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Custom Traction Bars

DIY: 
16K views 67 replies 22 participants last post by  Requiem Alderon 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys! So this will be my DIY for custom traction bars. They are very similar to the APE traction bars. These are for increasing traction when drag racing. They will REDUCE if not eliminate wheel hop and drastically reduce torque steer.

You will order parts from 2 different sites:

http://www.summitracing.com/

http://www.aluminumspacers.com/

Parts to order from Summit Racing:

Part Name on Site:

2x Swaged Tube, Steel, Zinc Plated, 7/8 in. Diameter, 9 in. Length, 5/8 in.-18 RH/LH Threads

2x QA1 PCM Series Rod End (HAL-PCML8-10Z)

2x QA1 PCM Series Rod End (HAL-PCMR8-10Z)

1x QA1 Jam Nuts (HAL-JNL10S-1-5PK)

1x QA1 Jam Nuts (HAL-JNR10S-1-5PK)

2x Keyser Manufacturing Shock Mounts (KYS-100-200-17)

2x Keyser Manufacturing Brake Strut Rod Brackets (KYS-100-27-070-A)

Parts from Aluminum Spacers:

5x Aluminum Spacers--AS75-22-12


I choose the Brake Strut Rod Brackets because of the angle of them. It makes sense to have something can deflect off the ground if you were to hit something. I choose to get the 5 pack of the nuts because it can never hurt to have a few extra and they are cheap.I personally went with the Zinc Plated tubes. You can use any type of tube as long as you follow the length and thread sizes; i like the look and rust resistance the ones noted above have.

The assembly of the bars is super easy, it really only goes together one way and takes you 3 min at the most lol. If your curious about the spacers they are for the front mount to fit on each side of the Rod End inside the mount to create a flush fit. The rear mount is pre-assembled.

Next is to bring them to a shop where you will have someone weld them onto your car. The shop i choose is a local friend and he measured, cleaned and sealed mine.



Things to pay attention to when measuring and installing!

1. When mocking them up check full rotation of your tires, you DO NOT want these rubbing against them. In the pictures below i have 1 inch of clearance between the tire and bar at full turn.

2. Have the angle at which they are welded on, so they wont bind and cause unneeded friction and wear. See Pictures below for example angle.

3. Make sure the grease nipples are turned away from the car so you can access them. You will need to fill these as well. I had the same shop weld and fill them for me.

4. There should be rotational play with the bars. Just Firm, you should be able to turn them afterwords with your hand. This is to again prevent binding and unneeded wear.



Alright on to pictures:



This is a good picture of the angle i have them welded at. This has complete clearance and performs very well



Side view. The front Rod Strut mounts weld perfectly onto the contours of the subframe it worked very very well. I suggest following this mounting position.



This shows the sloped angle of the mount. I give credit to HoRodV6 for suggesting this :)



The rear Shock Mount is at a slight angle when the car is lifted. This shows about the position you want to have it welded at.


And there you have it! Custom Traction Bars! Total shipped to me for the parts was around 135. Note that I am in Canada so the cost for Domestic in the US will be way lower. Shop fees are subject to where you get them welded. I spent around 100. My total installed, greased, and sealed was 235. Very much worth it cost wise for such an improvement in performance.


My testing so far?

Quite pleased. The car seems to ride smoother, turning felt tighter as well. The biggest differences was the drastic reduction in Torque Steer and ELIMINATION of the dreaded wheel hop. I am boosted at stage 2. Any wheres from 260-280whp. My test launches and WOT pulls felt very different. I have zero wheel hop. The wheel spin is smooth and uniform. And my torque steer was greatly reduced (i can floor it without worrying I'll torque off the road :p ) On a side note, they have zero noise as well.

I would recommend doing this to anyone who is pushing high horsepower or loves the 1/4 mile. They make a great difference and help to put that power to the ground :).
 
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#4 ·
Can't wait to get mine installed.

