First, don't buy a cabrio...

1. You can use the front jack point to raise the rear high enough to put a jack stand on the rear jack point. I spent a fair amount of time nervously trying to decipher acceptable jack mounts people were describing on this forum.

2. That fifth bolt on the cabrio subframe... Don't even want to think about how much time I spent on that. To begin, I can assure you that you can't access it without removing something. I wasted plenty of time trying with a socket and u-adapter. I went to this forum for help and found two ideas - both with downsides. The first was to loosen the extra stiffening bars on the cabrio and the exhast (I think). Problem is, I don't have Torx (sp?) fittings. Instead, I went with removing those two bolts that join the heat sheilds together. This allowed me to access the infamous 5th subframe bolt with an extender and u-adapter.

3. Ok, so subframe is down. Real easy to get the old bar over the outside mount with a pry bar. Center, 5th bolt mount, not so easy. This is where it's probably better to remove/loosen the cabrio stiffening bars and exhaust. Instead, I loosened the fuel tank (not sure if this really helped) and used the pry bar more than I wanted to (not on the fuel tank!). Oh, forgot to mention for the non-cabrio installers, that wire bundle is a breeze compared to the fifth bolt. I just pulled it off the bundle mount (oops, did I remember to reattach? Not sure it'll really matter as it was very stiff).

4. So far, most of my time consuming problems were convertible specific. Threading the new bar through was hard but substantially easier than pulling the old one out. Mounting it was a different story. I'm guessing I should have mounted the brackets before reinstalling the subframe. One side went in ok. Not easily but not that bad. The other side took forever as the two mounting bolts need to go into the hole straight as an arrow or they won't turn in. I had to resort to using a dremmell tool on the mounting bracket included with the H-Sport bar to make it a little wider.

There you have it. Don't let this happen to you! Non-cabrio would have been much easier and I would have been more inclined to loosen the subframe again to solve the problem I was having in #4. Cabrio is a real pain in the **** - might be worth paying someone. Barely had time to test drive the car so I can't report much on the effect.

 

For cab, looks like Randy's ultimate sway bar would be the deal. Saw off end of stock bar, push straignt torsion bar through in its place, and put on end pieces/links. Time is money.

 

it took me about that (more like 5hours) cause Alta forgot to include
the bushing brackets in the package....was doing the install, slid the new bar in, then bushings, then bracket...hummm... wft, it was suppose to come with brackets? and had to take her apart again.

And Alta blamed me that it was my fault not checking the contents in the
box. f-k off! a lot of swaybar kits for other cars use the factory bushings and brackets so some of us think we reuse them. they sell what, maybe 2k-3k of these bars a year? get some real quality control guys...im shipping complex parts to my customers in excess of 3M a month with zero PPM.

 

Are you a six-sigma master champion?!?

I've had my issues with Alta's customer service as well. Would have spent more money on their products if it wasn't for that.

 

nope, just a dedicated supplier.

yep, im done with Alta products too...they did this to me twice now
on two of their products.

 

That is just admirable. I wish everyone had that kind of attitude and pride in their work. If my company's yield on semiconductor parts was as high as yours, everyone would be receiving fat bonuses.

Sorry to have gotten sidetracked off-topic. I agree that it's a pain to drop the rear subframe in the convertible - it was particularly problematic working under the car with just jacks and jackstands. Took my buddy and I about six hours for my convertible, too (neither of us with experience in suspension modding). Time to invest in a hydraulic lift.

I second SteveS's suggestion about cutting off the stock and replacing with the WMS Extreme RSB. When it was first introduced and the idea was proposed, I smacked myself because I recall reading on this forum not long before it was introduced (and when I was researching which RSB to go with) that installation could be done in all of twenty minutes. If only I'd waited two months... But those two months were well worth it in the number of twisties tackled with a larger RSB.