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I installed my new (to me) front sway bar tonight. (Racing Beat Tubular Front Sway Bar 1.125 OD 99-04). My stock bar had 'keepers' that wrapped the bar diameter and were mounted to the outside of the 'U' brackets.
Do I need to invent some new sort of keeper to use with the new bar? Am I going to screw something up if I don't use a keeper?
You will probably screw something up whether or not you use keepers. There's a good source if you do a search... Dave04, altiain and I have them.
Start saving up the $157 or so for the Mazdaspeed swaybar brackets... They'll split eventually no matter what else you do.
It came with the RB 'Heavy Duty' brackets. A little heavier gauge and welded reinforcements. I'll start saving my pennies for the others.
http://www.racingbeat.com/photos/54110.jpg
Not those brackets - the sheet metal "brackets" that those attach to, which in turn attach to the frame. They're pretty flimsy, and sooner or later you'll tear them out autocrossing with a big front bar (as lugnujon and I have both done).
I can live with that. I just don't want to do any damage to anything else in the meantime.
According to some guys that have broken several sets of mounts, the use or non-use of the spacers (these *#$&ers need a name) doesn't seem to matter much other than psychologically.
As long as you replace the sheet metal mounts that you bolted the new RB heavy duty brackets to before they tear all the way through, you'll be fine. If you check them whenever you change tires, you should see cracks forming before they let go.
You can get a set of collars locally.
http://www.purvisbearing.com/locations.html
There is a place on 121 heading towards Bell if you are in Ft. Worth. There are other locations in DFW.
Tell them you want a two piece collar. You know the mechanical technical terms for what you want. Seem like it was $16 for two. Maybe less.
Important to center the bar first and then put them on the inside edge of mounting bushings. You can do all this after the bar is mounted.
Car setup includes attention to details.
If it was not important Mazda would not have put keepers on the stock bar.
Make sure to check both the inside and the outside. Mine both cracked on the inside.Quote:
Originally Posted by tailchaser
Thanks, General... Collars is a good word.
Thanks for the info general and everyone else. I'll try to run over there at lunch time today. Would the use of the 'collars' help minimize the strain put on the brackets? Where are all the :batman: engineers?!?! :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by general default
The pointy engineers are the ones that have broken brackets both with and without collars. As the general said, if Mazda put them on, there's probably a reason, and my back-of-napkin engineering says they should reduce strain.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
The collars should keep the bar from walking, which in turn will keep it from coming in contact with other parts of the suspension and failing catastrophically in a single event.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
Unfortunately, the collars won't do anything about the fatigue cycles on the mounts, and the cracking in mine looked an awful lot like fatigue damage (i.e., the cracking didn't happen all at once, but grew over time).