Hi, I am going to do some suspension upgrade over the summer and I want to add in a rear sway bar as my first project. Anyhow, I came across the Mini Mania which includes end links as shown below:



Another rear sway bar that I am considering is 22mm H-Sport, which cost a little bit more.

I have a CVT and intended the suspension setup for street and track. Any advice and recomendation would be greatly appreciated.

John

 

Slightly off-topic comment...

I'm not a fan of that style bar attachment point. I've owned one in the past for a different car. They're hard to adjust on the car and have a tendency to slip.

The idea of "unlimited" adjustability is nice, but in reality, you don't have much adjustment range while keeping the end-links somewhat vertical.

My personal preference would be for the stiffer bar. It really depends on whether you'd prefer to err on the side of ride quality/stability or performance.

 

A CVT...so that means a non-SC Mini? For a mostly street driven car, stick with a 19mm rear bar even if you also plan to change springs and damper. If you plan to track the car a majority of the time, a 22mm rear bar is okay.

 

I wanted to upgrade the rear sway bar and like you began checking out the different manufactures. I opted for the RDR 19MM bar based on an installer recommendation. While there are larger bars, many on this board will confirm that 19mm is perfect for the street or the occasional autocross. You will also read other posts about noise or rubbing or the need to make room for the bar. All of that can be avoided.

The RDR fit right into place. There was ample room around the springs. I have not had any problems that others have had - rubbing or noise problems. I ended up selecting the middle setting and find the car very neutral. At this point I am just waiting for my run flats to wear out so I can go to regular tires and expect the car will handle even sweeter.

BahamaBart

 

I have the H-Sport 22mm, and it's fantastic. Since it's hollow, it's effectively a 19mm bar, but has better torsional rigidity. It's lighter than stock (good for the Cooper), completely forged, and has 3 positions for a good range of adjustability.

The MiniMania bar is, in my opinion, something to avoid. The reason is that infinite-adjustability thing. Unless you have an extremely accurate digital caliper, you'll never get both sides adjusted the same, so you'll wind up pre-tensioning one side of the car, which will predispose the car to breaking loose one way and being soft and squishy the other way.

 

I've got the H-Sport Competition bar on my Cooper, and it's set to the softest setting at the moment. I also have M7 springs and the combo was exponentially better than stock. I've really been enjoying the new setup, though I haven't gotten it out on the track yet.

 

Thanks for the comments. I just bought a 22mm R-Speed rear sway, the price is too good to pass . Anyhow, my friend will help me install it next week and hopefully it will turn out well. Cheers

 

I also have the r-speed bar and it is very nice, I have it set on soft and the car is very predictable and the rear only comes around when you want it to ( most of the time ) My car feels very ballanced and predictable.

 

Hi, I am installing my R-speed sway bar tomorrow with my friend. I have reviewed the DIY from Webbmotorsports and I was just wondering if there are any precaution I should take that was not mentioned in the instruction or comment that you may have. Many thanks in advanced.

 

Eurazn,

My friend and I installed an H-Sport comp bar this past weekend. We generally followed the instructions on outmotoring.com. They seemed the most straight forward and seemed to remove fewer bolts. It is skill wise not too hard but there were a few things that gave us some problems. After undoing the under carriage bolts and the upper shock assembly the suspension will drop away (a little bit) from the body, when you reinstall those bolts you'll need to have a way to jack up the suspension to get the bolts to line up and started. If you're using a lift its probably not too hard to just push with your hands to get things lined up but it was a little more probablamatic with the jack stands. This is probably just specific to the H-sport but when reusing the bar bushing bolts they are just a little too short and this took some time to clamp the brackets down enough to get the bolts started. One last thing.... I'm not sure if its mentioned in the required tools but socket extensions of various lengths are essential to reach all of the bolts.

