Here is a DIY Guide on how to install your Carbing Okuyama Front Lower Arm Bar and Center Frame Brace. Install is pretty straight forward, just removing bolts, and reinstalling them with the bar(s) in place. This guide can also be used to install the GTSpec Front Lower Tie Brace, as it is basically the same bar as the Carbing Brace.


Tools Used:
-Socket Wrench w/ 10mm, 12mm, and 19mm sockets
-19mm Wrench
-Impact Gun
-Breaker Bar
-Flathead Screwdriver
-PB Blaster and/or WD-40
-Torch (optional but very helpful)



Front Lower Arm Bar:

1. Gather your tools. Jack up the car.




2. Remove front undertray. Don't mind how dirty and destroyed mine is.




3. Hit the two bolts circled in red with some PB Blaster.
*NOTE: YOU WILL PROBABLY HAVE TO USE AN IMPACT GUN HERE IN THE NEXT STEP*




4. Using your breaker bar first, and a wrench on the back side to hold the nut in place, loosen the bolt and nut. The nut will fall off the back first when you get it loose, then just continue to spin the bolt and it should eventually back itself all the way out. You may have to wiggle it some and pull to get it completely out. This step took me the longest, as the driver's side bolt and nut did NOT want to come loose. Even using the impact gun, it took a lot of effort to finally break them loose. If you can't get them still, try using the torch to heat up the bolt and the nut, just be mindful of how long you keep the heat on it so you don't fry the bushings inside the lower control arm, and also other parts in the vicinity of the bolt and nut. After MUCH frustration and cursing, I finally got mine loose.




5. Slip the bolt through the hole on one side of the brace, and line up the bolt to the hole on the lower control arm. This might take a little figgting to get the bolt through right. Just lift up on the bottom of the control arm to line everything up, or use a flathead screwdriver on the back side of the hole to get some leverage and hold everything in place until you can kind of get the bolt started into the hole. On one side of mine, the bolt slid all the way through no problem, on the other side I had to use the screwdriver technique, and then tighten the bolt to get it all the way through to the other side. Once the bolt is all the way through or at least partially through the back side hole, start the nut onto the bolt and tighten by hand. Leave both sides loose until you have everything in place. Then tighten it all back up. Here is where you probably want to use your impact gun again. Put a wrench on the nut on the back, and use an extension for your 19mm socket then slide it onto the bolt head. Crank everything with the impact gun and then you're basically done.




Unfortunately the bar hangs lower then the undertray and if I tried to bolt the undertray back up, it would both scratch the hell out of my brace, and scrape on the ground. So I just left mine off. Another option would be to just cut around where the brace is, so you can still put your undertray back on, it just wouldn't cover everything that it did before. I may look into that further down the road, or maybe just make my own aluminum undertray



Center Frame Brace:

1. With the car already on jacks, move to the center of the vehicle near the Y-Pipe.

2. Find your stock center frame brace, it's the really dinky looking black bar above your Y-Pipe and below your driveshaft.

3. There are 4 bolts total that you need to loosen, 2 on each side. The bolts on the bottom that are a brace to the side frame covers (don't know the technical name) use a 10mm bolt head. The bolts that actually hold the frame brace to the transmission tunnel use 12mm bolt heads. Go ahead and loosen all of these (circled in red).



Passenger's Side:


Driver's Side:



Here is a picture comparison of the stock vs. Carbing. The center brace is actually beefier than the front lower arm bar!




5. Installing the new bar is basically just putting the new brace into place and putting the bolts back in. The only difference is that the Carbing brace does have the support bracket for the aluminum side pieces, so that's why they include them! Take the 10mm bolts and put them through the little brackets that are supplied and then use the 10mm nut on the back side of the aluminum cover to hold the bracket in place. Leave these somewhat loose for now, because I found it very difficult to line up all the holes when the brackets were tightened down.

6. Now go ahead and reinstall the 12mm bolts into the transmission tunnel. Make sure that the included bracket goes on the outside of the brace, rather than in between the brace and the frame.






7. Tighten everything all up and you're finished!



Hope this helps any of you guys out there thinking about installing these parts, or anyone with the GTSpec Front Brace, even though there are like 3 other threads on that one already.

 

Btw, I thought I might include that I actually do notice a difference in handling. The front end of the car feels SO much more responsive, however the steering feels somewhat heavier. But I can definitely tell that the car responds more to my input. I should mention however these are my chassis parts I have:

-Cusco 6-Point Bolt In Cage
-Cusco Front Strut Brace
-GTSpec Fender Reinforcement Bars
-GTSpec Rear Tie Brace
-Carbing Front Lower Arm Bar
-Carbing Center Frame Brace


I've also been thinking about getting the Ikeya Formula front reinforcement bar. So we'll see in a few months if I decide to put that on. I do already have in the works a Cusco Bolt-On Bar that will turn my 6-Point into a 7-Point, as well as having a harness bar welded onto my main hoop of the cage, so it would then be an 8-Point.

 

Such a pretty product that will get dirty and never be seen.

 

True hahaha But I can definitely tell a difference

 

Very nice where did you grab these parts? I wouldn't mind some moAr suspension parts.

Chris

 

Great job!

 

I picked them up through Vivid Racing. I have a contact there, Michael who gets me awesome pricing on whatever it is. Only down side is it took TEIN like 3 months to get them here from Japan, then sat at their dist. warehouse for 2 weeks before they got sent to me. But honestly these are really well priced. They might even be cheaper than the GTSpec bars honestly.

Thanks man!

 

Curious does your exhaust gets in the way? I can't tell if it is bigger than the OEM ones or not.

~Robert

 

Are you asking if the y-pipe hits the center frame brace? If that's what you mean, then no it doesn't. From the pictures it definitely looks very close to each other, but there's plenty of room between the two.

 

Great that is what I wanted to know. I know so far you are the only person that has this product. Still lovin' it?

 

Yeah I haven't heard of anyone else using either of them yet. But I like mine a lot. I think the center brace, I didn't notice a whole lot, although it's hard to tell because I installed the front and the center at the same time.

I think the front brace made the biggest difference, and I loved it. It made the front of the car feel more responsive IMO. The only thing is, I'm really low, and that brace in the front hangs pretty low, so every once in awhile I scrape it. But then I shoot sparks out from under my car and I look in the rear view mirror and a big smile comes across my face

If you're interested in picking them up, I believe RHDJapan.com has them both. Otherwise just call up a retailer who can order directly through TEIN (owner of Carbing) and they can get them for you.

 

Cool I will keep that in mind. Thanks for the review for such a rare part.

 

I have the GT SPEC front lower arm and I was surprised as to how much more responsive the car is now.

 

Yeah man, I really like mine and I like I said before, you can really tell a difference with how responsive the front of the car is. Only thing is that now mine is so banged up and scraped from being low that the brace is bent. I should probably take it off and try to bend it back out straight again.