I finally got a strut bar, I've never seen one though and am not sure how much i should torque the nut i have circled in red. The manual says about 30 ft lbs, but i think this will make it so the bar will not bend at all if one wheel is say higher than the other.

Anyways, probably a dumb question, but again i've never seen/used a strut bar before.

 

if one wheel is "higher" than the other, then the frame is flexing and that is what the bar is supposed to prevent.

just torque it to 30 pounds. personally, I just make sure that I tighten it firmly.

-bill

 

30 lbs sounds right to me. I would make sure that your car is on flat ground when you torque it down. That way there won't be any pre-load on the bar.

 

its a strut bar man,
also known as a TIE BAR, or strut BRACE, or metal stick!

it is NOT supposed to bend,
it is NOT a sway bar.

bars with pivots like the one you got, are less effective than a single piece solid bar.
so with that said, you want your bar to as rigid as possible,
thus torque it to what the manual says it should be.

and if your metal stick actually came with a manual.. maybe its not the best idea to argue with it.

 

alright, i torqued it to 30 ft lbs.
One last question, should my bar be resting on my intercoolerpipes? there is no room between them and the bar

 

The reason for those pivots is that the front upper shock mounts are at a slight inclined angle to each other, so you need that movement to mount the brace. I can't see a solid unit mounting unless it had oblong or overly large holes for the shock mount studs, which would result in movement unless the nuts were torqued down to 100 ft/lbs.

Also, the bar is there to counter stress forces that try to collapse the forward body construction ("pushing" the two areas together), so the brace serves its purpose as long as the pivots don't have excessive clearance.

 

Not a good idea. Engine movement will cause whatever parts are contacting each other to wear through after a while, and you don't want one of them to be your IC pipes. See if you can move your IC pipes around to get some clearance, or you may have to make spacers for your brace.

 

yea like kento said, move the IC pipes around and also jam some rubber or silicone in between to stop metal on metal contact.