Rear Strut Bar Installation

I ran into a problem when installing the rear strut bar in the car. The bar did not allow for the rear strut tower covers/trunk interior panels to be installed properly. Since the car must have these pieces to be legal in STS, I decided to cut out some of the panel material so that the panels would fit properly around the strut bar. This modification is allowed in the SCCA rules.

  1. I first installed the strut bar to see how much I would have to cut out of the trunk interior panels to get them to fit properly. To do this, you need to remove the two 12mm nuts on each strut tower, slide the bar through the hole on each interior panel, position the bar on the strut towers, and then tighten the nuts.
    Loosening the rear strut nuts to install the strut bar
    Rear strut bar in place and ready to be tightened
    Rear strut nuts tightened on the strut tower bar
  2. From the first picture below, you can see where the trunk interior panel hits the strut bar. To get it to fit, I measured how much I needed to cut out of the interior panel and marked the cut using masking tape.
    Trunk interior panel hitting the rear strut bar
    Cut in trunk interior panel marked with masking tape
  3. Finally, I cut out the interfering parts of the interior panels with a utility knife.
    Utility knife used for cutting the interior panels
    Cut in left interior panel completed
    Cut in left interior panel with masking tape removed
  4. Here is a picture of the finished product with the strut bar and trunk panels in place.
    Rear strut bar installed

The rear strut bar, just like the front has reduced the amount of creaking noises from the chassis when going up driveways or over bumps. The difference in handling may not be felt too much now since the car is on moderately stiff springs. However, when I switch to coilovers with stiffer springs, the bars will certainly help reduce the amount of chassis flex allowing the suspension to work to its fullest potential.

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