Torque damperss

[KTeevan]

So i want to buy some torque dampers so that i eliminate wheel hop. thats what these do correct? someone tell me if im wrong but wheel hop is horrible for everything in your car, and being as i want to take my car to the track i want to make it as safe as possible. also, i need some anti-sway bars. anyone know of any that are good? im looking to spend about 400 or so with everything. thanks for any help.

[bwood87]

It will not eliminate wheel hop. It may help, but certainly will not get rid of it. If you have ever seen someone move their car with the hood open and look at the motor you can see it bucks when you hit the gas. So the engine absorbs the first little bit of power, but then it will spring back somewhat quickly giving a jolt of power to the wheels. This can cause you to lose traction and therefor start to hop. A dampener will stop the engine from bucking so abruptly. The main reason you wheel hop is because of your suspension\tires. Grippy tires would be best, then a stiffer suspension. Anti-sway bars are for cornering not wheel hop, but I would say Hotchkis for them.

[navylife59]

I have not notice any substantial wheel-hop on my tC. It is an issue but not as bad as it is made out to be on street tires. Sticky street tires is where it is going to pop up. There is only 2 engine dampners left on the market for the tC; Weapon R and Ingals. Either should work for you.

Now, there are many different strut bars on the market. Some good and some not so good. I have a Greddy and find it to be an ackward design that just does not fit right. My AEM one fit much better but no as beefy. DC Sports and TRD have decent ones. Just search around and if your not sure, as ask your specific product questions here.

Well, gotta to run. Baby is a coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Scarab23]

Couldn't agree more with Navy, NST has a nice damper also Torque Damper

[KTeevan]

thanks. i still hop a good amount however. maybe its the weather, but when i start to hop, i just let off the gas, and obviously it stops, but yea torque dampers might be my best bet. thanks.

[navylife59]

I stand corrected, 3 left on the market! One thing to note, however, is that they all utilize the right front strut upper mount studs as the chassis anchor point. These stud are just barely long enough to suffice for strut bar mounts (IMO they are too short). Not only would the studs be too short for both, the mounting flanges make obstruct one another. We need to add a Knowledgebase Article on dampner/strut bar compatabilities. If obstruction is not an issue, then you can find longer studs and have them pressed into your upper strut mounts.



***Using my super human moderator powers, I went back in time an added this pic to my post.

[KTeevan]

good call. i would have never thought about that until installation, then would have thought "what do i do now" and i would have been pissed.

[Admir]

can torque dampers mess up your car? jw cuz i hurd it from a civic forum?

[Soulbane]

Uh oh.

So it's going to boil down to a strut bar vs dampener debate.

Navy, are you recommending that with the short bolts, that we not install both?

[bwood87]

From the looks of it you will not be able to. It is not safe to have the bolt that far up, unless you can saftey wire it.

[Soulbane]

Now I'm torn, dampeners or struts?

I guess the struts, I'm a corner junkie, so the chassis rigidity and stabilization sounds more appealing and cheaper.

[navylife59]

bwood87 is right. You will not be able to mount both. You can check with ARP and see if they have longer studs, but I would use only one or the other. These are not shouldered studs, ie they are all thread. You are creating added stresses on these studs that they were not designed to handle. The mounting plates of the strut bar and the torque dampner will slip back and forth ever so slightly, slowly wearing down the thread to the core of the stud. Eventually, this will cause a stress fracture or just plain shear the stud in half if there is enough force. You might begin to experience so play in the lateral roll of the front suspension.

To answer an earlier question, "Can a torque dampner cause damage to the vehicle?"; the answer is very possible. This depends on the design and the amount of torque that your throwing at it. What I don't care for in the Ingals design is that it off-balances the powertrain. It is offset to the crank end of the motor. The torque is transmitted to the wheels on the tranny end. That means the Ingals dampner utilizes the entire powertrain assembly as a lever to prevent torque. This is not very efficient putting undue stress on the block and bolts. It is possible that the rotating assembly could be affected, most likely the bearings.

ZPI tried to think out of the box and stop wheel hop by going to the transmitter of the torsional load; the tranny. The flaw in their design was the hard point connection to the lower radiator frame rail. This frame rail was not designed to handle such loads. With enough torque, this rail could twist or break it's spot welds, thus severly weakening it. Additionally a safety factor because it is also an integral part of the frontal crash safety crumple zone.

[Soulbane]

Yeah, I'm going for the struts, lol.