JeremyT

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Just finished the rear bar install on my '06 250 -- front goes in tomorrow. Was pretty easy, just lifted the car a little from the differential to get some elbow room but left it on the ground with the wheels on. Braced the allen wrench against the control arm and used a doubled-up combination wrench to loosen the nut with ease. I had read so many stories here about the difficult end-link nuts that I decided to "simply" remove the end-links entirely so that I could deal with the nuts on the bench. It seemed like removing the little bolt at the bottom of the links was a trivial solution to the problem but it ended up being a complete waste of time. The links do not come out of the control arm and if they did, they would never go back in. So after lots of prying and fiddling and cursing and a little drinking, I finally got the links back in place and proceeded with the "normal" method.

JeremyT

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And the front went on just the same as the rear, about 40 minutes for the bar plus about 20 min to remove/reinstall the engine cover. Again I left the wheels on and the car on the ground but this time I set a small red brick under each front tire to get the elbow room needed. I couldn't figure out how to remove the little side splashguards (turns out you can just yank on them once the screw is out) so I left them in place and fished the bar thru, which was not easy. No problems with sticky nuts despite the rusted appearance and 6 years spent in Santa Monica. The front links didn't even require the allen wrench!

Anyway, I didn't get many miles with the rear-only setup but there definitely is a noticeable difference with each stage. The front bar really perks up the steering response and greatly reduces body roll while the rear brings it nicely in balance near the limits. As expected, the ride is noticeably harsher on uneven surfaces that rock the car L/R like driveways or potholes but unchanged on even things like concrete freeway expansion gaps or small things like road reflectors.

Jeff Lange

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Yeah the biggest difference I noticed was the difference when hitting bumps/uneven road on one side of the car, a lot less forgiving than it was before the sway bars. Hitting bumps evenly with both wheels of course stayed the same.

Jeff

c-low

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so is everyone calling this a "MUST HAVE" mod???

Joeb427

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Thanks for your posts guys.I was going to order the rear sway but don't want a harsher ride and didn't know that would happen but it makes sense.

Kurtz

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unless your roads are really bad, in which case your ride is already crappy, you won't have a crappy ride.

The only impact on ride quality the sway bar has is it makes an independent suspension a bit less independent (more like a live axle car)... hence why there's no difference at all on even roads, and a small difference on uneven ones.

The handling improvement is much much more dramatic a difference than the "ride over uneven surfaces" one.

Joeb427

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Roads can be pretty bad here in the NYC metro area but the difference shouldn't be too much.
I'll have to think about it.
Thanks,though.

JeremyT

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In my case it seemed that the rear bar had very little impact on ride quality or steering feel, it merely made very hard cornering a little flatter and more balanced. The front bar made the steering feel much more nimble and direct, made hard cornering Ferrari-flat, and significantly reduced the ride quality. There's lots of discussion in this thread about the front F-Sport bar being only a tiny bit larger than stock. I assure you it is vastly stiffer.

Coming from a Mini Cooper I found the IS a bit difficult to drive as it would slide out about 30 degrees into a full Tokyo drift on what I thought were fairly slow casual corners around town so I was worried about a rear-only bar worsening this behavior. I didn't notice much difference in that respect and the rear seemed to break loose at about the same point and swing out the same amount, it just felt a little more balanced along the way. In theory however, the rear bar should increase the tendency to spin. The car hasn't slid out since I put the front bar on but that may just be that I'm becoming more aware of its limitations.

JDKane527

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JeremyT now you need better tires if it's sliding out.

Koolpep

Hi Jeremy,

I am planning to install front and rear sway bars too. Can you elaborate a bit more on the significant drop in ride quality? That scares me a bit, I don't mind a sportier ride but I don't want a crappy ride ;-)

Regarding cornering and the rear breaking loose.. I have installed Continental ContiSport Contact3 Tires and they have amazing grip (especially here in the desert).

I drove a Chevrolet Lumina SS (rebadged Holden Commodore) before which cornered like a pregnant whale and my wife (and me on the weekends) drives a Porsche Design Edition 2 works tuned Boxster S with PASM (the active magnetic suspension management) and plenty of other goodies. This car is the cornering masterchief. I have never experienced anything like that. And I have taken a few other cars around the track, but the Porsches cornering speed is out of this world.

However, I was very surprised of what the Lexus IS is capable of. Are you driving it with VSC off?

Anyhow, if you don't mind, please update me on the ride quality, I plan to put in F-Sport shocks, and springs and the sway bars and I now think I might be overdoing it for my intended purpose. So maybe sway bars and rest stock is just what I want, cornering speed ;-)

Thanks a lot,
K

Kurtz

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I'd throw this out there for the guys concerned about ride quality-

It's very easy to swap sway bars (much more so than, say, springs and shocks).

Try the bars.

If you hate em, you can always resell them for probably 90% of what you paid for em.

But I don't know that I've ever seen anyone put em on and say anything other than 'I wish I had done this sooner'

Jeff Lange

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I would do it anyway, the rear bar does far less to negatively affect the ride quality than the front does. The improvement in handling is far greater than the degradation of the ride quality (which isn't much for the rear).

But of course, the choice is up to you.

Jeff

JeremyT

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Yeah, I can't say much more than I already have. It takes about 90 minutes to swap the front bar so like kurtz says, it's not a big commitment. Those bumpy warped roads (tree roots, heat, etc.) really shake the car side to side much more with the front bar but it's not harsh like it can be with a small sports car. With both bars I would expect the overall ride quality to be much better than your Porsche. It is vastly better than my Mini. But if you do springs & struts too, you'll probably end up pretty near Porsche ride quality, but with half the grip.

As for VSC, it's on all the time and readily allows the tail to swing out wildly. I had a 2010 loaner for a few days and actually tried very deliberately to kick it out but the VSC absolutely would not allow it -- even if I tricked it by jerking the wheel just as I forced a 2-1 downshift mid-corner. It was so quick to kill the throttle and slam on the brakes that I couldn't get away with anything, it just slowed me down to a safe cornering speed every time. I suspect there's some significant difference in the '06 VSC setup because it really lets the car swing but keeps it nicely in control before smoothly straightening out. It's obviously working but is surprisingly laissez faire. It's a very nice change from the Mini whose VSC could be triggered by a single grain of sand and would turn the engine completely off for several seconds just in case.

Koolpep

Thanks guys, very informative!!

I just found out that most likely even the F-Sport original Lexus sway bars might not fit my original Lexus (muuhhahha) as the Middle Eastern version with teh 3GR-FE engine has a full size spare tire compartment in the boot, as mentioned here: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sus...ay-bars-2.html

I am now checking with Eibach (german company, I am german too, so makes it easier to communicate) if their rear sway bar would fit. If not then I have to go the spring + shocks route and burn the leftover cash on sound improvements like air intake and exhaust ;-)

The moment you find your perfect solution for your problem, poooof, it disappears. arrrrrghhh.

Cheers,

Kurtz

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06-08 250 only has VSC and TC

09+ 250 has VDIM