How Strut Bars Work
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Level and Even Suspension
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A strut bar connects both strut towers (either the front strut towers, the rear strut towers or both) together to make the strut towers act as "one" tower on a vehicle's front suspension. This levels out the suspension by effectively increasing the spring rate for both struts. For example, when you turn around a corner, normally the outside corner strut compresses more than the inside strut. This is due in part to inertia. The strut tower prevents this from happening and instead compresses both strut towers together. If a strut tower is used on both the front and rear suspension, then all struts will compress together.
Limiting Camber Changes
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Camber is the angle at which your vehicle's tires lean in or out. In other words, if you kneel down in front of the vehicle and look straight at the front bumper of the vehicle, you'll notice that your wheels sit in one of three prevailing positions: | |, \ / or / \. The tilt of the tires is known as "camber." As you drive, and especially during hard cornering, your camber changes slightly as force is exerted onto the suspension and body of your vehicle. As you turn, the coil springs on your suspension compress relative to the chassis. The body of the vehicle begins to roll in the opposite direction of your turn. This flex can actually cause the tire to roll from the contact patch to the sidewall of the tire. By connecting the strut towers together, the strut bar prevents or minimizes the camber changes that cause this body roll because both sides of the vehicle are acting as one.
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Transferring Lateral Grip From One End to the Other
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Because the two strut towers are connected, and the springs of the suspension are compressing at an equal rate while you turn, wheel spin on the drive wheels is dramatically reduced, thus increasing motive grip and transferring lateral grip from the front to the rear (if it is a rear wheel drive vehicle) or from the rear to the front (if it is a front wheel drive vehicle). Without a strut bar, during hard corning, as your struts and coil springs start to compress, the outside suspension will compress while the inside wheels will decompress causing the inside wheel to spin as it looses traction. The strut bar--by connecting both strut towers together and compressing the inside and outside springs together--helps to keep the inside wheel from losing traction. When both the front and rear strut towers are connected with strut bars, the strut bars will act to transfer lateral grip from the one end of the vehicle to the other--depending on the force being applied in the turn and whether the vehicle is front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive. The ideal end result is better traction at the drive wheels.
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