P.S. You need an LSD now. ;)
 
#6 ·
I know :( it's kinda been hanging over my head lol just not sure if I wanna take things apart now that I have it running so good :p

Do you think something like this would work in the rear to make adjustable trailing arms to change caster? The stock ones are pretty thick/sturdy.
Probably. I'm not an expert on suspension, but modifying these to for other applications would be very easy. Also to give you an example of how sensitive they are, one half turn to a snug fit was actually pulling the entire control arm. I couldn't believe it. They must have been bouncing around when I was driving before lol.
 
#7 ·
I couldn't give rep to you so I decided to just post that I love you instead. LOL
 
#9 · (Edited)
Haha thanks man :p

+1 Rep for this. Freaking sweet DIY. I can't weld to save my life but thankfully my father in law can. This will be something that will be very useful once the Tib is putting down some decent numbers....mine has yet to get to that point haha

Thanks dude! They are honestly really easy all in all. You could probably do these for super cheap if your father in law would do the welding for you. I think even a N/A tib could benefit from these. The wheel hop is hugely present when launching. It would be night and day for you.


Also i can't take all the credit, sdtib, HotRodv6 and a number of others helped in finding the parts and measuring.
 
#8 ·
+1 Rep for this. Freaking sweet DIY. I can't weld to save my life but thankfully my father in law can. This will be something that will be very useful once the Tib is putting down some decent numbers....mine has yet to get to that point haha
 
#14 ·
Very nice write up and pics! +1

From the looks of it in the pics, could you have gotten away with a slightly longer tube?

Any scraping yet at your current height?

And yes, must be careful adjusting them as they will affect toe if adjusted too long or short.
 
#15 ·
Thank you sir!

Hmm i'm sure you could, the thing that worked out nicely was how the front mount fit exactly with the contours of the subframe, looks like it was made for it.

No scraping so far, i am at stock ride height with stock suspension. I have lots of rough roads with tons of potholes where i live, haven't come close yet. If you had a large drop say 2-3 inches then yeah you might want to be careful on speed bumps and such.
 
#16 ·
Follow up:

Did a bunch of launches, tires @ 36psi (i would reccomend dropping them to 20-22 for dragging though.

Wheel hop is reduced but sometimes is present. I think this was entirely up to my psi in the tires though, I'm sure if i dropped the pressure it would be gone. I am also running stock suspension, I'm sure coilovers would help my traction vibrations as well.

The daily driving perks are quite nice, it is very smooth and uniform, much so then from before.

I scraped my bars this morning, i absent mindly drove down and up a curb exit lip which leads back onto a main road from a restuarant. I hit the left bar and broke the grease nipple off. There was no real damage to the mount, the angled front mount performed perfectly in this aspect. I got a new nipple from my local shop for free and just plugged it back in there. I will be more careful now watching my exits when there is a incline or decline. (the one i hit was pretty severe, i made a bunch of inappropriate noises following my incident)

For those who are lowered, just pay extra attention when driving with these, it is doable for sure but your clearance again would be slightly reduced.
 
#17 ·
I scraped my bars this morning

For those who are lowered, just pay extra attention when driving with these, it is doable for sure but your clearance again would be slightly reduced.
That's the main reason I haven't done this yet.

I hit the left bar and broke the grease nipple off.
Funny, the picture of the rod ends on Summit doesn't show a grease fitting so that was a little unexpected when I saw your install pics. I didn't see a grease fitting in any of the pictures of APE bars that I have seen either. If it were me, I would install those rod ends with the grease fittings facing up, you won't be able to get a grease gun on them but it shouldn't be a big deal removing the bolt to grease them for as often as you going to need to do it. That way you won't have to worry about breaking off another fitting.
 
#20 ·
I know that concern has been raised before. I don't ever recall reading about anyone who had suspension travel issues due to them. Only issues I remember were the rod ends wore out and/or made noise, but I think was due to the choice of rod end being not the right kind or cheap.
 
#23 ·
Well, I didn't mean any tension caused by the manual adjustments changing toe.

