sway bar

[cheesie]

i looked up on ebay and the sway bar for the fit 09 + is round 160 and the model is 62.1061 thats the back one cobb gave


cobb wrote
"Couple those with a 09 fit sway bar, an extra 5 mm offset on the wheels and cut all, but an inch of the bump stops and you have a nice handling car.

Cutting the rear bump stops gets rid of the whip lash you get going over bumps. Who needs a 6 inch one when you can use that for suspension travel?
"

i dont really get it
my tires stick out already.... and whats the bump stops?

do i really have to have all that done or can i just have the sway bar installed with no problems?

i wanna have it installed a at place where ive bin going but these guys dont know bout the insight and i already have experience of them not following written installation instructions unless i stay there checkin on them

[Cobb]

Sorry cheesie, I work 13 hours a day now and am not on here that often.

The sway bar just reduces rolling when you make turns. It does not effect ride height. To install it you need to remove the rear springs and to do that, you need to unbolt the bottom bolt to the shocks.

It is recommended in the spring installing kit to cut an inch from the urthene bump stop thing to soften the blow of metal to metal if you were to bottom out. I did the reverse a few months later since they were soo tall and left an inch. The rear shocks have like 6 inches on the shafts.

You basically need to remove the aero flaring on the swing axle to bolt these right in. The fit instructions are fine. Anyway who can swing a wrench should be able to figure it out. It only goes on one way.

[cheesie]

so its a must to cut the bump stop thing?
ama tell the guys and i hope they know what that is because i dnt think there famirialized witht the I2

[Cobb]

They will understand, the box includes this procedure in the instructions. Most lowering springs recommend this as part of the installation.

[WFalicoff]

Cobb,

We just installed the rear sway bar a couple of days ago and you were right when you said it made a significant difference to the car's handling. I drove the car back from the Honda dealer (they agreed to do the install) over a wide variety of road conditions including: smooth roads, freeways with and without grooves, curvy mountain roads-- about 90 miles. I did not push the car during the trip back as my wife was in the passenger seat and she gets a little nauseous if I push the car on windy roads. So I have not yet had a change to drive the car near to its limits. Here are my obvservations:

1) I was surprized immediately by the improvement even on a straight line. The car on slow relatively smooth roads coming out of the dealer was less noticeably "bouncy". My wife commented on this even in the passenger seat--which is surprizing as she is not so sensitive to the ride of the car(although she drives it 95% of the time). From what I know of sway bars I didn't think would happen.

2) The car on turns was very neutral. This showed up even when one changed lanes at freeway speeds. It was certainly present going on mountain roads. As there was little or no understeer at lower speeds on turns on the mountain roads (Santa Monica mountains) I was not certain if the car was neutral or perhaps would exhibit oversteer if I pushed the car really hard on turns. At the speed I was traveling there was no discernable lean to the car. I tried doing a fast 180 turn later in the day and the car felt very stable. However, we have the EX model with stability control. I would be concerned for some drivers with the base model if the car with the sway bar had too much oversteer for them (racers like oversteer but the car companies design for the average driver who is really used to a car with understeer). With the ESD the car would correct this. I was initially concerned with the oversteer issue when I found out that the FIT front sway bar is 22mm while the Insight is only 18mm. However, I believe that the Insight bar is held at two extra points along its length, thereby stiffening it somewhat compared to the FIT (which according to the Honda parts people does not have this.

3) There may be a slight increase in the bounciness of the car at high speed on grooved freeway. It may be just my imagination.

4) For some reason the car does track a bit better at freeway speeds and there is a noticeable reduction in the effect of side winds.

The only downside is that the ground clearance of the bolts that hold on the sway bar is only 4 1/4". Aside from this, I am really love what has happened to the car with this sway from Progress Tech. More info to come.

[Cobb]

Ground clearance??? I wished I had 4 inches, mines is more like 3. I have scrapped the front of the car to the point I lost both front splats and also have hit the rear tow hook too.

[WFalicoff]

I assume that your dropping the springs has no effect on the position of the spring bucket that is used to mount the Progress sway bar. The spring bucket should remain in the same position as before relative to the ground. Can you measure the ground clearance of the bolts holding the sway bar? Is it the same as mine? I spoke with Progress on this clearance issue and they stated they need the extra exposed thread on the bolts in the event the nut comes loose. (from a safety standpoint I see their point) A shorter bolt could bring this clearance up to a reasonable height just under 5 inches. I am not going to worry about this at this time. If problems do show up I will report it to the group.

[Cobb]

I doubt you will have anything to worry over. If you lower the car you will have other parts that hang lower than that. At least the bar is tucked up under the sub frame. The hotchkis bar I had did not and I use to worry about hitting things with that on my scion xa.