Steeda Front Sway Bar! It is awesome. Transforms the car into what it should be.

[markboris]

Finally had my car back over a weekend to get mine installed. I have a premium 4X. So maybe the first non GT, on this thread at least. I did the install by myself so very few pics during the install. No problems at all on the fron aside from getting the 85ft-lbs on the lower bolt of the end links, my longer torque wrench wouldn’t fit in the wheel well so I had to use one that was very difficult to put enough leverage on.

Holy crap. This made such an incredible difference, along with the rear bar. I am truly blown away, the car feels so much more planted and confident. I was only able to do a short test drive in the dark tonight, but it really was dramatically better. I would say definitely smoother but will find out more with some more driving. With some new tires, probably Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4’s I think it will be a really fun drive.

I opted to go with the medium setting on both bars due to the narrower premium tires and feedback from you guys that got yours installed on your GTs. I might go stiffer on the front, but I’ll probably wait for the new tires for that change.

I'm also interested in wanting to know if the front bar interfered with the water pump connector. I will be helping Anton (eidbanger) at the end of this month install both bars on his non-GT. He said Steeda sent him some washers or spacers to mount the pump bracket out a bit to keep the connector away from the front bar.

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[Scooby24]

Clamp for rear power cable reinstalled:

haha I was staring at this for an embarrassingly long length of time going "huh why's his cabling running right to left when mine was running left to right?"

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oh! I was only looking at mine upside down from under the car. Doh

 

[tannerk89]

Can you speak about whether or not the front bar fit or put stress on the water pump connector?

I had a pretty good clearance around any other components across the width of the bar. I didn’t read through that part of the thread until this morning though. I’ll have to take a look while the car is on the ground to double check the clearance around that connector.

 

[tannerk89]

@markboris @Mach-Lee

Looks like my Job 1 premium AWD ER has plenty of clearance around the water pump connector. Which makes sense because the Steeda bar follows almost the exact same path as the Ford part.

 

[markboris]

@markboris @Mach-Lee

Looks like my Job 1 premium AWD ER has plenty of clearance around the water pump connector. Which makes sense because the Steeda bar follows almost the exact same path as the Ford part.

Thanks Tanner for the photos. Anton has a Job 2 car I believe so there might be a difference in the way that pump is mounted. In any case, I'm sure we'll figure it out and will report back after we get it installed.

 

[Anton]

Looks like Tanner's pump location and orientation is the same as my Premium Job 2 AWDe. However, his bar looks to be translated back more. And it looks like it might clear the pump with the wheels of the ground, but can't exactly say.

@tannerk89, when you had the car on the lift and installed the front sway bar, was there any interference with the pump? Here's how mine looked at the shop when they were installing it. https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...way-bar-has-anyone-tried-it.20263/post-496357

 

[tannerk89]

Looks like Tanner's pump location and orientation is the same as my Premium Job 2 AWDe. However, his bar looks to be translated back more. And it looks like it might clear the pump with the wheels of the ground, but can't exactly say.

@tannerk89, when you had the car on the lift and installed the front sway bar, was there any interference with the pump? Here's how mine looked at the shop when they were installing it. https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...way-bar-has-anyone-tried-it.20263/post-496357

No, I didn’t have any interference there at all. I’ll check clearance with it lifted again tonight and take a picture.

However, I will need to make some adjustments to mine tonight. I heard a rubbing noise when going to full lock on the steering wheel and found that the sway bar was contacting the tie rod. I will shift back or go to softest hole tonight, unless someone sees something I did differently that I need to correct. @markboris looks like you may have a similar condition. Anyone else see any evidence of rubbing there @Mach-Lee @mkhuffman ? I see contact on both LH and RH tie rods.

 

[mkhuffman]

No, I didn’t have any interference there at all. I’ll check clearance with it lifted again tonight and take a picture.

However, I will need to make some adjustments to mine tonight. I heard a rubbing noise when going to full lock on the steering wheel and found that the sway bar was contacting the tie rod. I will shift back or go to softest hole tonight, unless someone sees something I did differently that I need to correct. @markboris looks like you may have a similar condition. Anyone else see any evidence of rubbing there @Mach-Lee @mkhuffman ? I see contact on both LH and RH tie rods.

I don't think I will be able to check that for a few days but I will definitely look at it to see if mine is doing that. You can also shift the sway bar five millimeters or so front to back which might move it away as well.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Or you could just grind the tip of the eyelet and slide the frame brackets a little to increase clearance since you’re using the stiffer setting. ??

