Hey guys...I get springs installed tomorrow and I'm still deciding on whether to get a rear sway bar at the same time. What do you guys think??? Are there any cons to getting one installed? Long term effects? The new CVT Cooper is just for daily commuting and will not be seeing the track anytime soon.
Any input is appreciated...

 

You did not say whether you have a standard or sport suspension. If you have a sport suspension the rear bar is not TOO bad. If you have a standard suspension a stiffer rear bar is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!

I personally would do the rear sway bar and stay with the stock springs.

I have an H Sport, Sport bar which is a 19MM bar with three adjustment points. I have it on the car with springs from an S on my standard Cooper. I can't even describe how pleased I am with this set up. It absolutely transformed this car.

Good luck,

 

Hey Panganiban, I say do it! I can't attest to long-term effects, because I've only had my H-sport competition rear bar for a couple of months, but I am thrilled with it. I have a CVT with the standard sports suspension (at least that's what it used to have! ), modified with the bar, H-sport springs, and MCS shocks. I have done a few good drives on mountain twisties with this set up, and it is also my daily driver. The sway bar itself has no noticeable effect on my daily commute driving, but I can really feel an improvement on the twistees. I was somewhat concerned that my set up would result in an overcorrection of the car's natural understeer (i.e., too much oversteer) but as far as I can tell it is perfectly balanced. It feels more go-kart-like, without any sacrifice of comfort in daily driving. FYI, my bar is set on the middle hole.

 

Yeah, it's the stock suspension for the Cooper. I plan no getting the sway bar in the future. It's just that I was gonna be in the shop to get the springs installed, so I figured I might get a sway bar put in. Anyway...Lilredmini, do you drive your car for daily commuting or auto-xing? Mine is just for street, so will it be worth it?

 

Although I'm thrilled with mine, if literally all you do is daily commuting, the sway bar probably isn't worth it. If you sometimes enjoy aggressive motoring, whether in autox or mountains, you should consider it.

 

Definitely! Having first tried Eibach springs I ended up going the way of the coilovers and while it definitely handled much better it actually took the sway bars to tie the suspension together.

As far as doing front vs back goes, while they can be purchased individually sway bars are actually engineered to work together as a set (Eibach, H-Sport, etc). In my opinion, if you're going to have them installed I'd suggest you have both the front and back sway bars installed at the same time. You won't regret it.

 

Thanks for the input so far guys. I think I'm gonna wait on the sway bar due to my budget. Also, I don't auto-x so I don't think it would be that noticeable for me. We'll see how the springs have an effect though.

 

I have been adding a rear sway bar, or putting in a stiffer rear sway bar to my cars for the last 30 years. On only one of those cars have I stiffened the front sway bar.

Since Ralph Nader got the Corvair more or less banned, car makers have delivered most cars in the US with understeer engineered into the car. It is rare that an average driver loses control of an understeering car, but a non performance oriented driver can easily lose control of an oversteering car. This offers the car makers the best chance of reducing liability claims.

My car was a standard suspension car. If I were only going to do ONE modification it would DEFINITELY be a stiffer rear sway bar. It will give you WAY more handling improvement than anything else.

Even if I were going to autocross, which I might do some day, I would not stiffen the front bar. If you do, you are just putting some of the understeer right back into the car. The aftermarket bar makers offer sets so that they can sell you more product. I can't blame them for doing things to make more profit.

Panganiban,

I don't daily commute in my car because I usually am working at home with a commute distance of 30 feet. I live in the boondocks with 20 miles of winding, farm to market road to get to the town where we do our shopping, etc. I also go to the Dallas area in the car which is about 100 miles away with that 20 miles of fun road to get to the highway. Stiffening the rear sway bar on my MINI took the car from one that handled kind of NEAT, to a car that is AMAZING.

When I put on the bar, I put on Cooper S springs at the same time, but since the S is heavier, the spring change was very, very slight and unnoticable. I am 100% convinced that if I had changed only the rear sway bar the effect would have been the same.

