Ractive Front, GAB Rear Strut Tower Braces

Lets begin the review by talking about the purpose of these mods, for those of you who dont know (I'm sure you do though). Anyways, the purpose of a strut tower brace (AKA strut bar) is to re-inforce the chassis by tieing the tops of the two struts together. By doing this, chassis rigidity is increased. When turning in hard or at high speeds, the chassis of the car will flex or twist usually causing understeer among other things, with the addition of the strut bar, the chassis flexes less. Less chassis flex equals better handling.
Installation was for the most part a no brainer. For the front brace, remove the nuts on each strut tower, slide the holes in each of the brace onto the studs, and bolt it back down nice and tight. Be sure to tighten down all the adjustable points on the bar, otherwise, the bar will lose some of it's effectiveness...Also, I have some fitment issues with the front bar because it rubs against the hood, and i have to push a bit harder to shut it.
Installing the rear bar was slightly more time consuming. The plastic molding around the rear strut towers prevent installation of the rear bar and thus it is required that you trim some of the plastic for proper fitment. For this I used a craftsman rotary tool (Dremel) with a cutting disc. I simply scribed a guildine of where I'd be cutting in the plastic, then cut it. After removing the plastic, installation was identical to the front installation.
Performance of the two bars together was just great. The car now feels much more neutral in corners than it did before. From the factory, 1G DSMs tend to have some pretty bad understeer. I noticed IMMEDIATELY that understeer was greatly reduced and steering response was much better. Due to my balding rear tires, I'm even able to achieve a slight amount of power on oversteer through corners.
Overall these mods were worth every dollar spent.



Installation: 7 - A monkey with some hand tools could install these. Didn't want to have cut the trunk molding, fitment issues in the front.
Product Quality: 10 - Pretty straightforward here, the only strut bars that I've seen that aren't up to par are the DC bars, because the have holes cut into them, and I believe that reduces effectiveness.
Performance: 10 - Everything I had expected, improved response, more neutral feeling, less flex.
Overall Satisfaction: 9 - Would have been a ten if I didn't have to cut up my trunk molding, and didnt have fitment issues. Worth every dollar.

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