Good Luck,
Erik

 

Actually the H-Sport Comp rear bar is 1 inch diameter. Since it's a forged hollow chrome-moly, it has a fuctional equivalent of 22mm of solid spring steel. At 4.5 pounds, it's about half the weight of equivalent 22mm spring steel bars. It is a fantastic bar. It's also manufactured very well, very flat, no tweak (very important for a swaybar to have no tweak). The H-Sport Comp rear bar on the softest hole setting is perfect for an otherwise stock suspension Cooper, very nicely balanced.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

What is "tweak"?

 

I also have the H Sport rear sway bar from webbmotorsports and like it because it has a grease fitting. I believe H Sport is the only sway bar available with a grease fitting. I have my H Sport bar set on the middle setting for around town use. Great product!

 

What do you mean by grease fitting? Do you need to grease your swaybar?

 

You do when it starts to squeek.

 

I tweak my swaybar early and often

MJR

 

tweak = bent or non-straight or non-flat. You definitely don't want your swaybar to not be flat- it'll assymmetrically load the chassis, thus causing assymmetrical handling. That's bad. You can mostly fix it by adjusting your adjustable drop links, but it's kinda like spraying air freshener on a cow-pie.

 

Did mine this past weekend as well (H-Sport Comp). Follow outmotoring's instructions as mentioned before. There's no need to remove the the whole strut assembly as mentioned in other instructions (randy webb's how-to and H-Sport's instructions), just the top mount. Swing the assembly to the rear and you'll have enough access to the swaybar mounts. Getting the subframe up and aligned again is a b!tch. Make sure to have a friend handy (as well as a floorjack) to help push up on the subframe to get the holes aligned. I did mine alone and I definitely could have used a hand. I used Loctite blue on the fittings to make sure nothing backs out. An make sure to torque to specs listed on outmotoring's write up. there's quite a difference in torque specs in the different fittings that are removed during the install.

 

Anyone notice a decrease in ride quality from a stiffer rear bar? I haven't had much seat time since installing but I think I noticed a stiffer ride and a tad more bounce on the freeway. I know it probably shouldn't make a difference if both rear wheels are moving simultaneously up and down but it sure seems a little stiffer.

 

Hey rpm,

The rear suspension seems to be a little stiffer than stock (I have the H-comp set on the softest setting). As far as the handling goes it definately different than stock but not super aggresive on the soft setting. I'm not a skilled driver but where I really feel a difference is when I'm accelerating through a tight corner it seems I can go faster through without understeer. I think after another week I'm gonna switch it to the middle setting and give it a try. It seems that in most of the posts I've read this is what people have settled on for street driving.

Erik

 

It's rare that bothe rear wheels move up and down at the same time, unless you are going over speed bumps.
With a stiffer rear bar you car will feel more firm. When one wheel goes up and the other stays flat then basically the wheel that moving up and down is being controlled by both shocks rather then the one assigned to it. Make sense?

 

I had a customer bring me the same MINI Mania bar you were looking at and I installed it for him. 6 months later we found out that the aluminum coroaded to the steel bar and makes it almost impossible to adjust. Now he is getting the H-sport comp. bar. I would suggest against the Mania bar, also you may want to check out the Alta bars. I have some of the info on my website or you can pm me if you want to know more. www.waymotorworks.com

 

Yup, I know if the rear wheels move independently it will be more stiff. There's a section of freeway I travelled last nite that that seemed to rock the car quite a lot (lots of ripples in the pavement). I think I was mentally thinking it was stiffer since I had just installed the bar Car handles slow to medium speed turns awesome now (haven't had a chance to try it at fast speeds). Whereas it used to lean and plow through turns, the car now rotates quite well. Now the tires are the limiting factor.

 

A larger rear bar will indeed add to the sensation of a stiffer ride; a stiffer rear bar adds rear roll stiffness - to a point where the rear wheel can come off the ground. So, inputs from one wheel are indeed transfered to the other and larger bars exaserbate this.

 

Just don't go straight. Constantly roll around corners