[Jamwong]

Well I got a Torque Damper from Ingalls, the support and help was one word; Super! You cannot get any better support than from Rob over at Ingalls. He helped with any questions I had no matter how small or stupid they were. I highly recommend their customer service skills. Any problems I was told to call so it was direct support right away! You can contact Ingalls at 1-800-641-9795ext 23.

This was a lot of work for my DIY, so if you find it useful please +REP me.

For everyone who is going to buy one make sure you have the right part #!
02-04 RSX Type S + 02-06 Base/Premium RSX = #93000
05-06 RSX Type S = #93030

These are for a STOCK 05-06 RSX Type S, if you have a aftermarket sway you may need to modify the sway or the bracket for this to fit!

I was not happy with the DIY’s I could find so I decided to write my own up. Well I’ll go though the install first and then my impressions after.

Here’s the layout of all the parts included in the package.

This is the order that the following parts are installed for the Strut tower bracket

Bolt -> Tower Strut -> Rubber Washer -> Small Washer -> Locking side of TD -> Nut


This is the order for the Engine Mount bracket

Nut -> Engine Bracket -> Washer -> Small Washer -> Fixed side of TD -> Nut

This is an example of how it would look when assembled in your engine bay. You can see I have more rubber washers to double up on the ones Ingalls provided to have even less vibrations. They were part #147914 from Home Depot in Canada, 36 cents each. I placed them where the Ingalls rubber washers were. If you are hardcore you can get harder polyurethane ones.

 

[Jamwong]

You can unbolt the black bracket circled in the middle and push the power steering reservoir off it’s clip to give you more room to work with.

Remove the bolt from the engine mount. It’ll take a bit of work to get that sucker free.

Once you have it removed place the single washer (This one does not have another one that looks like it) onto the long bolt.

Place the engine mount onto of the long bolt and reattach the gold bolt we removed.

It’ll look like this. The long bolt will need to have the shiny nut put on (The chrome looking one)

You can remove the bolts in the middle circled in red. I did it for both sides, only the passenger side is shown.

 

[Jamwong]

Remove the strut tower bolts. WHEN YOU PUT THEM BACK ON BE CAREFUL AS THESE ARE TORQUED TO 16 ft lbs!!!

Now I added Dynamat Extreme to the back of the strut tower bracket (this should reduce the vibrations), this was the first job which I filled it more. Do not add too much around the edges because it will ooze out when you tighten it down. Stay away from the edges about 1cm or it’ll come out! You only need like scrap pieces of dynamat.

Put the strut bracket on and line it up with the bolts. Put washers on the outside strut bolt (The one that does not have any bracket covering it)

Put the strut tower back over on top of the bracket.

You can see the washers on the outside bolt. Bold down the strut bolts onto the body (These are the two bolts that were circled in red) Then torque the bolts on the strut tower to 16 ft lbs!!!

See what happens to the left strut tower bolt when dynamat is not 1cm away? It oozes out!

 

[Jamwong]

Adjust the Damper by holding the pair of nuts (Green) and twisting the body of the damper until there are threads that we can see (Red). When people say I have my Damper set on 14mm they mean there is 14mm of space from one end of the green nuts to the other end.

I setup my damper and then used an adjustable wrench and held both of the adjustable nuts and twisted the body with my hand. This is an overhead view.

After I tightened the single nut above the two locking nuts.

You can now add the two bolts to the brackets like shown. There is no need to put anything on them since we’re using this to get the right length.

I did a loose fit test by holding it up against he bolts. If it was not the proper length I would loosen the single bolt 2 pictures above and twist the end so it came out more and retired to fit it.

Since everything likes up perfectly we thread everything back for the strut tower bracket and the engine mount bracket. Check the order out again if you forgot! You can use a small wrench to hold the bottom bolt while you use a socket at the top. This is difficult but if you go behind the engine you can have more room to work with.

 

[Jamwong]

Here it is finished up!

Finished Bracket pic.

Finished Engine Mount pic.

Impressions: I have an Injen CAI on my car and that’s about it. I did some 2.5K launches and got wheel-hop on every launch, anything higher and I’d wheel hop forever. After I installed the TD on a 12mm setting with double rubber washers and Dynamat Extreme the vibrations are in all honesty not bad. When the car has warmed up I noticed a little more vibration through the steering wheel but it was really minor and almost like stock.

