Right Gentlemen,
We installed these on Saturday. Preparation (i.e. removing the fenders) is 90% of the work. The pieces are very well made and the mounting holes for the door hinge brackets lined up perfectly on both sides. My only concern is the forward mounting bracket. You simply drill two holes in the chassis and bolt it up with the supplied hardware. The section which it bolts to is double skinned but I still felt that if any force was applied to this bar that the chassis mounting point would deform long before the bar itself did.
We mounted the bar as suggested, by drilling and bolting it up but I do think welding it at the front would be preferable. In a perfect world I think maybe even welding more support into that section of the chassis would be beneficial, but I may be over engineering things.
What I can say however is that you can definitely feel a difference. It certainly is more noticeable when the suspension is under load. There is a slight improvement on cornering similar to that felt by upgrading a sway bar but the more noticeable difference comes when both struts come under compression simultaneously like when driving over a speed bump or going up a ramp. It feels more solid, there is more feedback through the chassis but like many chassis reinforcement mods like hard bushings, swaybars etc it does make the car a little more harsh and less compliant.
Edit: They have also solved my creaky door issue and the doors seem to close better now.
Anyway just thought I'd give these a thumbs up and my first impression. I'll monitor these and see if they develop any issues over time with the mounting points being too weak, but initial driving suggests that isn't an issue.
It was a good afternoon, got my '93 headlights and amber corners installed as well, together with some nice black "Ractive" pedals in place of the beaten up silver "Lonza" ones that were in the car when I bought it. I really need to wash it and take some pictures.
Paul.