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After putting in a rear progress sway bar (22mm) on my 2008 accord sedan 2.4 EX, the car has been great! But after doing some reading I've discovered you can swap over a 2009-2014 Acura TL front sway bar with some slight modifications. I ordered a used 2009 Acura TL FWD sway bar off of ebay and it came with endlinks, bushings and mount brackets which was convenient. I ended up buying new moog endlinks due to their quality and serviceability and mostly because the endlinks provided has torn boots.
Here's how I did it:
1) Got the car up on the lift, can be done with axle stands on the 4 pinch welds as well
2) Removed front wheels and lower splash shield
3) Disconnected end links from control arms
4) Removed the bolt for each side mount, I highly recommend you do the vertical bolt vs the 2 side bolts as I found those to be extremely tight (17mm socket)
5) Removed the bolt for each of the supporting stays for the subframe mounts (17mm socket)
6) Loosened and back off each subframe mounting bolts (17mm socket) almost all the way and drive them back in slightly so the subframe wouldn't completely fall (just incase)
7) I managed to get a 3/8 drive, 14mm (or 15mm, I forget) swivel socket on my electric ratchet (doable with manual ratchet) and removed all 4 bolts for the sway bar mount brackets
8) I removed the mount brackets and the bushings and I took some time to completely remove the endlinks from the swaybar
9) I removed each side damper/strut forks (17mm lower, 14/15mm upper), this gave me tons of clearance to remove the sway bar
10) I managed to twist and finagle the sway bar out through the passenger side wheel well
11) At this point I had to modify the control arms to fit the bigger 12mm endlinks for the Acura TL bar, I used drill bit just slightly smaller than 1/2" and turned my knuckle out of the way of the control arm to drill the holes
12) I brought the new mounting brackets over to a vice and used a dremel/drill to elongate the mount bracket holes so they would fit the subframe mount holes, using the old mounting brackets as a guide
13) I snuck the new bar in from the passenger side and lubed out the bushings and made sure the openings were facing towards the rear of the car
14) Installed the mounting brackets using new bolts, started all 4 bolts and aligned the new sway bar so that it was exactly even/symmetrical on the car and snugged them all down completely
15) Reinstalled the strut forks, put in the endlinks and loaded up the front suspension with axle stands on each control arm and torqued all the fasteners to 3 ugga-duggas
16) I slowly snugged up each subframe mount bolt so that the subframe was barely touching the frame and aligned the stiffeners/stays with the witness marks where the bolts go in
17) Reinstalled the side mounts, using the little tabs and witness markets to align them, torquing them to about 80 lb-ft
18) I tightened the stay/stiffener bolts first then the subframe bolts, this kept the subframe in alignment. I went back and retorqued each of the bolts to 80 lb-ft
19) Double checked absolutely everything, torqued all fasteners and took some time to spray some rust-proofing wherever I could
20) Reinstalled splash shield and wheels.
After this I took the car for a drive. All I can say is WOW! What a difference this made, the car handles like a premium sports car. It is so planted taking any corner and the steering feelings so much more precise, I can actually predict and confidently drive this car going super fast around any corner now. On top of that the car feels even better going over bumps, there is less bump steering and swaying going over dives and bumps in the road. What a difference this made, I cannot recommend this enough, the car is 10x more fun to drive now, it should have come like this from the factory!!
I will make a new post for replacing the side subframe mounts because I made the unfortunate mistake of not loosening them before loosening the 4 main subframe mounting bolts, causing them to rip.
Here's how I did it:
1) Got the car up on the lift, can be done with axle stands on the 4 pinch welds as well
2) Removed front wheels and lower splash shield
3) Disconnected end links from control arms
4) Removed the bolt for each side mount, I highly recommend you do the vertical bolt vs the 2 side bolts as I found those to be extremely tight (17mm socket)
5) Removed the bolt for each of the supporting stays for the subframe mounts (17mm socket)
6) Loosened and back off each subframe mounting bolts (17mm socket) almost all the way and drive them back in slightly so the subframe wouldn't completely fall (just incase)
7) I managed to get a 3/8 drive, 14mm (or 15mm, I forget) swivel socket on my electric ratchet (doable with manual ratchet) and removed all 4 bolts for the sway bar mount brackets
8) I removed the mount brackets and the bushings and I took some time to completely remove the endlinks from the swaybar
9) I removed each side damper/strut forks (17mm lower, 14/15mm upper), this gave me tons of clearance to remove the sway bar
10) I managed to twist and finagle the sway bar out through the passenger side wheel well
11) At this point I had to modify the control arms to fit the bigger 12mm endlinks for the Acura TL bar, I used drill bit just slightly smaller than 1/2" and turned my knuckle out of the way of the control arm to drill the holes
12) I brought the new mounting brackets over to a vice and used a dremel/drill to elongate the mount bracket holes so they would fit the subframe mount holes, using the old mounting brackets as a guide
13) I snuck the new bar in from the passenger side and lubed out the bushings and made sure the openings were facing towards the rear of the car
14) Installed the mounting brackets using new bolts, started all 4 bolts and aligned the new sway bar so that it was exactly even/symmetrical on the car and snugged them all down completely
15) Reinstalled the strut forks, put in the endlinks and loaded up the front suspension with axle stands on each control arm and torqued all the fasteners to 3 ugga-duggas
16) I slowly snugged up each subframe mount bolt so that the subframe was barely touching the frame and aligned the stiffeners/stays with the witness marks where the bolts go in
17) Reinstalled the side mounts, using the little tabs and witness markets to align them, torquing them to about 80 lb-ft
18) I tightened the stay/stiffener bolts first then the subframe bolts, this kept the subframe in alignment. I went back and retorqued each of the bolts to 80 lb-ft
19) Double checked absolutely everything, torqued all fasteners and took some time to spray some rust-proofing wherever I could
20) Reinstalled splash shield and wheels.
After this I took the car for a drive. All I can say is WOW! What a difference this made, the car handles like a premium sports car. It is so planted taking any corner and the steering feelings so much more precise, I can actually predict and confidently drive this car going super fast around any corner now. On top of that the car feels even better going over bumps, there is less bump steering and swaying going over dives and bumps in the road. What a difference this made, I cannot recommend this enough, the car is 10x more fun to drive now, it should have come like this from the factory!!
I will make a new post for replacing the side subframe mounts because I made the unfortunate mistake of not loosening them before loosening the 4 main subframe mounting bolts, causing them to rip.
