heres another installed pic on my car. like i said before, it may not be the purdiest and fancy piece on the market, its performance out-values any bling factor you could ever want. that and .. you can't really see it from behind unless ya look under the car.

big ups to engineerboy - I love my tie bar!

 

will this affect alignment

 

Good question... I don't think so.... IIRC the two bolts for the rear arms go through a rubber bushing- this then keeps the arms from separating... I'll double check in the morning

Steve? Any alignment differences that were noticable? I'll check with Urbanknight the resident alignment expert to verify.

 

Further, I don't know if this will work on an Evo anyway. I cater to the ES, LS and OZ crowd.

 

No alignment issues that I can tell so far. Lemme put it this way:

when I bought the car on my test drive, I could let go of the steering wheel and have it go perfectly straight.

when I added my front strut bar, I could let go of the steering wheel and have it go perfectly straight.

now, after adding the rear lower tie bar, I can let go of the steering wheel and have it go perfectly straight and not pull or move one way or the other.

I checked the rubber on the tires and it was an even wear, no abnormal wear on one side or the other. i'm not sure how ya define the word alignment, but I haven't noticed anything that, to me, would suggest it has thrown off the alignment. if someone wants to pay for me to go get it checked, i'll be more than happy!

 

Question - I'll probably put mine on tomorrow. How do you jack the car up for install? Should I jack it up using the side points, so that the suspension is free? That seems like the best system (off the top of my head).

 

I use my floor jack with a block on it. I also use a piece of rubber floor mat on top of the block to protect the underside of the car (with my jack I'm only adding about 3" of block to let the jack get to the required height).

Otherwise, yeah, jack from the sides and hold with stands Please be careful!!

 

as for installing... are the nuts or the bolts on the side where we are attaching... i would assume that if its the bolts, wouldn't it be a pain to get htem out wthout the arm wanting to fall out of place?

 

Those be nuts. I probably wouldn't even have made one of these if I had to take a bolt out to get it installed.

 

I actually used the tow-hook on the underside as my jack point (not sure if thats a no-no or not :P). I jacked it up and put jack stands under the control arms at first, but found that with the control arms up, it spaced the bolts apart and I wasn't able to get it to fit. I think the control arms need to be "hanging" in order to have the piece fit over them and then it slips on very easily and the bolts go right back on.

I also used a pneumatic impact wrench to both get the bolts off and put them back on. I tried for a while with sockets, a breaker bar and a normal pneumatic air wrench and couldn't get em off .. the impact wrench got em off in no time. Not to say it cant be done without the impact wrench, thats just what i used.

 

Holy _____! Rob's right, you became a vendor. Congrats, and best of luck.

 

is it really that rough to get the nuts off the rear suspension... I wanna get one, but I don't have any type of impact wrench...

 

its not too bad. some wd-40, a breaker bar and some muscle should do it easily. for me, it was just more convenient to use an impact wrench.

 

I see... I have all of the above! Just gotta get my jackstands back from my buddy... also, its better to leave the control arms hang right?

 

Definitely let the arms hang.

If you don't have an impact wrench, and you plan on doing more than installing a tie bar, I'd recommend picking up an electric one. Harbor Freight tools has them for $60 normally, but I've seen them as low as $40. I like harbor freight. What you're not paying for with these harbor freight tools is the sound deadening insulation that the "real" tools have. At least that's been the only real difference I've been able to notice. I was ear protection at all times anyway, so a few extra dB from a tool isn't very noticeable

Also some auto parts stores have started carrying common automotive tools (like elec impact wrenches, drills, heat guns and the like) for about the same price.