You might be putting on the springs to lower the car for cosmetic reasons and that's cool. If your goal is better handling, however, your money would be MUCH better spent on a stiffer rear sway bar.

Regardless of your mods, enjoy your MINI.

 

Thanks Lilredmini....How about maybe getting the stock S sway bars put on a stock mini. How do you think that would work?

 

You have a MC with CVT and you are adding lowering springs and using the stock rear sway bar at this time. Adding later an MCS rear stock swaybar is fine and should be cheap if you can get it from someone that has upgraded their rear swaybar already.

You can do the install yourself if you like it is not that hard to do but easier with a lift. There are how to's on the rear swaybar install.

You do not need a front sway bar other than the stock one.

First drive your MC with the lowered springs and see how you do then decide later. You might be just fine. You'd have to corner pretty hard to feel the difference but it is there. The MC has a little understeer built in and with the stiffer rear bar you are trying to lessen it or even get neutral steering with hard cornering. For normal street driving you were hardly use the stiffer rear bar.

 

I go back and forth on this, too....another daily driver here. Sure, I would enjoy taking curves a little harder and feeling the effect of that rear swaybar upgrade. But on the roads I generally travel that'd be outright dangerous...and stupid. So, believe it or not, I just might not do it....still debating though. Perhaps I'll just have to find other ways to obsess over my MINI.

 

I believe that putting a rear bar from an S would work very well. When I started learning things here on NAM about two months ago there was a thread about rear sway bars. Someone posted a list in order from weakest to stiffest. The weaker ones were:

Standard MC
S
H Sport 19MM

and then up from there. My 19MM H Sport is hollow so it is probably about as stiff as a 16MM S bar. I also have an S bar that someone here gave me. I think I'm going to use it in the future or I would give it to you for the shipping.

If you will post a message in the Marketplace forum, you might get someone to give it to you for just the shipping cost just to get it out of their way. This person gave me all four springs and the rear sway bar from the S. All I paid was shipping charges. Give it a try.

 

I'm not a racer or auto-Xer, but I do like to drive. And even though I ride horses more often in my free time than go driving, I do occassionally find my way into the mountains for a MINI spin....

GET THE REAR SWAYBAR

My S handles ahhhsumm on corners now, and it is one of my fav mods (well, don't want to have to priortize them, but the handling is great)

No, I don't notice it on my daily commute or around town, but whenever I zoom around a corner with no brakes to check it out, I appreciate it...don't know about the front one, but the rear is well worth it-and easy to install...did it myself not bad for a girl

Watch for deals...got mine on closeout on Ebay, but there I see them for sale occassionally...because I got a new Alta bar for $125, I'll probably pick up a set of Pilo's grease bushings if mine starts squeaking (hasn't in >5K miles though)....I buy everything used or on sale, as if money were an issue! Geeezee

 

pretty much when you put the rear sway bar in the rear struts have to come out and its 4 bolts to drop the rear sub frame after taking out the rear struts so why not. i did the madness bar love it, best 189 bucks ever spent. took me and 2 other guys an hour to do it. have fun


chris

 

I am thinking about installing a sway bar on my Cooper.It has the sport suspension and drives nice now but I like to drive hard in the mountains.Do you have to do any fabricating to install the bar?

 

mountain rider, wasabi. no fabricating involved unless you are going with the 25mm H-sport bar and even with that, it's only on some minis.

 

Mountainrider,

Changing sway bars is easy. I have the H Sport, Sport which is 19MM hollow and is a little stiffer than your S Bar. If you had it in the stiffest setting it would be noticably stiffer. Add a rear bar only, no need to stiffen the front.

If you're not going to autocross, don't get carried away with a super stiff bar. It's not one of those things where if a little is good, more is better. If you get too stiff it will get really loose. You might want to search out the thread where all the bars were listed in order of stiffness. I listed above the bottom three, but I don't remember what was the next after mine. I think that mine in the stiff setting would give you want you want.

Good luck,

 

I had to trim off a lot of the silicone foam on the chassis and file a little
bit off the chassis to make my Alta swaybar fit without rubbing. Majority
of the mini's out there don't require this but some of them like mine
do. Yours might just drop in without any rubbing. Regardless, it's not
really that hard to trim, just time consuming and a lot of articulate use of
the knife needed.

