Hi guys,

I'm totally new to cars and stuff, got my tC a few months ago and trying to play with it a bit. After reading through posts and stuff, seems like to easiest thing to start with are front strut bars.

From what I can google out, seems like the most common ones are the

DC Sports (~$100)
Hotchkis (~170?)
TRD (~200)
and some others...

I've read some posts (somewhere) that gave some numbers of the expanding/flexibility # of the metals of the strut bars (steel, aluminum, carbon fibre, etc). I'm really interested in the quality of the products.

So which struts do you guys use/suggest and how are they performing?

 

ingalls is coming out with 1 in the near future

 

i like the hotchkis the most..

 

I've felt that the front strut bar is just for show, which is why I want to get the bright red TRD bar. If you're looking for some real performance, get some nice springs and definitely Hotchkis front and rear sway bars.

 

It's mostly for show, even with a bunch of other suspension upgrades. I do notice it though.

Hotchkis is pretty good, but I wish I had gotten the TRD to match my other upgrades.

 

I have Hotchkis and wouldn't change it, you can feel the difference when you have the front and sway bars all together!!

 

I got my DC sports front strut bar for a little under $100. I'd love to say that I feel a difference, but let's just say it looks really cool in the engine bay

 

I have the DC, it caused some problems with hitting against the stock air system. Let's just say that it was not made by toyota/scion! It's cheap enough, but no real difference in performance. However, it seems to be the most sturdy of any strut bar, so i'm sure it still does more than any of the others. Just prepare to have to play a bit with the air intake so that it doesn't hit against each other.

 

you're better off spending the money on sway bars. it'll cost you about the same but with sway bars you will actually get some performance gains

 

gotta a question..does the injen intake get in the way of a strut bar?

 

no...look in your engine bay, stock intake doesn't get up that high, and neither does the injen

 

mine did - rather the sensor attached to the stock intake

 

DC Sports & Ingen Intake...



I got my DC SPorts Strut Bar for $92 Bucks!!!!

 

the dc sports looks best; plus it's DC. All of them pretty much preform the same.

 

the evap line is sorta a PITA to route around the dc sports bar when used with an injen intake. other than that, it works great.

 

Great! Looks like I'll have more thoughts hahaha. thanks for the replies. sigh... the sway bars do sound like a good idea... I know the strut bars are quite easy to install even for amatures like me, but how's the installation of the sway bars? gotta take those to the shops?