Cusco 28mm Sway Bar install

Finally received the Supra Cusco Front Sway bar for our supra. We will be campaigning the car in SCCA B-Street. I've been campaigning the car with my son locally in AZ, and we've downsized the 19" wheels to 18x9 and 18x10 (factory offsets). And Yokohama A052 200TW tires. And now the Cusco bar. Only other mods allowed are shocks and catback exhaust. We'll see if the bar can help firm up the car, as it's a bit too soft for autox/solo. If not, we'll start to explore shock alternative's that accept the OEM springs.

Here's some pics through the install process...took a little under an hour... very straight forward.

Step 1: Lift the car
Step 2: Remove the Front Tires
Step 3: Remove the dozen or so 16mm skid plate bolts (leave center one in place for now)
Step 4: Remove the dozen or so 8mm screws that hold the plastic trim to the skid plate
Step 5: now you can remove the center 16mm skid plate bolt, and work to move position the skid plate back and forth until you are able to 'slide it out' (remove the black felt center portion first to assist)
Step 6: remove the Endlink on each side (16mm Nut and a Torx/Allen head insert to hold threads works)
Step 7: remove the sway bar bushings (4 nuts, 13mm)
Step 8: remove sway bar
Step 9: Install sway bar and install in reverse of how you removed.

Here' are some pics before and after:

Best regards,

Dave
#75 BS

Dave,

Great installation write-up with good photos. The addition of the sway bar is a great benefit to your car's modification list.

P.S. May i suggest that you wrap the sway bar with Teflon tape where the bushings sit and grease the bushing liberally. This will avoid the squeaking sounds in the long run.

Thanks for sharing.

Q8_TwinTurbo said:

Dave,

Great installation write-up with good photos. The addition of the sway bar is a great benefit to your car's modification list.

P.S. May i suggest that you wrap the sway bar with Teflon tape where the bushings sit and grease the bushing liberally. This will avoid the squeaking sounds in the long run.

Thanks for sharing.

Click to expand...

good idea on grease and Teflon tape. I just radiused the bushings slightly with sandpaper since they weren’t poly. If they were poly I’d have greased them. But I’ll check for any binding in the next few hundred miles and may do just as you recommended.

Best regards,
Dave

SCCA Racer#75 said:

good idea on grease and Teflon tape. I just radiused the bushings slightly with sandpaper since they weren’t poly. If they were poly I’d have greased them. But I’ll check for any binding in the next few hundred miles and may do just as you recommended.

Best regards,
Dave

Click to expand...

review of the sway bar?
how does it feel?

im waiting on mine to arrive

anajri said:

review of the sway bar?
how does it feel?

im waiting on mine to arrive

Click to expand...

Love it! Really assisted in flattening out the car! I was just autoxing this morning, and car is significantly improved! Still needs stiffer shocks imo, but the bar is a huge plus!

Best Regards,
Dave

did you just install the the front bar?

did you test on the track did the balance change ?

ordered front and back and thinking the car just needs front bar, rear grip i feel is awesome......

anajri said:

did you just install the the front bar?

did you test on the track did the balance change ?

ordered front and back and thinking the car just needs front bar, rear grip i feel is awesome......

Click to expand...

I honestly think the car will benefit even greater with both. However for the SCCA BS (B-Street) class we can only change 'one bar'... front or rear.

The front bar definitely made a noticeable improvement.

Best regards,
Dave

Has anyone fitted a rear bar yet? I heard its difficult to install

I would utilize all the Cusco bracing. Seemed to really tighten up the vehicle.

not yet, want to track the car with the front first before installing the rear ones

So I just put in the rear bar. Holy hell what a difference it makes on a stock Supra. Ours is stock shocks and springs. We have a front bar to put on but I’ve already confirmed fitment on another Supra. So wanted to do the rear first on this one. Holy hell its a dramatic difference. The car literally wants to go where you point it. I

I would highly recommend doing the rear bar. You’ll def want to do it on a lift. The Install actually wasn’t that bad. I was taking my time took about 3 hours. Have to drop the subframe enough to fish the bar out.

What size is the stock rear bar?

On a RWD car, I tend to think "if all else equal", the front bar should be changed before the rear bar is needed, especially on a softly sprung car.

white_turbo said:

What size is the stock rear bar?

On a RWD car, I tend to think "if all else equal", the front bar should be changed before the rear bar is needed, especially on a softly sprung car.

Click to expand...

The OEM bar is 18mm tubular. The Whiteline bar is 18mm solid. That alone is already a greater stiffness that the OEM bar even with being the same diameter.

But yes usually you would want to do a big front bar on a RWD car, however I personally think that the rear bar helped tremendously on the supra as it basically added some spring rate to the already soft springs. Thus making the front end want to turn in easier and the rear just wanting to rotate. Plus the front suspension components on these new supras is really techie with the forward caster arms and multiple pivot points.

But after doing the front and rear bar, the whole car is 100% different. Its fantastic with the stock springs and shocks. Even in non sport mode the car wants to just grip around the corners I was very surprised.

What I left the customer with was the front bar full stiff, and the rear full soft. This makes the front end doing most of the work and the rear end just staying planted wanting to follow whatever the front does.

If he ends up lowering the car and getting stiffer springs, will most likely need to soften the front bar.

Who’s front car did you go with? What size was it?

Congrats on the install! In the scca class we run in, we can only change one bar, front or rear, but but both.

Best regards,
Dave

mitchely03 said:

The OEM bar is 18mm tubular. The Whiteline bar is 18mm solid. That alone is already a greater stiffness that the OEM bar even with being the same diameter.

But yes usually you would want to do a big front bar on a RWD car, however I personally think that the rear bar helped tremendously on the supra as it basically added some spring rate to the already soft springs. Thus making the front end want to turn in easier and the rear just wanting to rotate. Plus the front suspension components on these new supras is really techie with the forward caster arms and multiple pivot points.

But after doing the front and rear bar, the whole car is 100% different. Its fantastic with the stock springs and shocks. Even in non sport mode the car wants to just grip around the corners I was very surprised.

What I left the customer with was the front bar full stiff, and the rear full soft. This makes the front end doing most of the work and the rear end just staying planted wanting to follow whatever the front does.

If he ends up lowering the car and getting stiffer springs, will most likely need to soften the front bar.

Click to expand...