First car mod evar

[xSkyDrAx]

So I spent part of yesterday doing my first car mod ever. Decided to go with a Corksport rear sway bar. Being relatively new to working on cars, what should be about a 30 minute job ends up taking 2 hours

Stock vs CS rear sway bars. The CS one is a little thicker and shorter due to the stock arms bend.

Steps themselves were pretty simple. There was a grand total of 6 nuts you have to take out and put back in. That end link nut right there gave me the most trouble.

This is due to not being used to working under cars and trying to work with the awkward angles you have to use to get get a nut loose. Solution ended up being getting a tool with more leverage. Made the rest easy.

Done and done. So far I definitely notice far less body roll and the car itself feels more responsive and tight to steering commands. My 'butt dyno' also gets more feedback from what the rear of the car is doing though I'm not sure if it's me or it's actual feed back.

All in all there is definitely a noticeable improvement in the feel of the car and that's just at driving at slow speeds. I haven't had a chance to see how it performs on a longer type of corner.

 

[Danimal1209]

What kind of car?

 

[xSkyDrAx]

2012 Mazdaspeed 3

It's almost eerie how flat it stays in the corners now. Love it.

 

[punjabiplaya]

really helps with the understeer

 

[ThatsABigOne]

really helps with the understeer

Right, stiffer rear end tends to give gradual oversteer.

 

[phucheneh]

It probably feels really, really good at low speeds, but you risk losing the ass-end on fast corners. With everything else stock, you're probably gonna want to switch to the other setting on that bar. How stiff are each of those end link positions supposed to be over stock?

 

[xSkyDrAx]

according to their site, 114/180 % over stock though I heard what that really means varies slightly between manufacturers. Im also aware of the increased chance for oversteer so I have plans to take any turns tremendously faster than I would normally unless im in a safe environment to do so.

 

[Danimal1209]

Whats next?

Boost controller?
Tune?
More suspension mods?

 

[xSkyDrAx]

probably a rear motor mount as the stock ones are known to be soft and then probably a short ram intake but that won't be before doing some more research

 

[punjabiplaya]

RMM definitely. Stock one is such a piece of shit.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

RMM definitely. Stock one is such a piece of shit.

Elaborate please. What makes soft motor mounts bad?

 

[xSkyDrAx]

Any suggestions as to which RMM is good? I hear the JBR one is popular but preferably one that's good but doesn't transmit a lot more vibrations.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

Elaborate please. What makes soft motor mounts bad?

This is a fairly good explanation of it. The gist of it is too much torque in the speed3 engine without increasing the strength of the factory mount. (designed for a car that has about 130ft/lb of torque less).

 

[Yuriman]

Short ram intakes generally do little for performance and can actually hurt on new cars unless you get a tune with the new intake. Motor mount first.

 

[punjabiplaya]

Any suggestions as to which RMM is good? I hear the JBR one is popular but preferably one that's good but doesn't transmit a lot more vibrations.

The RMM really didn't make much of a difference as far as vibrations. The passenger side mount is what really turned up the vibes.