Has anyone broken their NB front swaybar mounts?

[timk]

Unfortunately, this happened today:



Has anyone else had this happen?

This is one solution:
http://www.flyinmiata.com/index.php?dep ... r=13-36600

Any other ideas?

Cheers

[Steampunk]

IIRC, mickfred had this happen twice.
The Flyin Miata solution is the best that I found (this scared the crap out of me when I was researching anti-sway bars way-back-when).
Racing Beat's big-ass hollow front bar is almost synonymous with braking mounts that they highly recommend buying their bracing-kit as well.

http://www.racingbeat.com/Miata-1990-2005/Sway-Bars/54121.html

Ravenwing Performance used to make similar ones, but a quick google found they are no longer in business.
If memory serves, the FM ones ARE Ravenwing's design.

[timk]

Just pulled the swaybar out of the car; the other side was torn but still hanging by a thread!



Thanks Andrew. As expensive as they are I'll order those mounts because I'd hate for this to happen twice. The biggest pain is going to be removing what is left of the old mount as it looks to be spot welded in place.

[deviant]

How is the car dríven and what tyres do you have saboteur? Was the bar set to hard?

Interested to see under what conditions this happens as it does not seem to be something that will allways happen.

[timk]

How is the car dríven and what tyres do you have saboteur? Was the bar set to hard?

I'm running Federal 595 RS-R tyres, the car is used for track days and the odd spirited drive but it's mostly a daily drive. The bar was on the soft position.

Interested to see under what conditions this happens as it does not seem to be something that will allways happen.

Yeah, sounds like good data to gather.

[Aussie Stig]

Lokiel has the RB frt sway and I am sure he will get around to driving it hard once his cooler is fitted.

I don't think he has had any probs though Racing Beat offer 3 types of bracing and brackets to stop this sort of thing happening, so I guess you prove they are really necessary. Bad luck.

[deviant]

My old turbo race car (now owned by tinscfi) has the same roll bar and has been running on slicks with a super stiff caged body shell for what must be coming up to 8 years and has never broken a roll bar mount. I believe it did brake a wishbone from years of rattling across ruipple strips.

Looking at the pictures it looks like it was broken for a while. Note the shiny patch on the car where it looks like the broken mount has been rubbing. Looking at the picture of the mount it looks like some of the torn metal is shiny but a patch that looks the same size as the wear marks on the car is dirty.

[MINX]

I have been running the RB 1.125"(not 1.25) bar on hard, for what, couple of years, and heaps of track days and DD duties.
As yet no problems. But you can bet i will inspect it on Monday morning when i swap wheels for Lakeside!

[Steampunk]

To calm people down, if memory serves, one of the times that mickfred broke his was that he hit a kerb quite significantly with his NA6. I can only assume the bracing on later NB's became better designed.

Although the RB solution would take a fair bit of stress away from the mounting points, it is not the best solution as the shearing forces is more lateral than vertical. I also found a couple of people in the US using the RB bracing only to have the mount brake (although they didn't use that white RB cross-bar), but these are people who race and khana their car on a weekly basis.

I had the largest solid RB bar (smaller and less stiff than the hollow one) on my old NA8 and I've had no problems with it, and AFAIK the current owner has no probs.

MINX, one of the common reasons why mounts brake is people installing gigantic anti-sway bars AND putting undue load on them. tbro did heaps of research into this, asking chassis & suspension experts and they all told him the only way to properly change the stiffness of anti-sway bars, for both effectiveness and safety, via the pre-drilled holes is to remount the end-links in a way so they retain a vertical position.
I just did a quick search but couldn't find his post with many photos, I thought it was in the technical section.

Edit: I just remember that the mounts are either welded or bonded onto the rail, so it's not a simple matter of unbolting them

[greenMachine]

I have the RB hollow bar on the GM, no problems (so far).

If you track your car, check the allowable mods for your class. These may not be allowable in some cases.

[Lokiel]

Lokiel has the RB frt sway and I am sure he will get around to driving it hard once his cooler is fitted.

I don't think he has had any probs though Racing Beat offer 3 types of bracing and brackets to stop this sort of thing happening, so I guess you prove they are really necessary. Bad luck.

I AM running the 1.25" hollow RB sway bar and was worried because that OEM brace certainly isn't the strongest bracket around - my DIY oil cooler bracket is about 4 times as strong I reckon.

I bought the "Racing Beat Sway Bar Brace Kit" to prevent this, as recommended by Brian Goodwin himself in e-mail correspondence:

As you can see from the photo, this should eliminate twisting of the bracket which is what ends up snapping them.

See http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda-Performance-Part/20-1004.html

I would't mind the FM solution though saboteur if you want to split S&H costs.

[MINX]

Oh yeah - i have that block in place too

[deviant]

I reckon the flyin miata one looks way better. It replaces that whole flimsy brakcet with a box section rather than trying to support the stock one. It says no welding required but I dont see why you could not do it if you have the kit available.

[Lokiel]

I didn't read the last line in the FM link: "Not compatible with Racing Beat sway bar brackets" so they're no good to me, ah well, "In Brian, I trust!".

[Okibi]

NB with RB sways and Racing Beat Sway Bar Brace Kit here too.