Our La Flama Blanca shop Evo X has been taking a lot of trips to the autocross events here in Salt Lake. Recently we have been looking into improving its handling abilities by upgrading some of the suspension parts. We did a lot of research and testing and decided to go with a plethora of Whiteline parts. In the next few how-to write-ups for you guys, we will be installing all of these great products!


In this how-to, we will be installing the Whiteline heavy duty front and rear sway bars and the adjustable end links. There has been a lot of interest and questions regarding the install of the front sway bar specifically, more so than the rear, as the rear is fairly simple and straight forward. I don’t want to give off the wrong impression, while the front was definitely much more difficult and involved than the rear, all in all, it wasn’t as terrible as I was prepared for.

Getting started, the first thing we needed to do was collect the necessary tools to perform this task. There wasn’t any special tools needed, other than the transmission jack we used to drop the sub-frame, but if you were to attempt this on the ground, you could use a floor jack to do the same thing. I could definitely see it being possible while having the car on the ground, although it would be a lot harder, fortunately, we have a lift.

Here’s a picture of all of the items we are going to be installing in these how-tos. LOTS of Whiteline goodies!



Now, we have all of our tools, should we get started on this fun filled project? I think so. We will need to remove the parts outlined in the image below. You won’t have to remove the entire under tray, just these parts to gain access to the bolts and clips and other miscellaneous things involved in this install.



There are a few 10mm bolts holding these but mostly there are plastic clips that require either a flat tip screwdriver like the one pictured below, or a Phillips screwdriver that you just back out a half turn.



Now we can undo the three 17mm bolts (two up front, one in the rear) and the two 12mm bolts on either side of the brace.






Next, pull the 14mm bolt/nut out of the front engine mount (be careful when pulling this out as the whole brace will now fall out)




Onto the rear brace now, all it takes is 2 14mm bolts and 2 12mm bolts and it comes right out.





We need to unbolt the two straps that hold the power steering lines to the sub frame by removing the two 10mm bolts. They are on top of the rack in the rear so they are a little hard to see, but I outlined them here.



Now we need to remove the three 17mm bolts that go through the steering rack, in order to get to one of these bolts, we need to remove the rear motor mount. It takes 1 bolt/nut that goes through the mount, then three more 14mm bolts that go through the sub frame (two on the rear, one on the front) After you get these loose, you can move the mount over to the right (or the left if you prefer) so you can get to the third steering rack bolt.






The end links need to be removed from the factory mounts. Now these little guys fought us a little bit, we ended up having to hold the stud with the 5mm allen wrench while loosening the nut with our 14mm ratcheting wrench.


We can take the bolts off of the sway bar bushing retainers now. So just take the 4 12mm bolts out and it should come loose. There is one on the back side that you just can’t see here in this image, but it’s there. Take them all out, both passenger and drivers side.



The three bolts holding the steering rack can come out now. There is one to the driver’s side and two almost directly across from each other on the passenger side. Take your 17mm ratchet and socket to take what you can out, and then you might have to use a wrench on others like we did.






Take the three bolts out of the rear brace and put it aside



Next we can take the sub frame bolts out. There are 4 19mm bolts holding the sub frame up. There are two in the rear, right be where you just took the rear braces off.



There is a hole in the lower control arm that you’ll have to grab either a long extension to get to the bolt, or stack shorter extensions like we did here. Pull all four of the bolts out making sure to have your tranny jack, or regular jack (depending if you’re on the ground or in the air) to support the sub frame before dropping it.



Finally, we can drop the sub frame!! You can see in this picture just how much more room you will have to work with getting the sway bar out after you drop the sub frame.



We can take the sway bar out now. Try to keep track of how you pull it out, you have to wiggle it around a little bit to get it to come, but it will come out without too much effort.



Here’s the stock sway vs. the Whiteline part. It’s a good idea to keep these by each other as you install the bushings to get close to the mounting locations.



We can install our end links now. We opted for the White line units; you can use the factory end links as well. There are three holes in the sway bar; you can choose whatever setting you like. We went with the middle setting for now. The furthest out is the softest setting, the middle is the medium and the closest in is the most rigid setting. This is something you will want to experiment with to find out which one is the best for your personal situation. Don’t forget to install the washer supplied with your Whiteline end links.



Bushings are next. These are very simple to install, the main thing to remember is to try to line them up as much as possible with your eye so they will line up with the bolt holes in the sub frame. The Whiteline sway bars come with grease packs.



Use about half the pack of grease per side and spread it around the inside of the bushing and spread it open over the sway bar. Now place the retainer over the bushings now it’s ready to throw on the car.



Slide it back up into the car, over the stock bolt holes.



Thread in the bolts to hold the sway in place, don’t tighten them up yet, we will need to adjust it from side to side to make sure the end links line up properly.






Now, bolt everything back up in the reverse order of the removal and you’re good to go and we can move onto the rear. We can start with the end links. Same as the front, we had to use the 5mm allen wrench to hold the stud while wrenching the nut off.



After you get those loose, take your 12mm and undo the bushing retainers, its 4 bolts (2 on each side) and it should be loose and ready to come off.





Here is the factory sway vs. the Whiteline bar. Again, it’s a good idea to keep these by each other as you put the bushings and straps on to line them up with the stock ones.



Grease your bushings and slip them on, compare them to stock position, get them close, doesn’t have to be perfect, we can always adjust them when we install the bar.






So, when you bolt it up, leave it loose while you adjust the bar’s position left to right so the end links line up.





Installing the end links is very simple and straight forward, make sure they are adjusted where you want them prior to installing; we opted to keep them about stock length. Slide them in the holes and bolt it up.



The rear sway bar from Whiteline comes with a pair of lateral locks. Now that we have the bar adjusted where we want it, let’s go ahead and install the lateral locks to keep it in place. They are a simple 2 piece “clamp” style lock. Take the bolts out, place it tight against the inside of the respective side of the sway bar, then place the other side on, thread the bolts on and tighten them down.



We went with the middle setting on the rear as well. We wanted to set the car up as balanced as we could to get some baseline runs in and see if we want to adjust them later.



That’s it! It was a little bit of a chore of course, as you would expect installing something that is so important to the handling and suspension of your car. We are going to take the car out for some runs and get some hard data and share it as soon as it is done. Thanks for taking time to read this long write up and we hope it helps you guys make the decision to purchase some aftermarket sway bars. Don’t let the install scare you. They are reasonably difficult, but definitely do-able. Thanks for reading!!