**What's a good sway bar to get that won't tear out?**

[madbrain]

Hotchkis (a very good susp. company IMO) will have a sway bar kit that replaces both front and rear available for our car by christmas, their rear bar does not have support, it is a 25.4mm (1 in) bar but it is hollow so it is not as stiff as a solid 25.4mm. Check out the rsx bars on their website, ours will be very similar.

I have had the front and rear Hotchkis sways on my EP for about 6 months they are the same part # as the RSX bars and you can buy them right now.

BTW I absolutely love them. Nice quality and superb handling.

[f4hondaphile]

Cool!

I talked with a guy on the phone there recently and he said they were doing final fitment testing on the ep stuff but we could've told them its the same as RSX of course. I wasn't sure if the ep bars would be calibrated differently formthe rsx bars given our different stock bars.

I certainly recommend them after my experience with their springs on my old GM G-body car.

[civic si hb]

i have the ctr rear swaybar and love it,it made a huge difference in body roll. i do have a question though, since i had the swaybar installed i have a clunking noise at the drivers side rear section of the car when i hit bumps or make left turns and hit bumps. i had the swaybar re torqued and everything sounded great for about a month and now that it's cold out the clunking in the rear is back again. any thoughts of what this is and why it's doing it, cause it's quite ignoring, thanks for any help.

[oicw]

civic si hb, Did you have your CTR swaybar installed with a reinforced backing plate? If their is clunking noise, you might have a tear out if you drive it hard. Did you get thicker end links?

Where can you buy a CTR swaybar? Is it solid or hollow? How much does it cost? Do you have the part number?

[civic si hb]

i used the factory endlinks for the install but have new bushings. i don't spirtly but not aggressive, i'm 28 and have a 3 year old son. i bought the swaybar from a power selller from ebay with over 5000 positives. the bar is a factory ctr rear sway bar. i'm not sure if it's hollow or solid, it is completly black in color with a red stripe on each side. i paid good money for it $125.00 shipped. as far as tear out goes, everything is still connected to the endlinks and the sway bar is very tight. i can pull on the bar as hard as i can and it doesn't budge. i get the clunking noise only on the drivers side and it sounds like it comes from under the rear tire well area. i don't have to be turning either, we just got dumped on with snow so the roads are quite rough right now so when i'm on a stright away going ovet the snow the noise is as clear as day. i haven't brought it to the dealership beacuse they always can't here it or blam the sway bar because it's not the factory si, it's a ctr.the only other thing i can tell you when i had the swaybar tightened the car was in the air on a jack and i heard you should have the car on the ground. please help if you can, i appreciate it.

[f4hondaphile]

Do a search, a number of guys have had this problem--probably the bar is mounted upside down or backwards. There are good pictures of the problem and a decent write up just do a search. I can tell you from my rsx bar install you do have to pay close attention to the way the stock bar is oriented.

What happens is when the bar is mounted backwards the drivers side of the bar angles down towards the lower control arm and on bigger bumps and hard turns when the suspension is compressed the lower control arm actually hits the bar. When mounted properly, the drivers side of the bar has a pronounced curve upward to clear the lower control arm even when the suspension is at full compression, the bar then curves back down to meet the endlink. If this is what has happened with your bar its an easy fix, just remove and reinstall it the other way. Hope this helps

[civic si hb]

i appreciate the thought but the swaybar is not on upside down, i made sure of that. i've searched this topic so much my brain hurts. i get no love from honda because it a ctr sway bar. i get the thumping noise on bumpy roads not even turning and i'm running stock springs, ect. any other thoughts guys please keep them comming, there's got be be somebody out there with the same problem. thanks

[f4hondaphile]

Sorry I couldn't help. Maybe if you post some pics of the bar and the installed hardware somebody could spot a problem visually, assuming nobody has exprienced similar issues and knows whats going on.