When the bar is horizontal to both mounting points it will be at it's longest effective length. When the suspension compresses or lengthens the bar swings in an arc making its effective length shorter. And I had it backward visualizing it with the subframe mounting point behind the wheel, so it would actually cause toe-in not out.
 
#24 ·
^ regardless if these will make your car toe in or out when your suspension compresses there is always going to be a little to in or out. shouldnt affect driveability i dont believe. if any i think it would help. brand new bushings are very firm when they are new, over time they where out and become more brittle and loose. this kinda helps that . correct me if im wrong, i just wanted throw my .10.
 
#25 ·
Curious as to what the potential change in length numbers might be, I sketched this up quick with a 12"radius. I think the bars ended being pretty close to 12" eye-to-eye, let me know if that is not correct and I can change it. Longer would be better. The measurements are taken and 1,2, and 3 inch marks vertical. I think for most normal driving any change would be hard to notice.
 

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#29 ·
Update here:

Drove the majority of the summer with these badboys on. I used them mainly with a stage 2 sniper.

I did scrape them a couple of times, this was solely on me being careless and forgetting i have now a lower clearance. Since then i have had zero issues.

For the price they worked exaclty how i wanted too and are quite happy with the end result. The mounts were very very durable and a good choice for this application.

And for anyone who has questions feel free to contact me with a PM!
 
#32 ·
I'm sure it could be applied in a similar manner yes

Soo after the long time with these on... would you say they are worth the money and do you still feel the difference after all this driving
Hmm, for someone n/a, no

Someone with f/I and a large amount of torque steer? Yes. It is only like 110 or something like that for anyone in the states so it is quite cheap.

Could you get away without it? Yeah I'm sure you could, but i noticed a good deal of stability and a nice feel with these on my car. If I had to choose wether to do them again or not, I would do them exactly the same.
 
#33 · (Edited)
Any thoughts on a different install point for lowered cars? Not wanting to replace stuff all the time hehe
Just from picturing it in my head I feel like you could install them at the top of the subframe and control arm since the CA points up from da low.
Lol
You'd just have to do it strategically enough so that your suspension can travel without getting stuck on the bar, and tightening the bar doesn't lift the tire seemingly lowering your car more.
 
#35 ·
You could def plan it out like that I'm sure. I don't take offense at all to changing up the DIY :) sometimes it takes more then one brains to get it right haha :)

Although as of right now my car is stored so I can't do any more work to it this year unfortunately
 
#36 ·
Man, I would die before I stored my tib. Unless it wasn't running..
Even if I had a second car to drive haha
I'm thinking trial and error is gonna be the only option here. :)
Don't get me wrong, I think the way you installed them is great in all aspects EXCEPT for the ground clearance. I'll just have to buy the parts an test, test, test. Maybe someone will beat me to it though, cause I'm broke. Hahaha
 
#37 ·
Haha I get insane and brutal winter driving conditions here, super harsh on a car, so in a way it's saving the car much weathering.

And yeah I think it would be a bit more for the extended bars, but in the end not too much more monies. I mean the clearance thing isn't too bad lol, my exhaust hangs lower at one point., it was more driver error then anything.

It would be interesting to see a different method of mounting them, could always remount mine if they work better :)
 
#38 ·
Oh oh I see. I thought Utah was bad sometimes, but I understand how that could go. Winter really sucks sometimes. Last winter I travelled about 20 miles on the freeway to work at only 25mph. Even then it was pretty slippery if you weren't careful. Winter driving can really sharpen your skills up hahaha
 
#40 ·
Nope, i mean you could try different angles of placement but really they worked very well. Helped to stiffen up the suspension up front wheel hop wise.

Just make sure you mount them in a position where you can full lock your wheel and the tires doesnt hit the traction bar. Otherwise your good to go.

Also i didn't note the assembly in the DIY but its a no brainer when you get the pieces haha, but if you need help PM me :)
 
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