MR2 Rear Sway Bar

[benbeames]

Hey all,

Tom Patten who now uses an adjustable rear sway bar on his S1 which he AutoX's, gave me his old rear sway bar which originally came from an MR2.  He used it in conjunction with the stock front sway bar (now he has a Twin Cam sway bar up front).

People will debate weather using a rear sway bar is a good approach or not, but Tom really likes it so I'm going to give it a try.  To be honest, the MR2 bar is pretty thin and isn't going to cause a drastic change in roll stiffness at the rear but should make a difference.

You bolt the bar's mounting brackets (which you may have to make) to the tops of the shock towers and then run swedge tubes and rose joints down to the bottom of the shock.  Attached are some pictures of my install and one of Tom's (that better shows the mounting bracket).

I got the rear sway bar installed without much trouble (other then installing it upside down, realizing that wouldn't work and then reinstalling it right side up).  Right now I have the brackets at the bottom of the shock bolted on with a second nut, meaning the shock is bolted on with a nut and then the bracket is put on over the nut and another nut is put on after that.  I'm just doing that temporarily until I decide if I want to keep it on regularly.  I've only taken it for a short test drive, took a couple corners quickly and hit some bumps hard and everything seems fine.  I'll try it out at an AutoX in October.  Considering that I've been running my rear shocks a little stiffer than the front, I think this bar is going to be exactly what I'm looking for.

Explanation of the last picture:

1)  Where I was running my battery.  There isn't room now for my 15 lbs daily driving battery, but there's still room for my 1.3 lbs racing battery so there won't be any weight change when I'm racing.
2)  Where I moved my "street" battery to.  Not as good weight-distribution-wise, but since I never use my trunk anymore and I won't be using this battery or location when racing its fine. . . and easy to access!
3)  New rear sway-bar from a Toyota MR2. . . should go nicely with my engine.
4)  My spark controller was mounted to the cross bracket before.  It fell off in my last race though so I decided to just go ahead and move it completely out of the way.  It doesn't weigh anything so moving it back behind the brace doesn't really matter.

[Bainford]

Very interesting Ben. I would like to know your perception on how it performs when you get the chance to try it out in anger.

[LotusJoe]

I like that installation as well. Seem pretty straight forward and an easy modification.

[benbeames]

And easily unhooked if you want to try it back to back connected and not connected.  Also its easy to take all the way out should I decide against using it.

[3929R]

Looks good Ben, though I don't know much about sway bars.  Although my car does have one.  I think mine is from Claudius in Cerritos.  My father installed it probably 30+ years ago.  I'm interested to hear what you think about yours.  I considered removing mine because it was broken.  I ended up fixing it as all it needed was a standard sized heim (aka rose) joint. 

For comparison, some pics taken shortly after I towed her home-

[benbeames]

Wow yours is THICK!  Though yours is also adjustable.  When I was installing mine, I had one end hooked up and I pulled and pushed on the other end and its a fairly light spring action (compared to bars I've seen on other cars).

[cal44]

I am not seeing alot of rubber bushings on the these sway bars..........or is it my old eyes not seeing?



Mike

[benbeames]

I think my bar is too thin to have any use for rubber bushings. It doesn't make the ride harsh at all (though mind you I'm also running a solid rear transmission mount and I haven't noticed a difference there either so maybe I'm deranged).

And I was thinking about the one on 3294R and since it mounts to the trailing arm it's going to move less in relation to the wheel and thus need to be thicker to do the same job so it's probably not as stiff as I initially thought (that it made my bar look particularly puny).

I took mine out for a spirited drive this morning and without doing a controlled back to back comparison I think I can feel a difference but it may be the placebo effect.  So it's not a drastic change, but I'll report back after my race in Oct.

[cal44]

Ben,

If you were to see how skinny the rear sway on '70 Boss 302 you wouldn't believe it.  1/2" =/-. 

If it was good for Mark Donahue then it's all right with me.