Those of you that have replaced your rear sway bars.
Have you noticed the bushing is glued onto the rear bar?
That stiction would have impeded the sway bar from working as a bar, and making it a helper spring to the jounced wheel.
Thus the bar would not come into play until it overcame the rubber tension to twist the other side to match?

What if the front sway bar bushings were replaced with Powerflex bushings, would it help make it more efficient?

Hmmm???

 

Eh, I'd think the rubber has enough flex still. The bar would only ever twist like 1/2 a degree at most, I'd think.

But yes urethane bushings are supposed to be an improvement, somehow... I guess they would put more of the twisting force into the bar, rather than getting soaked up by deformation of the rubber bushings. Sounds like a good idea... assuming removing the front bar is as bad as everyone says it is (not worth the effort perhaps). Try it and let us know =)

 

The front stabilizer has "glued on" bushings, quite a effort to remove.

I have replace most of the bushings, its certainly a better tweak for drivers, than the the standard granny setup, with its soft linkage, to give you that MINI feel , which is fine as long you not fast.

 

Cool, how was the job to replace those bushings? Did you need to remove the whole bar? How did you get the old ones off?

And most importantly- is there much improvement? Would you do it again?

=)

 

I ended up putting universal 24mm Energy Suspension bushings on my front bar. I liked that they had grease fittings- swapped them out for 90-degree ones though. Had to grind out the bolt slots just a little bit. And price is much less as well!

I think it could be possible to do it without removing the bar. But not easy. I did remove my bar. Used brute force to grab and tear off the old bushings. If still on the car, maybe some combination of drilling holes, a thin saw.... not sure. You might have to remove the whole thing, which is not terrible. I detailed that process in the H&R sway bar thread.

Once the bulk of bushing was off, I used a knife to scrape off more rubber. Then a Dremmel with 3m red sanding style wheel easily removed the rest of the rubber and glue.

I also put in Whiteline lateral locks. These are a must to keep the bar from sliding side-to-side, now that you have bushings that are not glued in. Maybe it's ok without them, but good chance the bar moves enough now to contact other parts of the suspension. For $25, for sure just add them at the same time.

I don't know that I can tell an improvement over stock. I probably wouldn't do this unless you already have the bar out, and/or are hunting down every last bit of suspension play. Or when your car gets to 10 years old and the original bushings have fallen apart.