Hey everyone. I'm slightly interested in decreasing body roll on my GT. Since I like the look and fit of OE, I was wondering if there's any other W body GM vehicles that use a front strut tower brace that would slip right into the GP. If not, who makes a good priced quality brace, and possibly front or rear sway bars? I don't want to alter the vehicle too much, or mess up its ride, but just touch up the handling a little. Thanks in advance.

go here you can buy the parts individually as well

http://www.gmpartsdirect.com/results.cfm?singlepart=1&partnumber=pk12456148

A STB on the front is pretty useless on our cars becuase the strut towers are attached to the firewall and require four holes to be drilled in the top of the strut tower. The rear end you can bolt the STB right onto the strut bolts no drillin req. Your best bet is to replace the rear sway bar and trailing arms.
good luck

BMR has the bolt in STB's and sway bars. I got mine here.
http://www.3800performance.com/vehicles/grand_prix_97_03_miva.htm

Thanks guys! I'll be making a purchase hopefully soon, thanks to your input.

Don't Buicks use a front stb?

Adam, You can buy a buick strut bar and get adaptor plates to bolt it to the strut towers on the front from ZZP. Bar is about $8 and the plates are $35 I think.

What would be better for you is
GMPP makes a handling upgrade kit
GM PART # pk12456148
GM LIST: $201.89
GMPARTSDIRECT.COM PRICE: $119.80 + shipping

it consists of:
P/N 12498642 Heavy Duty Rear Sway Bar,
P/N 12498643 Heavy Duty Front Sway Bar,
P/N 12498649 Rear Tubular Trailing Arm Kit which contains two trailing arms P/N 10409660(ARMS NOT PICTURED), and P/N 12456148 Strut Tower Brace.

The kit also has the hight durometer end links and bushings for the sway bars.

For the rear, you Can you another buick bar with the holes drilled out but I think Id go with a STB rear bar or something that bolts to more than one tower bolt.

Jeff

Thanks again for the info...I'll let you all know what I end up doing.

That is good info, thanks guys because I need to do some suspension mods this year too.

Man!! The BMR kit from 3800Performance is $919 compared to $119 for the GMPartsDirect one.

Is there such a huge quality difference?

Dude, that's the whole kit. It's not just the STB. The kit has everything you could ever want. I am very happy with just the BMR STB and rear sway bar. It's a different car than it was before the swap. The ride is pretty much the same but in the corners you will notice a big improvement. Everything I got goes right in.

the BMR kit, man it's worth every penny,now my car handles like it was made for the tracks... looking for more curves.and the neat thing about it you can see thru the rims the suspension has been modified.red parts (the kit) except for the front and rear sway bars...

Are the front Buick strut tower brace adapters available from GM? I got the bar and the other stuff today, but it looks like the Buick strut tower must be different from the Pontiac's.

For the last post by me, if someone could provide a part number for these adapters, I'd appreciate it. I can't seem to find them on GM Parts Direct, and the dealer can't really look them up, since the bar is technically not for a pontiac. Thanks!!!

The only strut tower brace from GM is for the buick. The adaptors are not from GM, they are from ZZPerformance
here is the link http://www.zzperformance.com/zzp/products/prod_strut_tower.htm

Jeff

I bought the strut tower braces from gmpartsdirect and am brave enough to drill into my car to install the front one, the rear one was pretty easy. I don't see the big deal with drilling into your car for the front one, but I can see how you might not want to do that.

Yes, upon looking at it today, I figured that was the only way, was to drill. I guess I really don't have a problem doing that, it's just that I'd rather buy some kind of pre-made bolt on bracket instead, if they are available, which from what I'm hearing, they are. We'll see...

The hardest part was trying to fit my hand over the tire to hold the bracket up while I threaded the nut onto the stud to hold it in place. And my link above was for the entire GM handling kit. The only diff between the GM sways and the rest is GM uses hollow sways the rest are solid. Some oversized solid bars have been know to break parts due to the over stiff. If your not gonna take it autocrossing then the GM parts will do you just fine.

Ok, thanks, HercMan,

Thats what I was wondering because the price difference between the GM kit ($119) and the BMR kit ($919) is quite astronomical.

I understand that the BMR is probably better quality, but $800 worth of quality???

I may start with the GM kit, is that what you have in your 98?

What's in the GM kit? The BMR has everything. Everything. Look it up. It has like twelve different components. I just got the front STB and the rear sway with urethane bushings. Paid around 290. Worth every penny. The 919 package has front and rear sways, front and rear trailing arms, front and rear STB's, and other stuff that I can't remember. It's not just the stb.
Jack

Kit is for use on 1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix and 2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo. Handling Kit inlcudes all hardware and bushings to replace exsisting sway bars and to add the strut tower brace, and consist of: P/N 12498642 Heavy Duty Rear Sway Bar, P/N 12498643 Heavy Duty Front Sway Bar, P/N 12498649 Rear Tubular Trailing Arm Kit which contains two trailing arms P/N 10409660(ARMS NOT PICTURED), and P/N 12456148 Strut Tower Brace. You will need to order an additiona STB for the rear same PN as above


the whole kit is $119 my original post on page one is the link to it. As of this time I only have the STBs but I will be getting the rest of the kit in the near future.

