so it seams as thought there's a huge amount of opinion on why not to do these mods, but its my car and i shall mod it how i see fit. i will read the opinions left but could care less for negative feedback regarding the products value or function. with that said on to the install.

first write up ever - pictures will come asap

park on level ground and set brake

unhook and remove battery

unhook and remove intake

unhook and remove heat shield

unhook and remove fuse box

drill out spot welds on the tab that fuse box secures to and remove it as its in the way of the strut bar

unbolt the bracket the secures the ac lines on the shock tower if i remember correctly

take tin snips and cut the hole to become an open valley to allow the height of the ac lines to be adjustable - reinstall bracket but dont tighten all the way

take heat shield and create a tunnel for the small ac line to run through - i went about 3/8" up to allow for vibration room. i used a dremmel for this with a carbide bit of some sort.

install heat shield - dont tighten any of the bolts yet! leave them all loose enough to allow the shield to move back and fourth. i slid my shield as far forward - towards the front bumper as possible and snugged the forward most bolt to keep it from moving.

check gap around 1/4" ac line to make sure shield doesn't hit, adjust if necessary as you don't wanna puncture that soft aluminum line. if good say 1/8" or so move on.

connect the engine torque damper to the strut bar bracket - i suggest doing this before installing, using the tapered shim provided to align the damper.snug down the assembly

loosen the threaded assembly on the damper to allow adjustment of the damper after you install

install bracket on motor, use loctite and the bolt wont vibrate loose on you

remove 14mm nuts from shock towers

install passenger side strut bar mount and engine damper, feeding the damper through the hole carefully

snug but dont torque the 14 mm nuts

adjust damper so that hole lines up while car is off

connect torque damper to bracket

tighten nut on damper

check clearance on damper body to hole in heat shield, should be a close to uniform gap around the body.

tighten heat shield bolts at this time , except the one closest to the front bumper

adjust the ac line bracket up or down to give needed clearance to the damper body and tighten bolt on bracket, i used a different bolt with a washer to grab more surface area of the bracket.

i also ziptied the large line - the one with foam jacket to the small line in several areas to keep the unjacketed 1/4" line from vibrating on the top of the damper

install last bolt on heatshield

install remaining bracket on drivers side on connect strut bar to passenger side bracket

torque the hardware on strut tower bar

wipe out area and vacuum if your anal - get up all the crap!

reinstall fuse block - use a nut on the side closest to motor as theres no more bracket below it.

reinstall battery

check clearances again to make sure nothing will bind or be crushed with the movement of the motor

reinstall intake system

start car


this may be a little all over the place as i wrote this from memory, there was alot of head scratching and doing things three or four times to figure out. i had not seen or found a clear write up so i hopes this helps people.

as for the before and after performance i cant say much. i dont beat the hell out of my car nor do i expect miracles out of what some say is gimick, i love j's racing products and intend to support them by installing there goods on my car. some may or may not like how i do it but i dont care i have no binding issues, no rattles, no feedback in the steering wheel. thanks for reading

 

Nice writeup, I installed my last weekend as well. Do you experience more engine noise because of the engine damper? Also how did you torque that down?