Xantium

Installed my rb sways front and rear all day today. I also opted for the beefier front endlinks.. which was good becuase I completly striped the **** out of one of the stock ones. Anyways... here's my short review.


Instal:
FRONT: The front was a TOTAL bitch. Me and my friend spent a damn long time getting the stock on out and the racing beat one in. Don't expect an easy time with this and don't expect to ever buy my front sway bar becuase there's no way in hell i'm going to try to pull that bitch out. Like I said before I bought the beefier front endlinks. Drilling my control arms was pretty scary and the guide they included really doesn't do ****. Make sure you have a powerful drill becuase my old 1/3hp one couldn't take the heat and started on fire (extreme drama). After we had the holes drilled we got the new sway bar in position and I realised I forgot to drill the holes on the sway bar as well.... in case you haven't got the idea yet: the fsb install is very very hard.

REAR: had some problems here. You see I have an 06 and aparently they changed the design of the rsb a bit. I noticed this as soon as I went to rx8club to make sure I wasn't putting the bar in upside down I noticed that the oem rsb in the pictures was COMPLETELY different than the one I had just pulled from my car. I also noticed that the retaining brackes in the pictures were different than the ones i had just pulled as well. After shitting my pants for a while I just sawzalled part of the new bushings off and installed the bar the best way I could. I ended up with the sticker upside down on the passenger side.

OK... after the terrible, 100 degree day in a garage, drill blowing up, front sway bar being an ******* (you know about that already though) install... I can say that this is the best thing I've done to my car so far (which isn't saying much... but still). There is no body roll at all, It's very cool, but present a very real problem. You see now in traffic I take all 90 degree corners at about 10mph over the speed limit (normal flow of traffic) becuase it doesn't feel like the car is turning. It's a very spooky feeling and it terrifies other drivers. I've honestly had about 10 cars swerve around the road after I take a turn becuase they think I'm going to smash into them or something... anyways. Great mod, recomend it to anyone but rb needs to now about the rear sway bar design changes for 06'... actually I'm pretty surprised they don't already.

sunilseru

I got Midas do mine. They did it in about 35 mins. Worth the 100 bucks.

RB sways rock! I am glad I got them.

lourx8

Best first suspension mod in my opinion, the improvement over stock is dramatic. The front sway was a bitch to put in though.

RoXanneBlack8

i got an 06 and purposely only got the rear bar, what probs are u talking about man? mine gives the appearance of being "upside down" bc the sticker is upside down but um....what was ur problem? i dont understand what u said

Xantium

The bushings are too large for the 06 brackets. This is easily solvable by just cutting the extra material off the bushings, but this means that the overall swaybar goemetry changes. Just hoping that its not one of those things where an inch of difference makes the car twitchy. Also the 06oem rear sway bar is a different design than previous oem years... this worried me a little bit but the car still "feels" good.

Umbra

That sucks about the 06 and the rear. The shop that did my rear on my 05 bent the snot out of the old bar getting it out.

There definately is some body roll, there is some body roll with the RB sways and coilovers too but it's pretty minimal. Hehe with RB sways and coilovers you do double or triple the speed limit around corners while your passenger screams.

twisted8

how the ride confort after adding these sways? is it much harshers or barely noticeable?

Spin9k

They musta played hocky with it then, cause if you undo the screws on the bushings and the endlink bolts, it falls off on the ground...

baddisintegra

+2

willhave8

Ride changes if there, are un-noticable.

aznboyga

I got 4 bushings all together when I picked up my rear sway from Racing Beat. They consisted of 2 large ones and 2 smaller ones. On the instructions, it mentions that you'll only need to use 2. I believe that the smaller ones fit the 06. I ended up using the larger one for my 05 but I'll gladly send you the other since I'm not using them.

Xantium

Wow I typed sloppy back in the summer... wierd. Anyways, the only time I notice a decrease in ride quality is when only one side is being compressed... for example: hitting a speed bump at an angle or hitting a pot hole with one side of the car. Thats the con to any type of sway bar setup, even the oem one... but with a larger diamter bar the pros (less body roll) and cons (not so much an "independant" suspension anymore) both increase.

silverwolf

hmm ill have to look into this. but how stiff is to stiff.... (this is not a question. its a random comment. i know there are threads on this such as swaybars swaybars swaybars)

Jax_RX8

For maximum cornering power, the less body roll the better. RB claims G force cornering gains going from .86-.87 to .89-.90 with just the addition of the sways/endlinks.

The downside to less body roll is that when you exceed the adhesion limit the car breaks away more suddenly instead of in a more controlled/recoverable manner.

IMHO, it is preferable to have a very stiff/no-flex (adding strut braces as well) chassis with moderate spring rates increases enough to avoid spring-lock over severe bumps (this is what most race cars do to maintain tire/road contact at all times) rather than huge increases in spring rates with moderate increases in roll/flex (which will result in less tire/road contact due to tire "hopping" over bumpy pavement).

Now, if you are tracking/autocrossing and only care about super-smooth track performance, then you can go very stiff on the spring rates as well (which will be great for track conditions), but I would not recommend that for someone seeking the best setup for mostly street conditions.

zoned

RB sways are fantastic! you will feel more bumps in the road with them, but it's such a small price to pay for the added stability.

silverwolf

so i saw that some sways for the 8 have 800 lb/ inch... i suppose those are the best.

Razz1

Yep, the RB sway F&R + Endlinks rock.