 
|
Suspension has one primary job, to keep the weight of your tires evenly placed on the road. It can be adjusted to add oversteer or understeer as desired, but as a general rule cars come from the factory with a lot of understeer. In the family of suspension components the anti-sway bar resists weight transfer in turns. The stock bars are hollow and quite weak, and its said that the ST swaybar upgrade is the best feeling change you can do. Its also very simple if there are no "surprises". Before you start fooling with your suspension you should first buy How to Make Your Car Handle read it, then read it again. Then you will understand what is actually happening and can setup your car the right way the first time.
The Problem
Craig, I also managed to break both lower endlink mounting tabs off my lower control arms, within a couple months of each other, after partaking in some road course events at Texas World Speedway. I re-welded the pass. side one at first, only to see it break along another axis. I was severely stumped, but the anger at Toyota wouldn't come until after I had a chance to talk to Don Istook, who campaigned the 87-88 Toyota Supra Turbo in the Street Stock class of SCCA racing, for Toyota. He confirmed that those rear link mounting tabs were super weak, and they snapped them off also within a few weeks of competition. So many they broke, in fact, that he designed a replacement mounting tab. They weren't allowed to modify the car at all, really, for that class, but the SCCA deemed the unpredictable handling when the tabs broke a safety issue, and allowed Don to use his own design.
Now here's where it gets good: Toyota, knowing the problems Don and his team went thru, decided to weasel out of making the mounting tabs stronger, and they went with a plastic ( weaker ) rear sway bar endlink with the 89+ cars, to get rid of the problem. Typical Toyota cop-outs on the mk3, they weaken the rear swaybar endlink rather than strengthen the mounting tab, sheesh, what guys......
Anyway, stronger rear springs or stiffer rear struts should be used, if you continue to aggressively drive the car around, as the mounting tabs may continue breaking, being that they're bearing ALL the anti-sway forces, without the help of stiffer suspension pieces to share some of the load.
So
if you want to put in on the stiffer setting be aware of the risks. Currently I am looking into the changes Don made so I can strengthen that part and put on stronger endlinks. I don't know if I want to run the stiffer setting, but knowing that my control arm has less chance of breaking the tab in a turn will make me sleep better. Since I am on stock springs these swaybars will have to work extra too!
Putting these on was described as something that a blind monkey could do and it should take 1-2 hours working slow and cleaning along the way. As long as nothing rusts or brakes it should be done no sweat. I of course failed where blind monkeys before had triumphed. But I was working in my apartment parking spot and didn't have jack stands to use. The front bar is easy, its the rear that really is a pain to get in just right. While there are detailed instructions with the bars the following are some notes that should help you:
Front Bar Tips
(TSRM Procedure EPC Diagram)
| 1. |
Spray the bolts, epically end links, with penetrating oil before you attack them. |
| 2. |
Remove the endlink from the body of the car then take it off the bar later, it is much easier. |
| 3. |
Remove lower inter cooler hose this makes things much easier. |
| 4. |
Use gloves when putting the white grease in the bushing, its nasty stuff. |
Rear Bar Tips
(TSRM Procedure EPC Diagram)
| 1. |
Spray the bolts, epically end links, with penetrating oil before you attack them. |
| 2. |
Remove the endlink from the body of the car then take it off the bar later, it is much easier. |
| 3. |
When you put the bar on make sure its not on backwards. There are two dips on the side, the innermost should dip down and the outer one should dip up. |
| 4. |
Use the outer-most hole to connect the link to. This will give you the least amount of oversteer but is the best starting point, see above article. |
| 5. |
Use gloves when putting the white grease in the bushing, its nasty stuff. |
|
