Don't worry, nothing bad about the company (www.hondaautomotiveparts.com), but I ordered a 1999 Civic Si OEM rear sway bar and all the components from them for a guaranteed fit to my 97 EX with all necessary parts.

Turns out, it's not so perfect.

You have to order all parts individually, but there's a flaw in the picture and inventory! There is one missing part, so you don't know to order it. The missing part is 4 8mm locking nuts that are needed to bolt the mounts to the sub chassis. These nuts appear nowhere in the appropriate place in the picture. However, I think you can buy other 8mm nuts from another part of the picture for a different part and it'll work, but I haven't done it. I don't see why it wouldn't work though.



In this picture, directly from hondaautomotiveparts, it's part #36. These bolts need locking nuts. But I don't see them in the picture... do you? I think part #24, 8mm flange nut will do the trick. You need 4 of 'em.

I had thought something was wrong when I was ordering, but bolt #35 does not need nuts because the mounts actually have threads for them. So that was confusing.

Anyways, I hope this helps people.

Shipping is reasonably fast, and totall cost for this new Si bar was ~$175 shipped. I've already gotten burned once being told a GSR sway is a direct fit for civic (it's not, you need Si endlinks and Si mounts) and I think I almost got burned from a guy selling a broken sway bar. So I went this route to be sure. Dealer tries to rip you off for $250+ for a new one.

 

There is no nut in the picture and it's normal because the si has the nuts already tack welded on the bracket mounting point on the subchassis. If you were just buying parts for an SI it would work... but since you're buying to custom fit to your EX... you need to add nuts. Note that you can tack weld them onto the subchassis for a more permanent and stock looking install.

 

or just buy them from the hardware store

 

Good info, good post.

Nice work man. :goodjob:

 

When I did mine, the subframe was predrilled for the bolts, but like you said, no nuts. I just bought some 5/16 bolts from the hardware store and mounted it that way. I did back the subframe with some small 1/8 plate steel to help with flex too. If you upgrade to a bigger sway bar, you will want to add some more support to prevent the subframe from tearing.

The OEM endlinks can be made as well to save you some bucks. Honda sells them for about $40 per side if I remember right, but Granger sells something simular to them that I an others have used for about $20 per side. If anyone wants info let me know.

 

More close up pics in this thread and talking about making a GSR sway bar fit the civic.

 

i like my gsr sway better than the si sway i used to have.

 

Hey... so share your experience. What'd you do to make the GSR sway work on the civic? Same thing I described?

 

Damn, you got ripped off. I got mine off a 2000 Si (in 2002 so it was only 2 years old) for $90 for the entire set up.