the 2 biggest improvements in the front end are wonderbar and stb, then comes swaybar/struts

though i have to say i think the wonder bar was by far the single best improvement in steering response/followed by the stb

 

I just showed you why in the attachment I posted. An STB stands for Strut Tower Brace-Why? to brace the top strut suspension mount points from edging towards eachother keeping the wheel camber more accurate and pecise under cornering g loads. Even if you put on a STB, youyr crappy factory rubber strut oumnts are still allowing the strut shafts on each side to close the gap towards eachother since the rubber is flexing. Lets see, last time I checked, rubber is softer that metal so even if you take up 1/4" of flex between the towers, the rubber insert will just flex that much more.

It cracks me up to see people with absolutely stock suspension cars put STB's on them when they still have 15+ year old balljoints, A-arm bushings, strutmounts, crappy shocks, average tires, factory alignment specs, soft springs, rubber swaybar links and mounts,..... it goes on. Eveen with only a few of the above upgrades, the STB is still pointless- fix whats wrong first, then upgrade to lateral bracing.


And what does this stand for?


daves89rs; "qtfo "

And a wonderbar should not show ANY improvement at all in perfomance. They are added solely as an insurance bracket to keep the frame from cracking behind to steering box when GM added the wider 16" perfomance handling package to the IROC- they knew from the factory that the frame was weak here and would crack over time if not reinforced.

If your wonderbar installation showed performance improvement, then you had bigger troubles to begin with with severe frame fatigue or possibly even failure already. I would suggest you inspect it good.

 

first of all qtfo was a typo meant to type "gtfo"
2 even a brand new thirdgen would see improvement with a wonderbar, for the simple reason is new or old the frames rails flex when u turn the wonderbar stops this,
3 stb;s work wether or not u replace any of that stuff, the prevent the whole front end from flexing

 

i think his point is that if the bushings are worn out they are going to flex more. without an stb the chassis flexes, and there is a lot less force on the bushings. when you put in an stb, a crapload more force is placed on those bushings, and if they are already worn then they will end up flexing almost as much as the body did. yeah it will help just by itself, but to get the most out of it(and make it really worthwhile) you should replace the bushings and stuff too. suspension is really a case of the weakest link, because even if everything else is strong as ****, all the stress goes to wherever its weakest, and you end up spending money on very little actual results.

 

You are 100% accurate to what I am expressing to this point.

But with the above said, this quote is actually the oppsite becuase the increase load on the rubber bushings will make the addition of the STB dangerous over time when the level of force exerted on a factory designed componant is exceeded from original load intent. Now take one 15 years old that is fatigued and you can letterally tear it out of the mount and potentially have a fatal crash due to the excess traveling about of the strut shaft forcing itself around inside the bushing span.

In laymans terms, the addition of a STB on an old factory rubber strut mount can cause excellrated catistrophic failure. I have seen the results of them breaking and damging the heck out of the hood.