 

Thanks for the info.Seems like Cat & Dog Racing have the best price on Alta.

 

Hey to save time you only have to drop one strut on one side to remove and replace a sway bar. I removed only the drivers side when I did mine and pulled the old bar out the passenger side. The wire bundle in the center is held with a tie wrap thats the only hang up, I cut mine and moved the bundle out of the way. Then just unscrew the tie wrap base (by hand) insert a new tie wrap and screw in back on the stud to resecure the bundle as stock.:smile:
Get a sway bar you won't regret it...........

 

It's easy to put on. Check the how-to's at
http://www.webbmotorsports.com/forums/
Just be REAL sure your car has redundant supports under it so it does not fall on you.
I used synthetic (amsoil) grease on my Alta 22mm rear bar bushings and so far - 10K miles) no squeaks.

Pulley and 22mm rear bar (25mm H-Sport) are comparable in terms of added enjoyment.

 

I wouldn't recommend a bar if all you use the car for is commuting. The bar won't make a lick of difference. I would only recommend springs for aesthetics if you only use the car for commuting.


Where the bar makes a difference is in handling - around turns. If you haven't experienced the car pushing, or understeering, then you probably again don't need the bar.

Having said that, the swaybar - rear only - makes the most dramatic difference in handling on the MINI. I do the springs secondly to the swaybar. On the S, I use the competition rear from H-Sport or the 22mm from Alta. On the Cooper with your suspension, I usually use the 19mm solid bar from Alta. UUC also makes a rear swaybar that is 18.5mm and works well with your setup, and it is only $170 I believe. I have used it several times as well because of the price.

If you do the front and rear swaybar, you end up with a car that handles flatter, but still pushes and still spins the inside front wheel. With a rear alone, the car will stick the inside front (remember from physics those twisting body models?) due to the increase in load on the outside rear. You also get the added bonus of a limited slip effect, since our cars are front wheel drive. With the front bar, that effect would be diminished for the same reason.

If you want to go down the S bar road, there isn't much change - the bars are only 1mm different. I do have 30 or so laying around, so if you don't find one local, I'd just charge you the shipping for one.

Hope that helps!

Randy

 

Thanks Randy! I may just stick with the springs I got and just get some control arms installed. Like you said, if it's just for commuting it won't make a lick of a difference. That's what my cooper is for primarily and maybe some spirited driving . Thanks for the offer on the free S bar though. Steve over at the auto clinic also said he would get me them for free and just charge me for installation. Anyway thanks for the input!

 

RandyBMC,

I hope you'll pardon my correction. You said that the S bar is only 1MM thicker so it won't make any difference. Evidently you don't understand the significance of that additional MM. The stiffness is directly related to the cross section of the bar. Going from 15 to 16MM increases the cross section exponentially. Remember PI R square? That extra MM adds 14% stiffness to the bar. That is noticably significant.

I have driven a standard suspension MC and a Sport Suspension MC. The difference is dramatic unless you are a slow driver. I am an enthusiastic driver and can really appreciate the difference.

There is very little downside to a stiffer rear bar, but a DRAMATIC improvement to be had. I have been modifying all sorts of cars for forty years. I can't remember ANY single modification to a vehicle that was more dramatic than slightly stiffening the rear sway bar on my standard suspension MC.

Have you ever driven BOTH the standard suspension MC AND the sport suspensioned MC or an MC with a stiffer rear sway bar? If you have and you did not notice a drastic change, then I expect that you and I have radically different driving styles.

With someone offering an S bar for shipping cost only, I can't imagine why one would not put it on.

 

I believe Randy knows full well that the 1mm will make a difference....to a racer in race-type of conditions. Randy is really good at analysing a customers needs and will steer them in the right direction for their needs. So in the context of a commute driver, it can be said, there is no noticable a difference between the two thicknesses, because the car will never be in a position to take advantage of the additional 1mm thickness of the rear sway bar.