Cobb rear swaybar installed.

M

Mid_Life_Crisis

Member
Contributor
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2007 MS3
I installed the Cobb rear swaybar yesterday. The bar has two settings, firmer and firmest. I am of the belief that the firmer setting is for people who keep the stock front bar and firmest is for those who upgrade the front bar as well, so for now I have it on firmer and will wait until I pick up the front bar to push it up to firmest.
The exchange was very easy, I knocked it out in the driveway. I think it took longer to safely get the back tires up in the air than it did to swap the bars.
As for the results, WOW! I am flat out amazed at what a difference swapping out one swaybar made. I cannot wait to get the rest of the pieces (next come springs to lower this baby and firm things up even more, then the front bar). As soon as we recover from the Christmas spending, Cobb is getting some more orders for suspension components.

Anybody want to buy a Mazdaspeed3 factory rear swaybar?
 
Mid_Life_Crisis said:
I installed the Cobb rear swaybar yesterday. The bar has two settings, firmer and firmest. I am of the belief that the firmer setting is for people who keep the stock front bar and firmest is for those who upgrade the front bar as well, so for now I have it on firmer and will wait until I pick up the front bar to push it up to firmest.
The exchange was very easy, I knocked it out in the driveway. I think it took longer to safely get the back tires up in the air than it did to swap the bars.
As for the results, WOW! I am flat out amazed at what a difference swapping out one swaybar made. I cannot wait to get the rest of the pieces (next come springs to lower this baby and firm things up even more, then the front bar). As soon as we recover from the Christmas spending, Cobb is getting some more orders for suspension components.

Anybody want to buy a Mazdaspeed3 factory rear swaybar?
Click to expand...

When i upgraded the sway bars on my spec v the rear was allways stiffer....depending on how your setup is = how the car will react...usually if the rear is stiffer than the front u will induce oversteer and vice versa...you can put it to the stiffest position as of right now...not having a front sway bar dosnt mean anything...
 
Yes, Benjamin Franklin said that. He also took what he called "air baths". He was quite the reprobate, a real character.

As far as the two settings are concerned, the reason for the two options is to control the balance between over and under steer. I have a sway bar up front. It is the factory bar, though. I selected the lighter of the two settings on the replacement rear bar in the belief that this will provide the best balance between over and under steer with the factory bar in place up front.
It is well established that the rear needs to be stiffened up in relation to the front on the MS3, but you need to avoid changing that relationship too much.
The results I've seen so far are encouraging. When I put in a stiffer front bar, then I will have to go to the stiffer setting on the rear bar to keep the balance the same. Remember, the replacement bar is significantly stiffer than stock even on the lighter of the two settings.
 
Cool thanks for the review! I have been looking into these and not sure if I can drop the cash into both right away, so was thinking of getting the rear one first.
 
Mid_Life_Crisis said:
Yes, Benjamin Franklin said that. He also took what he called "air baths". He was quite the reprobate, a real character.

As far as the two settings are concerned, the reason for the two options is to control the balance between over and under steer. I have a sway bar up front. It is the factory bar, though. I selected the lighter of the two settings on the replacement rear bar in the belief that this will provide the best balance between over and under steer with the factory bar in place up front.
It is well established that the rear needs to be stiffened up in relation to the front on the MS3, but you need to avoid changing that relationship too much.
The results I've seen so far are encouraging. When I put in a stiffer front bar, then I will have to go to the stiffer setting on the rear bar to keep the balance the same. Remember, the replacement bar is significantly stiffer than stock even on the lighter of the two settings.
Click to expand...

Well depends on how you drive and like your car to react...me personly on the road coarse or auto x or even daily driving i like oversteer x10 more than understeer....just the way i drive and the way i like the car to react...im my specv i was able to induce oversteer whenever i pleased...which lead to my fav pics...ever heard of the peeing dog??? that happens when a fwd car has a stiff rear end going into the turn at a high velocity kicks up the rear tire looks cool...gotta find the pic to post it..any ways like i said its all dependent on how u drive and like your car to react...
 
as far as i tested, if you installed the cobb rear sway, just keep it 29mm setting
otherwise, your life is gonna be dangerous.

29mm pulls oversteering REAL easy, 32mm might be really crazy way oversteering
 
Good luck getting the front bar in. HUGE operation. The rear bar is 100x easier to install.
 
That's what scared me off of buying either of them. If the front bar was workable then I'd buy them. I read on other posts that folks had trouble getting ANYONE to install them (dealers, garages, etc.) because of the complexity of the front bar...

I'm still considering the rear only bar but I'm worried about funky handling...
 
2ManyCars said:
That's what scared me off of buying either of them. If the front bar was workable then I'd buy them. I read on other posts that folks had trouble getting ANYONE to install them (dealers, garages, etc.) because of the complexity of the front bar...

I'm still considering the rear only bar but I'm worried about funky handling...
Click to expand...

LOL I went all over town trying to get someone to install my front bar not a single place would do it. I guess there are some jobs that nobody will do.
 
Sacrilicious said:
oh crap...what happens when you try to put in the front bar? +_+;
Click to expand...
It's fun! Put car up on stands, remove a whole bunch of stuff. Then go have lunch because half the day is gone. After lunch put a whole bunch of stuff back together then go have dinner, because the rest of the day is gone.

It is certainly doable with persistence, time, and a reasonable collection of wrenches and sockets, plus a floor jack and stands; nothing exotic except you need a big torque wrench. You can do it in the driveway, but expect to spend the day at it, and you will scrape up your knuckles.
 
mark404040 said:
as far as i tested, if you installed the cobb rear sway, just keep it 29mm setting
otherwise, your life is gonna be dangerous.

29mm pulls oversteering REAL easy, 32mm might be really crazy way oversteering
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the numbers refer to, but there are two points at which you can connect the links to the ends of the bar. The one furthest out is less stiff, the one closest in is stiffest. Remember basic leverage. The further out on a lever you push, the easier it is to move it. The closer in, the less leverage you get. The instructions point this out too.
If you want to keep the stock front bar, go with the mounting point at the end of the bar, which is the less stiff of the two. This will keep the car in a more controllable balance. I am having a blast on winding roads with the bar installed. I may do the springs and not even bother with the front bar.
 
Well on my old car it required dropping the sub frame about 3 inches so what you were supposed to do was get extra long subframe bolts and then let the subframe hang on these extra length bolts while you try to weasle the new swaybar in(bang)
 
I am able to get a fair amount of oversteer on my stock 08 MS3 without too much over exuberance in tighter turns..not a slow roation but fairly abrupt rear end "let go's". I would be reluctant to stiffen up the rear sway on my car without some major pansuspension modifications. The MS3, to me at least ,seems to handle w/o the noticeable oversteer or "push" that is associated with most FWD's....what some feel is oversteer can be significantly remedied by tire choice. With a set of Kumho V700's, the only end that lets loose for me is the rear (with the DSC off obviously).

Some of my past FWDers have benefited from a stiffer RSB to counteract understeer but I think Mazda has set things up pretty decently straight from the Factory.

While a stiff set-up is needed for the track and fun on the street if road conditions are "track-like", going around a fast street corner with a frost heave or sunken depression can ruin your day in a hurry. A stock suspension set-up is easier to save than a non compliant comp. configuration.
 
ya, i agree that the abrupt release of your rear end sounds like it a tire problem moreso than a suspension thing. i've read that our potenzas are very abrupt in their loss of traction at their limits.
 
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