I installed the LTB stage II from Blehmco and Matt said on his website that I wont loose any clearance. Looking under the car, you can well see that the car lost a lot of clearance, at least 3 inches. Is this normal?

Thanks

 

That's normal, how's the drive?

 

I dont know what it says on his website but it is well known that you loose ground clearence with the stage 1 or 2 LTB. But its not as bad as you would think because the LTB moves with your wheels. SO when the suspension compresses the LTB moves up as well. The only time you can get in trouble is if your straddling something that goes between the front wheels.

I figure at some point and time I am going to decapitate at least 1 or 2 squirrels with it when they try and dart across the highway and I try to straddle them between my front tires.

 

3 inches?!?!?!? i wonder what it will look like it i lower my car by another 2.5...

 

Hes right you should relly get rid of it and give it to me

 

Dude, you sure about that?

 

we installed on on 03on18's car this weekend. u def loose clearence. it is like an inch and half of the ground

 

yea, s-techs and the stage ii are a mess. i'm decapitating speed bumps left and right.

 

....that is absolutely not true.

the LTB attaches to the LCA rear bolts and the push pin endlink. Neither of those components moves at all, as they are directly bolted to the front subframe of the car...the only movement is minimal (bushing compression). They absolutely do not "move with the wheels" or move up with suspension compression.

That said, mine has only scraped once in almost 2 years (straddling curb)....would be more of a concern for cars slammed on s-techs or low coilovers, but not with a "normal" drop.

 

yeah you and drklop are right. I am out of it.. I dont know what I was thinkin. (I didnt sleep last night.... and I have been making some pretty silly posts lately) But it is located right between the 2 front wheels so you'de have to straddle something to hit it.

 

you were thinking of the front sway bar....

but yes, between the wheels so it's generally not an issue.

 

Yes I probably was. lol, I promise I'm not this stupid normally, just on special occasions like mondays. BTW fabrication on the SFCs started today. Guy told me it should be done by friday, but you know how that goes with custom fabrication. I plan to actually get it back by wed of next week. The cross bracing of the SFCs would be a good place to tie into the LTB, which would be very cool, but I would be worried at that point that in the case of a front end colision that the engine wouldent drop down like it should because the LTB is in the way and it could force the engine to be pushed farther than it usually would into the cabin. But enough thread Hi Jacking for now.

 

The drive is much much better now. Not only it grabs both sides very tight to prevent a lot of body roll, it rides the potholes so nice as well. Like the car is one piece as it should be and not floating from right to left with the crappy stock suspension. I putting on the RSB this week, so than I should be having a nice ride when the back is tight as well as the front. Next step to lower it to complete the whole pacakge.

The only disadvantage is the clearance. It is pretty obvious that you loose a couple of inches at least. This is not really a problem when your car is stock, but when its lowered it could be a big issue especially if you have like 4 people total in the car driving in the city :-(

 

Don't worry about it. It's located right between the wheels(well, stage II goes a little further back) so the only way you can hit it is if you drive over extremely uneven surfaces. If you are not going to drop the car lower than 2" I wouldn't worry about scraping the LTB.

 

what matt says on his site is that you will not lose anymore ground clearance when you go from stage 1 to stage 2

 

this is true...I've had both. The stage 1 is just the front bar without the rear bar and connecting bars (stage2)

 

i have scraped the bottom several times when rafting in wv. there were ruts in the gravel road from tires, and the middle scraped on bigger pot holes really bad. also hit the street-driveway curb at my fiance's parents house a few times. regular speed bumps are not a problem.

 

not only have i already hit a bunch of speed bumps with the ltb, i'm waiting for when my bouncy s-techs drive the bar into the ground on the highway and i get a shower of sparks behind me.

 

That will be sweet! Too bad they arent working on Rt. 3 anymore, they had some great bumps for you to try it out on!

 

i84 cheshire exit going west..stay in the fast lane...anything over 50mph...maybe your floor pan will fall out and u could get sparks inside the cab. laugh

 

it's weird you brought this up, because just this morning, i took a shovel to the center of my driveway where dirt had built up in the middle causing me to scrape the crap outta my LTB every time i backed out....it is REALLY low...with my h-techs, the LTB is about 1 1/2 - 2" from the ground...scary...

 

what a bummer that such an improvement mod could get all torn up so easily. i may have to rethink this mod since i'm on s-techs, and roads here aren't so forgiving. does anyone know if tagging the ground with this bar will have any detrimental effects on suspension components or bushings. i'm sure all that force/energy has to go somewhere.

 

That is exactly what I am scared of, when I'll be dropping on H&Rs and driving with a couple of people and subwoofers in the trunk....I can already see it happening :-(

 

I had the stage 1 LTB on my car, it was awsome....to bad it only lasted for about 4 days. I hit a big *** pot hole/trench while taking a 10mph left turn at a stop light. The bar got pushed up and back, I ended up having to cut it off with a sawzall. My bushings are shot and it looks like my LCA's were moved slightly. Im on D2s with about a 2 finger drop all around. Its an awsome mod but you really need to be careful if you have a low drop.

 

I recently had the stage II LTB put on, and I've got approx 3"+ of ground clearance from the bottom of the bar to the ground. Speed bumps aren't a problem (I've got quite a few in my neighborhood), but I can see where clearance could be an issue if I were to come across any objects or "adverse road conditions" of more than 3". However, as I am usually on decent roads, I'm not too worried about accidental damage.
Overall I feel the Stage II LTB was a very good investment, especially when combined with the ES urethane bushings. The car just feels more solid and tight, and much more responsive to steering input.

 

im gonna safely assume if im dropped over 3inchs up front that a ltb is out of the question, right?

i would love the added cornering ability but im not about to raise my car.

 

correct...if you're slammed that low, you will scrape it all the time.

if you really want added cornering ability, bring the car up some. At 3" low, the lower control arm is at a poor angle and surely causes bump steer.

 

I hope a LTB would be fine with Eibachs. Even though the advertised drop ammount for the Eibachs is only 1.3 in in the front and 1.0 in in the back it is well known that the Eibachs drop the car more than those numbers. The Eibachs usually sit the car about 3/4s of an inch lower in the front than the H&Rs so they drop more than advertised. In the back they drop the car around the same amount as the H&Rs.

 

irish, how is it with th h techs?

im dyin to get this tie brace but worried ill be too low, and mess it up, or worse get it caught on soethin n mess up more than than the bar, like vlasic said....i mean 3 in of clearence is just too low.

 

no problems since I put the H-techs on a few weeks ago - and they are lower in the front than the H&R's, Maxspeeds, and Eibachs.

I would not have the bar with anything lower, personally.

Not worried at all, since I'll gain another 1/2" when I swap back to the maxspeeds.

 

Unless I find out the Eibachs really arent that bad when paired with SFCs at which point I am sure you will at least look at them cause they should deliver better performance than you would get with the maxspeeds.

I just found my Eibachs on ebay for 100$ and I picked them up from the guy. They only had around 5k miles on them and were on the car for about 6 months.