Well, I just got done biting the bullet and just drilling out the strut towers to attach the front brace. I just figured that this is the way the Buicks have them installed from the factory, so it can't hurt to drill a couple holes, as long as they're nicely done and straight. It fit nicely, and took a total of only 20 minutes or so. Not as painful as I thought.

I just ordered the GM handling kit. I will be installing it in about 2 weeks. One question: what size drill did you use to make the holes for the front STB?

Hi Adam,

Do you notice a handling difference with the Buick STB? I've just got the Buick bar on the rear struts right now, I and I remember noticing that it tightened the rear end up (no jokes!), but I haven't put on the front one yet (waiting to pay off car to have the extra $$$).

I've been told that the front one makes a pretty big diff!

I've got a buddy of mine at a Pontiac dealership checking what his employee price on the GM kit is.

I forgot what size bit it was. I just took the stud and matched it to the bit that I needed. I didnt pay attention to the size.

I didn't pay attention to size of bit, either. I just matched it up to the studs. Yes, I can say I noticed a slight difference with the bar only; if I would've paid more for it I may have been dissapointed. I just ordered the bar from my GM dealer; my cost was about $17.00, and it included everything needed to bolt it up to the strut towers, unless you want to use the bracket/adapter method, which would require no drilling. To drill into the towers wasn't has hard as I thought; the whole thing was in in less than 1/2 hour. For $18, you can't go wrong, even if you don't feel a huge difference. The GM front & rear sway bars are next.

for those of you who have put the buick bar on the rear stut towers, Im assuming you reamed out one of the holes and bolted it on with one of the strut bolts correct?

anything to watch out for when doing this? Did it go upside down or right side up? I havent looked out back yet but have two buick bars laying around and all this talk has me wanting to get off my A## and install them.
thanks
Jeff

Yeah, if you've already got them for basically free, put em in! I haven't looked into the rear bar yet, either. If you do so, let me know how it mounts up. I don't know if the ones you have are still attached to cars or not, but you may need to get the mounting studs and nuts for the front from the dealer. They're super cheap; just have them look them up for an '01 Regal/Century. You can just use bolts I guess, but for the same price you can do it factory-style.

no both are off the car and were on a GTP but the front was drilled into the shock towers. I didnt seen how teh rear one was attached so I thought Id ask to see if anyone had done it yet. Ill prob get the brackets from ZZP so I dont have to drill and Id like to see how they work out.

whats the torque spec on the strut tower mounting bolts? I dont want to strip them.

I've got the GM STB from the Regal on my GP, made a very small change, front or rear. I really noticed a difference with roll and stability once I had put in the GM Performance sway bars, and both rear trailing arms. It's way stiff, but a bump in the pavement can kinda toss the car around a bit. Install was a piece of cake, took about 2 hours for all three components

Hello Airdrie Alberta,

Where did you pick up the GM Performance sway bars?

Krishna
http://abcgp.clubgp.com

Well after 10 months of rattling around in my trunk I finally installed the GM buick strut bars on the front and rear of my car.

I ended up not getting the brackets from ZZP for the front, but instead drilled the holes in the shock towers and used the GM mounting studs. It wasnt terribly hard.

I unbolted the wire harness on the drivers side that is in the way, cut off the stud that it was attached to and moved the harness out of the way. Lined up the strut bar about 1" away from the edge of the opening of each strut tower, (its fairly easy to see where the bar goes) marked the holes with a marker and started drilling. I started small and kept stepping up until the holes were big enough for the mounting bracket studs to fit through from the bottom.

Before installing, I painted the bare metal where I drilled and then put RTV on the brackets to try to keep any moisture out. Bolted it up and I was done.

I put the same bar on the rear. you have to ream out one set of the holes so that it fits over the shock tower stud. It will fit using either hole (with the bar closer to the rear seat or closer to the trunk opening) I put it so the bar fits over the stud on the top hole and the empty hole is closest to the opening of the trunk. That seems to be more centered on the tower. I tightened it down and that was it.

Ive been told that those shock studs can strip easily and you should be very careful tightening it down because when you do, the bar will deform a little as it confomrs to the tower and the studs or bolts can strip.

In my case this bar had already been installed on another GTP so the bar was already slightly deformed on the edges and fit perfectly. I didnt have to worry about stripping the nuts or studs and I certainly tightend it down more than what it was without the bar. I used a simple 15mm wrench as I dindt have any deep well sockets. Seemed to be more than enough to get the job done but it would be a LOT easer if you had one of those ratchet wrenches.

I can say I do notice a bit of a difference. the steering seems a bit quicker and tighter, and overall the car is a little stiffer. Its not a huge difference but one I have noticed each time I get in the car so far. 110 miles so far and it hasnt loosened up and I like the feel of the car.

Well worth $30-$40 IMO
Jeff

I work for a GM dealer. I just got the part numbers from www.gmgoodwrench.com and then the performance parts link. Took about 3 weeks for them to get here, though.

Hi pgp2000gt,

Have you thought of installing the GM sway bars as well from the GM Suspension kit? Or did you just get the STB's?

Actually, I've got the STB, front and rear GM Perf sway bars, and also the tubular GM Perf rear trailing arms

Sorry for the late reply, but how do you like them?