So, first off, I bought some H-Techs a while back and was finally going to be able to get them installed this weekend. A buddy of mine were going to do it in his shop, which unfortunately for me, is about a two hour drive away. So to make things go a little quicker for us, I removed all the rear interior pieces the night before we were going to install everything. But I noticed, there's a cross bar between the two strut towers (see pics). Whatever you call it, it seems to serve the purpose of a rear strut tower bar.



Another angle:



So, is the rear strut bar even necessary? I really don't see how it would be, since that's a decent sized piece of metal fram already there supporting the two strut towers....

I've read mixed reviews on the parts...some say they can definitely feel a difference, others claim it's more of a placebo effect.

Of course, maybe that piece isn't as tough as it looks. I'm kind of a suspension noob, but is the rear strut bar at all necessary?

 

I don't think it's necessary, but like you, I am not a master at this.
Why not go with a rear sway bar? Those can make a world of difference.

 

That was actually going to be my next step...but after pulling all of those interior pieces out, i just noticed this cross bar.

 

I have a friend that put his rear sway bar on and noticed a big difference. He said that after he put it on, his car would literally rock between wheels (like a three wheel action) when on a slant where all four wheels were not firmly planted (at an angle).
I don't know why would anything stiffer than that!

 

I can tell you from experience that a rear strut bar is mostly for looks on our cars, I owned the MMW bar and installed and tested the ingalls bar, and there is no noticeable improvement except the weight reduction from the few hundred dollars out of your wallet. I measure performance by times on a track and handling of the car on a track, if it doesn't perform on a track under track conditions, it doesn't perform.