-sway bars are a great investment.

What do you guys thinks?

 

new robispec springs...nuff said

 

How much of a drop is that? I don't want to lower the car. My garage is pretty steep.

 

I was thinking rear anti sway and end links.
I have the Hotchkiss bar, and love it.

 

A rear sway bar by itself will not improve handling. It will fool you into thinking it does, but it won't. Spending only $500 is tough. If you'd go with $750-800, you could get coilovers. Just slapping on a few cheap parts isn't going to do much, and the cheap part that would help the most you don't want to do (good springs), so I'd leave it alone until you have money to spend on real suspension parts.

Remember, you don't build a good suspension by just slowly adding individual parts. You can get away with that for power mods, but the suspension is more complicated.

 

500 for coils isn't enough --- IMHO, I'd get a rear sway bar, roll center correction kit, and (slight drop) lowering springs --- all carefully chosen of course. I'm pretty sure your total would be right at 500, and you can let the suspension gurus take it from there.

My opinion, purely.

 

wonderfully put!!

 

roll center adjustment, 0/0 toe, as much camber as you can up front, 1.6 in the rear. that'll reduce body roll, reduce that odd twitch that the stock MR gets when steering back to center, increase the turn-in responce, and you'll notice a gain in steady-state cornering force.

and like warrtalon said, piecing stuff together is not the preferred technique to doing suspension stuff. BUT if you must, getting the supporting mods (roll center, trailing arm bushings, rear bumpsteer correction kit) first, then getting a suspension guy's coilover and sway bar combo makes the most sense.

 

springs and rear swaybar

 

a good alignment and some whiteline bushings

 

I would say at least go with rear sway bar. It helped in keeping the rear more flat around turns.

 

Its weird the "trends" that go on here on evom, a few months ago everyone was on the robispec stage 1 kit (spring/bushings/alignment and possibly a sway bar) kick and now those are bad mods. Then it was the megan/bc racing coilovers are get what you pay for (ie wait until you can afford better)...and now people are recommending them. Its too hard to keep up lol.

 

robispec basic is a bad mod for the money?

this is news to me.... I'd rather do a RS basic set up than getting a cheap set of coilovers.

n

 

A good alignment, good springs, good rear swaybar, rear Whiteline bumpsteer kit.


OR if you're planning on upgrading to coilovers later:


A good alignment, Whiteline rear bumpsteer kit, Whiteline trailing arm bushings, and Whiteline Roll Center Kit.



Both under 500 bucks, and to say that either of these would not improve overall grip, turn in response, and the balance of the car, is just plain wrong.


- Andrew

 

me too.....


- Andrew