HermanH's PASSAT Site

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Neuspeed 28mm Rear Anti-roll Bar Installation

The Neuspeed anti-roll bar (sway bar) is designed to be a simple bolt on remedy of the notorious understeer inherent in all FWD cars, but in particular, the Passat. Neuspeed has two versions: a 25mm for those with the stock front anti-roll bar, and a 28mm for those (like myself in this case) that have upgraded the front with a 27mm front anti-roll bar. You will want to set aside about 2 hours to complete the installation. If you’re an experienced mechanic, you’ll get it done in 60 minutes or less.

INSTALLATION:

 Rather than try to rewrite what's already a very concise instructions by Neuspeed, I will simply add pictures to the text so to speak.

1) Jack up the rear car and put on jack stands. Get them as high as possible.

2) Use the 10mm ¼” drive socket to remove the 4 nuts which hold in the plastic cover just in front of the torsion beam. Use the Phillips screwdriver to remove the single screw; the plastic cover can now be removed.

3) Unbolt the (3) 10mm nuts which hold each of the parking brake brackets; the c-brackets (torsion beam bracket) will be going over the welded on studs. See Fig. 1 and 2 below:

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

4) In Fig. 3, I’ve laid out all of the parts; note that I call the torsion beam bracket the "c-bracket" since it's shorter to say that and it looks like the letter C.

Fig 3.

5) Hook the c-bracket on the front edge of the torsion beam, and bring the c-bracket over the brake bracket stud and torsion beam. You will have to push a bit to get it over to the other side; then use a c-clamp to bring the rear side of the c-bracket in contact with the torsion bar. See Fig. 4 below:

Fig. 4

6) Referring to the Neuspeed instructions, you will be using 2 sets of 13mm bolts, nuts and washers, and bolt the aluminum clamping plate to secure the c-bracket to the torsion beam. See Fig. 5 and 6.

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

7) Take the pieces which make up the hiem joints and assemble them; turn the assembly together about 11 or 12 full turns. Do this to the other set and measure them both to ensure they of equal length. Adjust if necessary. Take some Loctite Blue, and put a drop of two on each of the treads and lock down the lock-nut. It is very handy if you have access to a vice for this but not absolutely necessary.

8) Following the Neuspeed instructions, bolt each hiem assembly on the “inside” of the ends of the bar.

9) Take the hydraulic jack and raise one of the rear wheels just slightly so that the pressure is off of the shock absorber. Unbolt the lower shock bolt.

10) Using the supplied shock bolt, attach the hiem joint. Lower the hydraulic jack.

11) Repeat steps 9 & 10 on the opposite side. The hiem joint assemblies should look like Fig. 7 below:

Fig. 7

12) Lubricate each of the polyurethane bushings with the supplied grease.

13) Lift the center of the sway bar up to the torsion beam and note where the c-bracket lines up. Put a bushing on the anti-roll bar where it lines up with the c-bracket.

14) Now take the “bushing bracket", which anchors itself on the aluminum plate and swing it over the bushing; you will note that the hole on the bushing bracket doesn’t quite make it to the retaining bolt. Use a heavy rubber mallet or use a hammer with a rag over the bushing bracket, and hammer upwards under the bushing bracket while keeping the brackets hole aligned with the retaining bolt. Once it catches, torque the 17mm nut to 35 ft.-lbs. Repeat on the opposite side. The final assembly is shown in Fig. 8 :

Fig. 8

15) Finally, put the plastic cover back on. During the process of installation, you might have bent the center mount where the Phillips screw goes into, so check this as you put the cover back on.

16) Clean up the bar of any grease and finger prints, double check the tightness of your bolts. With the exception of the bushing nut, Neuspeed does not make any mention of torque setting anywhere else. I just tightened everything until it was VERY tight. All of the nuts that came with the kit are ‘nylock’ nuts so there is little chance they will work their way off.

Impressions:

If this is your first rear anti-roll bar, you will be pleasantly rewarded with a car that now handles very neutral through an apex. Prior to this, your Passat would understeer or “plow” into the apex of a turn, resulting in the front of the car going straight instead of following the turn. With the Neuspeed anti-roll bar, the understeer is nearly eliminated. Be warned, you may even be able to induce oversteer (without the assistance of the emergency brake!).Taking the car around the neighborhood and on my daily commute, I found the Neuspeed 28mm bar to be very compliant, keeping the car very flat and taking corners very quickly and fairly neutral. On a typical street corner, I am able to hit 40-45mph before, during and after the turn; the car simply goes where you point it. Additional speed at the apex will result in slight understeer, but nowhere near the amount of understeer in stock form. Keep in mind I have the Neuspeed 27mm front anti-roll bar so my understeer situation was exaggerated somewhat prior to the rear bar being installed.

I am also in a position to talk a bit about the difference between the O-Bar (torsion bar stiffner) and the Neuspeed. Generally speaking, while the O-bar did exactly as it was designed to do, there were two glaring problems: first, while I could take street corners at or just over 40mph, during high speed freeway runs, the car felt very twitchy. At my highest velocity (140mph+ indicated), the car was just plain dangerous.

In contrast, the Neuspeed (in the turns for now) has proven to be every bit as effective but the rear now feels "smoother" as it once did when there was no bar at all. When I do get the chance, I will attempt a similar high speed run over the same road again to determine if in fact, the Neuspeed bar is less sensitive than the O-bar.

The second problem is the infamous "squeak"; the O-bar has 8 contact points, all of which are metal to metal. While using heavy grease, and a high amount of torque was applied, the squeak made itself known after only 5 months of use. You would only hear it under straight driving with minor road irregularities. However, when pushed, you would not hear the squeak.

While the price is rather steep for a rear bar ($239 by mail order), I feel that the Neuspeed rear anti-roll bar is well worth the money. Installation instructions are concise, fit and finish is excellent, do not expect squeaking anytime soon and it make for a nice matched set... finally after 3 years! :)