Whats the difference between strut and sway bars? Are they the same thing, or are there differences between them. I know that you have FU/L and RU/L strut bars, but what about sway bars. What are they and what do they do?

Also, FU strut bars go inside the engine bay, right? Where do the FL bars go? I'm guessing underneath the car?

 

Strut bars connect the strut towers. One in the bay and usually one in the trunk or rear deck lid (top). Lower strut bars usually connect 2 points of the chassis underneath the car, most consider them useless.

Swaybars connect the front control arms or rear control arms (usually). They act like springs to reduce body roll and help keep the wheels planted on hard turns, corners.

 

Just to add a bit to what blkcurrant said.... Some people will use the term strut bar and sway bar interchangeably meaning that a Lower strut bar is the same as a sway bar (which isn't true but it's a terminology thing that some people don't understand)

If you want to improve handling then get a larger front and rear sway bar (comptech makes some nice ones) and a front and rear strut tower bar (mugen is popular but as long as it's solid aluminum it's fine)... the lower strut bar in my opinion is worthless unless you've had some pretty major damage done to the car in the past that would weaken the cars overall structure

 

So, I see a Neuspeed front strut bar for about $120 and a Tenzo-R for about $70. Why the difference? Is Neuspeed that much better? And what would you guys consider the best?
Neuspeed
Tenzo-R

 

I would just go w/ a $30 eBay one.

One thing though, I remember awhile ago someone said you should install them when the car is on jacks?
Dont remember.

 

Neuspeed is better.

 

Is it true what 19Accord97 said? Do you have to install them while the car is propped up?

 

That applies to sway bars. With strut tower bars like you are looking it you can do with them just sitting on the ground.

 

Some tower braces are for function and some for form, i.e. some tower braces don't work. From what I can see in that pic, the brackets at each end of the TenzoR tower brace don't look very well designed (i.e. not rigid enough). The entire brace including the brackets must be very rigid for the brace to work. If the brackets are not very rigid then the tower brace as a whole is as poor as if the brace tube iteslf were flimsy.

Don't buy a cheap brace unless you know something about structural design and can see that the brace is well designed. Even someless cheap tower braces could be better from the rigidity point of view, which really is the only thing that matters with a tower brace.

 

And would you be expecting that $30 tower brace to actually do anything, or just be happy with some spurious bling appeal?

There are two kinds of people; those who know from experience that good tower braces work very well to improve their car's handling, and those who bought cheap tower braces and from their experience think they are only for show...

In the real world, no significant difference.