Remove Stock Endlinks: This is pretty straightforward, remove the nuts and bolts. On the front endlinks, a hex-key must be used to prevent spinning at the spherical bearing.
Remove Stock Swaybars: Remove fasteners on the rear mounts, the bar will now drop down and can be removed. Remove fasteners on the front mounts, and manipulate the bar out toward the side of the car.
Install New Swaybars Mounting Brackets: For the Rear, lubricate and install the rubber bushings to the swaybar. Bolt the rear mounts to the car, making sure of orientation; the passenger side mount goes over a small piece of sheet metal common to the canister, snug the fasteners. Bolt the swaybar with the rubber bushing to the rear mounts, snug the fasteners. For the Front, snake the swaybar through the car from one side. It can be done but it takes a bit of doing. Lubricate and install the rubber bushings to the swaybar then bolt the bushing mounts to the car, snug the fasteners.
Install New Endlinks: Inspect all nuts and bolts for damage especially for self-lock feature, discard damaged fasteners. For the Rear, bolt the endlinks to the swaybar and the lateral link; (Remember the bar is on the outside). For the Front, first set the endlinks to the same link as the stock endlinks, snug the fasteners. Next, bolt the endlinks to the swaybar and the lower control arm, snug the fasteners.
Final Torque: Now is the time to go back and torque all the swaybar/endlink fasteners. Make sure everything can move without interference, all fasteners have enough thread protruding and no binding.
Set-up and Alignment: The car is now off the jacks and on the ground. We use the parallel string method for toe and the level method for camber. For the camber, a modified carpenter's level is used, it has two screws that protrude and contact the wheel. By placing the level against the wheel, adjusting the screws until the bubble is centered then measuring the distance of each screw protrudes and by knowing the distance between each screw a triangle can be established. With a little trigonometry, or a triangle converter, the angle can be derived. Again this is an iterative process, measure go back and adjust the camber bolts, measure, adjust. Once you have done this a few times it is pretty quick as you can pre-set the screws to the length that will establish the camber angle you want. It is then just a matter of adjusting the camber bolts to dial it in. For Toe, parallel strings are set up on both sides of the car. A measurement from the center of the front wheel to the string and a measurement from the center of the rear wheel (minus .10") for the track difference establishes the parallel. The front tie bars are adjusted to get the toe. This is an iterative process and it takes some time. It may be necessary to center the steering wheel and that adds another element to the process.
Final Inspection: Now is the time to take a deep breath, have a beverage of your choice and then do a really good inspection. Test a few fasteners for torque, look for interferences and binding and no missing parts.
Test drive: Start slow and make sure everything is correct, remember a large portion of the suspension was altered and bad things can happen if not done correctly. Play with the setting on the shocks, we find that setting 1 is perfect for the street and setting 3 is perfect for Autocross. It really is nice having that flexibility.
1/29/03 Copyright 2003, skoshiracing