I had been looking at buying this for my 1998 Protege LX 5spd for over a year, finally pulling the trigger once I was out of school a bit. The Pro is a DD and basically gets to be everything from commuter to people hauler to mountain road carver. Current mods were front strut bar, intake, and H&R Sport Springs on stock struts, 14x6 +30 rims (previous owner install) with now 195/60s. Humble setup, but slowly upgraded through my seven years of driving, but I still knew there was a missing piece to the handling puzzle.
Not having a 1995 or 1996-8 ES Protege meant I had no rear sway bar, so going big and putting a 21.5 mm one was bound to be noticeable. It was. I was always aware, even with the lowering springs, that in harder corners, the car still leaned in on the outside front tire, wearing the tire out, scrubbing speed off, and encouraging understeer.
With this bar in, the handling is sublime--definitely upped the limits considerably. Smooth corners, heck, any corner, are taken so much more flatly, with much more confidence. Accelerating through turns happens much sooner, as does carrying speed or higher speeds through them. More rotating, like SH-AWD only it happens after you load the suspension into a turn.
Installation: a big key for me. With replacement struts with the sway bar tab in the rear (DX, LX, ES cars have the same replacement strut part numbers), this bar with the hardware provided is a direct bolt up. One can't "choke up" fully on it, but you can go a good ways. To choke up fully, I suspect one would have to spring for the long sway bar end links (10" ones, I believe).
I'm not an autoXer nor do I track my car, just FYI, but I do enjoy driving from road trips to spirited mountain runs (2nd gear twisties FTW), and this sway bar addition has really upped the fun and feel of the car. Really glad I did it. The bar looks good, works really well, and came packaged very securely and professionally.
Thanks, AWR!