I popped the hood and felt the Engine bracket and it would shake quite a bit then moved my hand to the start of the damper (after bolts and washers) and in my mind felt about 30% less vibrations and then felt the after damper (before the washers and bolts) and noticed it was cut down even more about 20% in my mind. I then felt the strut tower bracket and could feel maybe 10% of the original vibrations and it felt the same when I touched the end of the strut. The fenders felt slightly less vibrations.

I drove my GF around and she did not notice a difference unless I got the car moving by letting up on the clutch slowly it would be slightly more but at idle it was not too noticeable. I did several launches again by myself at 2.5K and only had 1 out of 5 with minor wheel hop (it could have been the ground since I was moving forward). Remember I am also on the stock tires which everyone knows can’t grip well at all.

I had it at 11mm and there was some minor shaking, I could see my rearview mirror move slightly but reset it a little softer setting (14mm) and it feels very close to stock now with only minor wheel hop.

Overall I am very happy and will give another impression after it is broken in. =) Thumbs up to Todd from Ingalls for this support in helping me with this install!


**************** EDIT *********************

You can swap the bolt on the strut bracket so it comes up so there is more clearance and less chance of rubbing. It looks like it is rubbing in this pic but it's the angle and not rubbing.

 

[jad1217]

so basically you can set it to a softer setting for the street and make it harder for the strip? i am assuming the harder you make the damper, the less engine movement and better launch, this tru?

Great write up!!


How does it affect the shifting?

 

[Jamwong]

so basically you can set it to a softer setting for the street and make it harder for the strip? i am assuming the harder you make the damper, the less engine movement and better launch, this tru?

Great write up!!


How does it affect the shifting?

I have it on a softer setting for street use, you can set it harder for normal use too or for the track. I'm just anal about vibrations. The max setting will make it so wheel hop is greatly reduced but more vibrations.

Using more washers and/or dynamat extreme can reduce them too. When I set it tighter there is very little wheel hop for me on my crappy stock tires which is awesome!

I have not driven enough to really comment about the shifting yet so I'll hold off on that. Some people on the forums say that it makes the shifter feel a whole lot smoother.

 

[Ironraven]

Helluva wrightup dude. Handy if I ever get off my ass and buy one..

 

[SUNKIST]

Awesome DIY, like what U did with the dynomat.:thumbsup:

 

[MITeggy17]

Nice write up man.

 

[inmydream316]

16ft/lbs torque for struts? when i installed mugen replica strut, people say 33ft/lbs. so i did it. Should I change to 16ft/lbs?

 

[Jamwong]

Yup Struts are 33 (They're the bigger bolts in my pictures) and the tower is 16.

Easy way to tell in my pics is the white body colored bolts are 16, the gold ones are 33 or 35. On my 05 RSX Type S I did not have to touch my strut bolts at all and only touched the strut tower bolts.

 

[iShift_6]

Excellent write up! I was curious to see how this was actually installed. After seeing it here, and your review, I will definitly be getting one. Thanks for the Great DIY!

 

[suiteddc5]

Hell of a job! Cool bro

 

[magmet_dc5]

Shit I knew I put those washers in the wrong order. time to redo

 

[inmydream316]

Yup Struts are 33 (They're the bigger bolts in my pictures) and the tower is 16.

Easy way to tell in my pics is the white body colored bolts are 16, the gold ones are 33 or 35. On my 05 RSX Type S I did not have to touch my strut bolts at all and only touched the strut tower bolts.

Thanks. I think i also torqued white one to 33ft/lbs. I should change it to 16ft/lbs. damm it.

 

[nrzforce]

Nice write up. Very detailed.

 

[Jamwong]

Well I had my TD on my car now for a few hundred KM and it seems to have reduced in vibrations. I don't notice it too much at all and the reduction in wheel hop is the same as it was when I just installed it.

This thing is sweet and I think it should be installed if anyone is mildly interested in reducing the crazy hop that my car had.

 

[Outrider]

This is an amazing DIY guide. Well done. You spent some quality time setting this up so even noobs like me can figure it out. I'm bookmarking this sucker so when I get my ITD sometime soon I can have an easy install. I haven't heard any negative comments about the TD. Seems like a great product. Nice work again Jam!

 

[hurleyrob_69]

getting my TD tonight and this DIY is bomb!
thanks and great write up man.