I would like to share my experience with the rear sway bar install and share the problems I had and the results. I'm not trying to discourage anyone and the results are well worth the install. It was more difficult then I had expected and I am pretty good with this stuff and my dad is even better. Before I started this I looked and read every diy I could find which did help.

I got the h&r 21mm rear sway bar from ecs and it looks great. There were no problems related to it. The biggest problem came with the link that connects the sway bar to (not sure what it's called but it holds the wheel bearing ect...) The bolt on the link that connects to the bar was a bitch to get off. It obviously had some rust from 7 years of new england driving which didn't help at all. On the end of that bolt (where you would start the threads on a normal bolt) is an allen wrench socket. It's a size 5 which isn't very big and the amount of torque it needs to withstand to get a rusty bolt off is just too much for it. Both those ended up stripping by the time the nut was half way off. This means that the bar can't come off the link. We ended up taking both the links off with the sway bar. The problem with that is it makes removing the bar a complicated sequence of turns and twists in order to get clearance for those linkages. Finally we got the bar out and used vicegrips on part of the bolt that had no threads. I should mention that there is no head on the bolt because it goes into some kind of ball joint inside the linkage and in order to get to a place where you can grip you have to peal back the protective rubber boot. We finally got the new bar installed and used a bigger size allen wrench to get the nuts tight.

The results are fantastic. I used the stiff setting and the car is much more responsive, body roll is far less and understeer is almost gone. It's amazing how much faster and more controlled you can take corners compared to stock.

 

ya mine was a pita to get off. i stripped everything and couldnt remove it tell i got back home and used some vice grips and a torch

 

I was dissapointed that none of the diy I read mentioned that would be a problem. It could have turned into a serious problem if it was any worse.

 

Good info and feedback on both the process and the results. Hopefully there will be more such writeups on other performance and maintenance mods

 

Quick question. I've heard of a few cases where aftermarket swaybars have broken or warped the subframe on the b5. Anyone heard of this?

 

eeeeeeee, that sounds brutal ^.

 

i dont think so. my connectors were plastic if i remember right? some maybe metal though

 

Not a chance in hell.

 

heard it here also. Scroll all the way down.
http://www.audiworld.com/tech/misc3.shtml