UR Upper Strut Bar vs Front Lower Chassis Brace

The way the front strut bar works is when one wheel/strut compresses, it transfers that force to the other strut, which improves stability. However, as you said, when you go over a speed bump, both struts compress, and therefore the bar ends up making it feel stiffer.

In terms of what to do to help the car driving wise without making the ride too harsh, I would go for the rear UR tower brace. The front of our cars is already decently composed, however the rear is another story, and kind of lacking stock. The tower brace helps a lot. Although for a certain level of handling, you will have to sacrifice some comfort, and maybe go a little slower over those speed bumps, because I have the strut bar and 18s and if you're hitting a speed bump hard enough to get a "thud" you;re close to(or already) going fast enough to damage your front suspension.

wbwing said:

Thanks for the explanation, I had thought that the point of a front strut bar was to reinforce the two strut towers, not tie the actual struts together. So, a lower front chassis brace wouldn't offer as much stability improvement when cornering as the upper strut bar?

I should rephrase 'thud'. I wasn't driving over speed bumps fast. Just the usual minefield of potholes and crappy road on my way into work (Pontiac, Mi is probably the worst place for potholes). You felt each bump a bit more. It reminded a little bit of the driving experience of a Camaro SS or CTS V.

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My first post was slightly misleading. The strut bar does reinforce the two towers BY tying them together to lessen the amount of force inflicted to your car's frame/chassis. Think of it this way;

You have an empty card board box with a bottom, and two sides. Which would represent your axle/control arms and your two struts. Now if you were to exert force on one of the sides of the box, the whole thing just goes caplooey. But when you close the top with packing tape; or in this case, introduce the strut bar, the box is solid and composed when exerting the same amount of force.

As for a lower front chassis brace, they are designed to work with the strut brace to completely solidify your suspension. However, we have a FF car (front engine/front drive), which tend to naturally oversteer, which is a problem that comes with a rear end that cant keep up with the front. In short, your car comes stock, with a front that can out corner your rear. Which also means that if you put more time into reinforcing the front of your car, the more it will oversteer, and in fact, you can make your steering worse than stock.

This is the main reason why I recommended the rear tower brace, because it does a lot to help our car in a corner, and after installing both the rear tower and front strut brace, I can easily say that the rear tower had the biggest impact, and the reason being is stated above. Another good choice would be a rear sway and front end links. As sway bars help reduce body roll through corners by limiting the amount your chassis twists through hard cornering.