 

[markboris]

No, I didn’t have any interference there at all. I’ll check clearance with it lifted again tonight and take a picture.

However, I will need to make some adjustments to mine tonight. I heard a rubbing noise when going to full lock on the steering wheel and found that the sway bar was contacting the tie rod. I will shift back or go to softest hole tonight, unless someone sees something I did differently that I need to correct. @markboris looks like you may have a similar condition. Anyone else see any evidence of rubbing there @Mach-Lee @mkhuffman ? I see contact on both LH and RH tie rods.

My car is at my parents until a week from today. When I bring them to my home, I use their car as it is larger and they have a lot of stuff to bring. I don't remember hearing any nosies and I have driven well over 1000 miles since adding those bars. I'll check it out when I come back a week from today.

 

[HuntingPudel]

My car is at my parents until a week from today. When I bring them to my home, I use their car as it is larger and they have a lot of stuff to bring. I don't remember hearing any nosies and I have driven well over 1000 miles since adding those bars. I'll check it out when I come back a week from today.

To piggyback on what Mark said, I had my wheels off over the weekend and didn’t notice any signs of interference. I will try a few lock to lock turns of the wheel on the way home and look though. ??

 

[tannerk89]

Looks like Tanner's pump location and orientation is the same as my Premium Job 2 AWDe. However, his bar looks to be translated back more. And it looks like it might clear the pump with the wheels of the ground, but can't exactly say.

@tannerk89, when you had the car on the lift and installed the front sway bar, was there any interference with the pump? Here's how mine looked at the shop when they were installing it. https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...way-bar-has-anyone-tried-it.20263/post-496357

It did not clear with the wheels off the ground. I had contact. It was a pretty easy fix - I took off the water pump bracket and bent it to close the angle up. Hoses aren’t stressed and now I have clearance from that electrical bracket. The water pump bracket is held on by two 10mm Bolts and there’s pretty easy access if you remove the diaper and go from below.

• Remove clamp holding water pump to bracket, two 8mm screws
• Remove two 10mm screws holding bracket to motor mount casting
• Remove cable routing clip from water pump bracket
• Bend bracket to somewhere around 90-115 deg
• Reverse and install
• Make sure none of the water pump hoses are rubbing anything sharp - there’s a casting near the drivers wheel that could get close depending on orientation of pump

Before with wheels off ground:

Original bracket shape:

After bend:

After fix:

Shifting the sway bar assembly all the way forward seems to have fixed my other issue with the sway bar rubbing the tie rod as well.

 

[Anton]

It did not clear with the wheels off the ground. I had contact. It was a pretty easy fix - I took off the water pump bracket and bent it to close the angle up. Hoses aren’t stressed and now I have clearance from that electrical bracket. The water pump bracket is held on by two 10mm Bolts and there’s pretty easy access if you remove the diaper and go from below.

• Remove clamp holding water pump to bracket, two 8mm screws
• Remove two 10mm screws holding bracket to motor mount casting
• Remove cable routing clip from water pump bracket
• Bend bracket to somewhere around 90-115 deg
• Reverse and install
• Make sure none of the water pump hoses are rubbing anything sharp - there’s a casting near the drivers wheel that could get close depending on orientation of pump

Before with wheels off ground:

Original bracket shape:

After bend:

After fix:

Shifting the sway bar assembly all the way forward seems to have fixed my other issue with the sway bar rubbing the tie rod as well.

Awesome. Thanks for the info. Will have to do this same thing.

So you had to shift the sway bar forward on the bracket while on the stiffest setting? And are still clearing the pump?

 

[tannerk89]

Awesome. Thanks for the info. Will have to do this same thing.

So you had to shift the sway bar forward on the bracket while on the stiffest setting? And are still clearing the pump?

I’m on the middle setting still, I plan on keeping that for the time being because it handles so well right now. I may play with it when I get new tires that have a little more grip.

 

[HuntingPudel]

OK I guess I didn’t perform any full-lock cornering. I now have evidence of contact below centerline of the ends of the arms. I am going to do two things: Grind the tips of the arms to increase clearance, and shorten the end links to position the arms farther away from the tie rods. oh, and a third thing will be to find some paint that somewhat matches the bar’s paint (unless Steeda wants to sport me a little paint). ??

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