Tie bars do simply that...tie up the frame of the car.
I don't know the exact terms...but your suspension looks like this:
0|_|0
with the o representing your tires, and the bottom line the bottom of hte car, and the two | are the pillars where your shocks/struts mount. The tie bar (front and rear) merely connects the top of the U shape to form a more solid structure and to prevent flexing of the shock towers...overall, it just stiffens things up.
Sway bars are different...picture it as a horizontal spring that connects to the suspension on each side of the car to the frame. When you take a turn, your car generally wants to roll a certain direction. The point of sway bars is to lessen the amount of body roll (that's why aftermarket ones are thicker...thicker = stiffer "spring" which lessens the amount of roll your car body does). There might be other benefits of it, but essentially, that's what it does to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure others here can be way more thorough...my understanding's pretty basic also, so u know what i know now
Originally posted by SuperFleaJQ: Joon, I know you have the DC rear lower tie...did it do anything for you, performance wise?
No it did sh*t for me...but it looks nice.
If you want the most for your money...get the sway bar. A Suspension Techinques one is about the same amount and you'll actually feel a difference.
The Tie Bar is practically useless on the new lude. It's purpose is to stiffen the frame of the car for extreme race driving, it ensures that the geometry of the steering remains the same under heavy stress in the corners. It has no other use in cornering. The 5th generation lude is known for strengthening is frame, that is why it weights more than the 4th generation lude.
Sway bars also have only one purpose, that is to help keep the car flat in the turns. Springs also help with that but are used mostly for setting the height of the car and helping with the fore and aft pitch of the car during acceleration or braking.
Originally posted by SuperFleaJQ: ODL, does the tie bar also lessen body roll?
also, has anyone had problems using a Neuspeed rear sway, and a DC Sports rear tie? Just wondering if they got in the way of each other or anything?
help me out! I might buy a DC Sports rear tie bar in a few minutes
-justin
Hmm...115 is kinda pricey, i got mine along with everyone else when they had the 33%. Hey, i think there's a 30 off 100 right now...would that be better? (i'm assuming ur using hte 25% off one). I dunno, merely a suggestion.
Anyways, no, tie bar doesn't lessen body roll. Sway bar does But the tie bar improves feel during hard turns. No the rear ltb & sway bars will not get in the way of each other.
Ok, here is some good info on the tie bars and sway bars.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED AND POSTED BY BAMPF from SHO
Tie bars
Tie bars, AKA Strut bars, are stiffening devices. To keep it simple, I'll call the upper ones strut tower bars and the lowers ones tie bars.
Okay first the strut tower bars. They are supposed to stiffen the chassis. The front one mounts under the hood and the rear one mounts in the trunk. These bars are designed to connect the strut towers on the right and left, and by doing so they reduce the amount of flex in the chassis. This is accomplished by connecting the two sides of the frame above the point where the suspension of the car moves.
So instead of the car flexing when under load (the two sides sometimes try do draw closer to one another which makes the chassis flex
in a sort of U shape), the strut tower bar "holds" the two sides in place. What you want out of a good strut tower bar is stiffness, the stiffer the bars are, the less chassis flex you have. It is impossible to have a strut tower bar that is too stiff, IMHO. If they have huge holes in them, and some do (*cough DC cough*), then it would be just for looks, as the huge holes decrease the rigidity of the metal (though in some instances the holes are used correctly and can actually increase the rigidity of the metal, though the only people I've seen do it
right is Stillen, and those strut tower bars are adjustable, and expensive as hell). The lower tie bars mount to the crossmember between the right and left struts. The purpose of the lower tie bar is the same as the purpose of the strut tower bars, to increase the rigidity of the chassis. The difference is that the strut tower bars increase the rigidity of the top of the suspension, and the lower tie bars increase the rigidity of the bottom of the suspension. Both are good to have, and will increase the steering response of your car, as a by-product of stiffening the chassis. These are definitely bars that you want on your car if you are trying to make it a mean handling machine, but they can be bought a little later in the project (I would buy anti-sway bars, springs and shocks first) if you are on a budget.
Anti-sway bars
These are also called sway bars, anti-roll bars or stabilizer bars. They connect the right and left moving parts of the suspension together in the front and rear. They affect handling two ways. First they reduce roll, or sway in turns. That's when the car leans when you take a hard turn. The thicker your sway bars are, the less your car rolls. Ever seen a race car lift up the inside wheel when taking a turn? That's because the anti-sway bar is so stiff that it is lifting the inside of car (this is due to weight distribution during a turn - weight shifts to the outside of a turn, loading that side of the suspension, and causing the inside of the car to have less weight on it), because the weight of the car on the inside of the turn is not enough to force the bar to torque. The second thing sway bars do if affect understeer and oversteer. Understeer is what most Hondas have and is partially dialed in on purpose. What understeer means is that when in a turn, the front tires lose traction first, making the car tend to go straight (for a variety of reasons). The main causes are FWD and engine location/weight distribution. So what you have to do is turn the wheel more to keep turning. Oversteer is when in a turn, the rear wheels lose traction first, making the car "want" to cut the turn even sharper. The main causes of oversteer are RWD and engine location/weight distribution. This means that you can spin out easier. The way sway bars affect this is: the bigger the sway bar up front, the more
understeer you get (for most cars, there are instances that a stiffer front bar increases oversteer, but that's mainly when dealing with a solid rear axle. For Hondas, we can generalize it as increasing understeer). This is due to the fact that you are lifting the inside tire, and reducing it's cornering force. Also the larger bar allows more weight to shift to the outside of the turn, effectively "overloading" the cornering force of the tire, and causing the outside tire to lose some traction as well. The bigger the sway bar in the rear, the more oversteer you get. This is for many of the same reasons that the front bar increases understeer. Most Hondas come with plenty of understeer, so what you will want to get a bigger rear sway bar. This will reduce your understeer and bring it more toward neutral steering, which is the state you want to attain. So why would you ever buy a bigger front bar? Most likely you won't have to, but it's possible that you still have roll up front and you want to get rid of it. Even less likely (unless your tuning for racing) you have bought a rear sway bar that is very big, so you're getting that inside wheel lifting problem in the rear of the car. A new front sway bar will be unnecessary for 99.9% of you. If you need it, buy it after springs and shocks. The thing you have to watch out for when buying a sway bar is that you don't want one that is big to the point it can tear out of it's mounting points, which is very bad, instead of flexing like it's supposed to. This will probably not be a concern for most of you as long as the bars you buy are installed properly. In order to have a bar large enough to tear out even if it is installed correctly, you will probably be spinning down the road every time you try to turn the car.
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