ozzy

Well, got round to fitting my new ARB to my car (MY99 RB5) this morning. Pretty easy and only took me around 30mins.



First thing was to get the rear of the car up onto some ramps. Then just undo the bolt holding the ARB to the drop-links. The OEM bolt has a 14mm head and not, but if you have replaced these with Whiteline solid drop-links (like me), you'll need a 16mm spanner and 17mm socket wrench to undo them.

Then undo the bolt for the ARB hanger bracket (12mm) and this should allow you to swing the bar out from under the car. It's a bit awkward getting it out from under the exhaust pipe of the backbox and at one point I did contemplate removing the backbox from the rubber mounts.





Then it's just the matter of reversing the procedure and fitting the new bar. The Whiteline bar comes with some replacement poly bushes. You just need to remove the metal hanger bracket to re-use with the new Whiteline bushes, but this should easily come away from the OEM rubber bushes. Use plenty of the white grease on both the inside and outside of the bushes and clip the new bushes onto the Whiteline bar. Then push the metal bracket onto the bushes and slide the bar behind the exhaust pipe and this should allow the bar to swing into place. Then just screw the brackets back into their original position and attach the bar to the drop-links - this is where you can decide which adjustment you want on the bar.



After reading a few other posts on here, the middle position seemed to give other users a nice balance so I went for that one too.



So far I'm very impressed and a good bit of the understeer has been removed from my car. Car feels great through high-speed corners (80+) and even on slower corners (50-60) I'm carry a few mph more through them than before. Tyre squeal has reduced dramatically even when I'm pushing the car just as hard as before, so the overall level of grip seems to have improved a good bit.

For £110 and 30mins work this is one of the biggest bang-for-bucks I've had

Stefan

[Edited by ozzy - 6/29/2003 1:06:16 PM]

mutant_matt

You just need the uprated mounts now to make the most of the uprated bar and solid drop links

Matt

superstring

Hi ozzy

Your bar is a 20-24mm, right? That bar is 22mm in diameter, correct? Were new bushes supplied with it? Were they uprated polyurethane? Are you running stock struts?

Sorry for all the questions, I hope you'll humour me...

Thanks, John

P.S. Found your pics and description very helpful when I installed my Whiteline endlinks. Cheers!

[Edited by superstring - 6/30/2003 1:48:49 AM]

ozzy

Hi John,

Sure I'll humour you

Yes the bar is 22mm in diameter. I do know that to affect the torsional stiffness of the ARB you can change a couple of things 1) the overall thickness and 2) the length of the bar's moment arm (the adjustable bit on the Whiteline).

Whether this equates to a 20mm, 22mm and 24mm bar, I really don't know.

Th kit is supplied with new poly bushes (same material as the solid drop-link bushes) and the usual packet of grease . All you need to do is re-use the metal bracket too hang the bar from the chassis.

I'm running standard dampers, but Eibach Pro-Kit springs all round. I've changed the front and rear drop-links for some Whiteline solid ones too and I have a Cusco front strut brace fitted. Also, my RB5 has a solid rear bulkhead (same as the STI 5/6). I'm running 17" Speedline alloys and Toyo Proxes T1-S tyres (215/40/17) @ 34psi all-round.

Other than that the suspension is stock.

Stefan

[Edited by ozzy - 6/30/2003 10:58:10 AM]

[Edited by ozzy - 6/30/2003 10:59:20 AM]

superstring

Cheers, Stefan!