Hiyya all, I'm just about to pull the trigger on a '16 GSF in ultrasonic blue/red interior. Dealer's picture of the engine bay shows a sway bar which I'm fairly certain is not stock. Any of you guys recognize? Did it belong to anyone here on the forum?
The carfax is clean and shows that this vehicle pretty much lived all of its life in New Jersey. Anyways, I'm new to this forum and a soon to be GSF owner...

 

Def not stock, could be Toms racing, although I thought they branded it at the top looks like toms though!

 

Actually that is called an STB (shock tower brace). It really does little (if anything) for a vehicle with double wishbone suspension and shock absorbers. It really stiffens up a car with struts however.

Lou

 

I mostly agree with this, however the upper suspension mounts are attached to the shock tower, so stiffening this area might be beneficial if you plan to run racing slicks. Street tires not so much. At least this design doesn't have a pivot at the top of the mounting hat.

Contrary to popular myth, these bars work in tension, not compression, and what happens under load is the outside tire pulls on the upper control arm which pulls on the shock tower which transfers some of the load to the opposite shock tower which is already loaded in the same direction from the opposing upper control arm and tire. There are lots of anecdotal stories about how this makes the car stiffer. If it were like the RC F and connected to the firewall with a triangular shape, I would call it an improvement, but like the other comments above, this implementation does more for visual performance than mechanical performance IMHO.

 

Thanks guys. I was a bit worried about purchasing this vehicle as the mod suggests that the car may have been tracked or driven hard. I had my mechanic look closely at the suspension and brakes and surprisingly, he thinks that rotors are still original (but on the second set of pads)! He also assured me that all of mechanicals were pristine. He felt that the car was one of the best he's ever seen for a pre-sale inspection. With those encouraging words I pulled the trigger and committed ... we'll see how things go.

I'm hoping that the best case scenario is that the prior owner was a poser and actually drove like a grandmother hee hee.

 

It's more of an eye candy than anything else honestly, but I don't see any disadvantages in having it installed.
Doesn't necessarily mean the car was tracked.

That engine bay is so clean, I think you found a good car!

Here's mine

 

Yes thats a Tom's bar. I have the same one!

 

Why did you install one, may I ask? Do you track?
My ride is on it's way to me this week, I'm dying from anticipation!

 

It is a Tom's brace
I have the same one
It is a 1 piece design

 

Vector analysis does not support this conclusion. Ever.