When installing the bar, the instructions say to take off the 2 inner strut bolts, jack the car up, then take the 3rd nut off. From there, one is to put on the bar and torque all 3 nuts.

Question: With the car jacked up, wouldn't taking the 3rd nut off mean that the strut would fall into the wheel well. Yet not taking off the 3rd nut would technically mean that there is still some force on the strut. I don't really need an explaination, just looking for someone to tell me what to do, lol. From what I see, most people just left the 3rd one on, but lemme know. Thanks all!

 

my guess would be to remove all the nuts when the car is on the ground, put in the bar, hand tighten all the nuts, raise the car so there is equal load, then torque it down from there...i could be wrong...good luck though

 

Yea, that sounds pretty logical to me. Thanks for the input b/c the instructions are completely unclear. Anyone else with the DC strut bar understands i'm sure!

 

Any other opinions, or is this basically agreed upon?

 

does the bar tap on the MAF sensor? i have that clearnce problem just wondering if u did too

 

I think the instructions tell you to lift the car just enough to get the strut bolts to go down a little so you can slip the strut bar under the windshield wiper cowl. If you take the cowl off, you never have to worry about taking off the 3rd nut on each side. It takes like 2 minutes to remove the cowl.

What I did:
1. Take off windshield wipers
2. Take off plastic cowl
3. Remove 2 inner strut nuts on each side
4. Raise up front of car
5. Put on strut bar and tighten bolts
6. Lower car and put cowl and wipers back on

 

I did the same thing. Just pulled the wiper cowl off. Much easier that way.
I have no issues with the strut bar hitting anything in my motor. Not getting off the engine cover is no fun with the strut bar on there.

 

Cool, I did it the way you guys said and no problems...it was pretty easy actually. The only problem is the damn clips on the wiper cowl are a royal pain in the ****. I ended up breaking one being too forceful...O well, all of the rest went on. But honestly, the wiper cowl can be tricky if you have no idea what you're doing!