NTPOG Neuspeed Rear Anti-Sway Bar
Author: William Howell
 


Overall Impressions
Upon opening the Neuspeed box, I noticed that the Neuspeed rear sway bar is of top notch quality. The powder coating is very thick, and a very glossy black. Neuspeed even supplies new mounting brackets that are much, much beefier than the stock brackets. The Neuspeed brackets are welded steel, while the stock brackets are stamped steel. The bushing brackets and the mounting brackets are powder coated as well. The bar is also the largest that you can buy for the 5Gen at 28mm!

Installation Impressions
The bar should be a simple bolt in install, but since the Neuspeed mounting brackets use three bolts instead of two, like the stock ones, you have to move some stuff to get all the bolt holes to line up. On the passenger side, the muffler heat shield is bolted in at one of the mounting bolts for the bracket. You have to remove this bolt, slip the bracket under the heat shield, and then bolt everything back together. The driver's side is another story. There is a bracket that holds the gas filler neck in place (circled in yellow in the center picture below), this is much more sturdy than the heat shield for the muffler. I had to pursuade the bracket into place with the filler neck bracket on top of the Neuspeed bracket (if you mount the filler neck bracket on before the Neuspeed bracket, it won't fit flush against the body). After that, it is a simple bolt on install.

After I installed the bar, I noticed one other difference. The ends of the bar are not perpendicular to the ground like the stock bar. They are actually canted inward. This shouldn't present much of a problem, but I found it irritating to get my custom endlinks to line up properly because I had used the stock bar as a template. I ended up having new spacers machined since the original ones I had ended up being too long. I have not tried installing this bar with the stock endlinks, but the stock endlinks have more misalignment range than my custom endlinks, so I do not think there would be any problems.

The Suspension Techniques sway bar fit slighly better than the Neuspeed, however clearances on the Neuspeed are better. The Suspension Techniques swaybar is almost too narrow. If you shift it to the left, the right endlink will rub on the muffler hanger, if you shift it right, the left side will rub on the fender. The Neuspeed bar is a little wider which alleviates this problem.

Performance Impressions
It's hard for me to say exactly how the rear bar alone affected the handling of my car because I changed spring rates, damper valving, and tires at the same time I did the sway bar install. I can say that after doing these mods, the car "digs" into the turns more. I don't feel the front end sliding as much as I used to, but again, I don't know if I can attribute this solely to the rear sway bar.

One thing I liked about the Suspension Techniques bar is that is had fewer bends in it than the Neuspeed bar. I am not sure what affect this has on overall stiffness, but the Neuspeed bar is much stiffer than the ST bar. Here is a comparison of the two bars as viewed from underneath the rear of the car.

  
    

For comments or questions, e-mail me.



This page last updated 4/3/01.