Speedway

  The new front swaybar has finally been attached to the car.  It is a Speedway center with 3" offset aluminum arms.  Mounts are generic urethane with stamped steel brackets and the endlinks are from Blox.  One-piece collars from Ebay keep the bar centered.  Drop-down spacers are scrap aluminum bar cut and drilled to fit.

Currently only using the 1" spacers and the bar has about 1/8" clearance from the OBX header.  I have an assortment of thin spacers to drop the bar down more if needed.  As is, there is almost 4" of ground clearance at the lowest point with the ~24" tall tires.

 At near full steering lock there is tire interference with the arms at the center portion of the offset.  This is with the 24" tall tires and 50 offset wheels with which I daily drive.  I assume the shorter 23" race tires may clear due to the smaller diameter and lower offset wheels, however full steering lock is something not generally needed for autox competition.

The arms are nearly parallel or level with the ground and go under the front lower control arm.  The oem swaybar angled upward and set above the LCA but with the new bar's lower mounting location and straight arm configuration I feel it will function more efficiently and be easier on the endlinks if I stay below or even with the LCA.  This level arm setting uses the stock A-arm endlink mounting point with a 2.5" long endlink.  More adjustment holes can be drilled into the arms as desired.  Alternate custom endlink mounting tabs on the A-arms could provide more adjustment range and offer better ground clearance.

I don't expect this bar to do much and ultimately I may chose to remove it completely, but for now it fixes the binding issues with the EM2 Civic swaybar and still gives some roll control and adjustability while I fine tune the car's handling balance.