I wouldn't hold your breath.

Having said that, I've tracked my car three times this year with the tanabe bars and so far been moderately satisfied with them. Pay special attention to the area where the oem endlink slides through the end of the rear bar and is held with a nut..... I had an issue with one nut working it's way off (you could see the damaged threads on the endlink) and I believe it's related to the poor fitment of the provided bushings where the bar bolts up to the chassis. It's a little too tall IIRC, and probably needs to be shaved down a bit for better fitment.

I think once all the re-engineering is done, theyre a quality product. We really shouldn't have to do all that though...... I ran two sets of Tanabe Sustec-Pro coilovers for many years (around 8 years I think) and was extremely happy with their quality and durability. Too bad the sway bars aren't up to the same standard.

 

I wouldn't either. One thing I don't think people realize is that these bars were probably all manufactured and powdercoated as a batch and are now just stock on a warehouse shelf. These aren't custom parts that are only made when you order them. You won't see a "fix" unless Tanabe makes another production run.

Not defending Tanabe, just stating a reality that would apply to most aftermarket parts.

 

The Tri-point bar installs plug and play and with not quality or later deterioration issues.
Additionally I went with the Mazdaspeed (USA) version sway bar months. Both have been holding up for over four years now, including two serious of track excursions.
As to ST and RB I have used both for years on my 1st gens.

 

Gave them a call. They said it was a bad batch that had been fixed and that all of the remaining bad batch was sent back.

 

I purchased mine after calling them. They did mention it was a bad batch. After the bars arrive, there were no powdercoat on the thread but there were powder coat on the rod where the endlink sits. But that was a simple fix. 5min of 80grit sand paper took it clean off! And I have been cornering flat since!

 

No one mentioned that the problem with the RB front sway bar was with their previous design, which was a staight hollow bar with splined ends and bolted-on splined right angle arms to go to the connecting links. They sometimes cracked right at the spline under heavy cornering, which usually gave you an exciting ride off road thru the weeds if you were driving fast. Design was like the Tripoint front bar, but must have used weaker tubing.

ST bars are extra stiff and HEAVY. Front bar is solid and weighs at least 25 lbs. Could be used as a crowbar, if you got stuck.
I did not see where anyone drilled and installed grease zerks on the brackets to keep the urethane lubricated. Easy to do and this also cuts down on some of the groaning sounds that the bushings make when they are dry. Before I switched to the MazdaTrix HD SB mounts I cracked the RB SB "brace". Also destroyed the MazdaTrix Heim joint type end links. They are a good idea, but just not heavy duty enough.

 

Just wanted to give a bit of an update to this thread. I recently ordered a set of Tanabe swaybars fom evasive motor sports, and they came in today. Knowing of this thread, I was prepared to have to clean the threads of my front bar. To my surprise, the threads look pretty good. So, perhaps the issue has been taken care of, or they are into a new batch that wasnt screwed up. Either way, Im happy with what I got. Few pictures, literally just pulled out of the box:

 

The effected sway bars were from one bad bad. Let us know how you like them after driving around with them a bit.

 

You may still have to remove the paint from the unthreaded part of the link stud. I had to do that to get the end links to fit on the bar. The OD of that shaft needs to be less than the ID of the end link bushing (duh, I know).

 

I did the same thing. I just had some 80grit sand papers and rip off a little strip and 5min a corner the powercoat are off! I love these bars!

 

I love re-animating old threads.

Has anyone had any newer dealing with the Tanabe bars? I am gearing up to make some changes to my car for this summer and these are on my list.

Thanks,

Stanley

 

People running both front and rear tanabe bars;

Can you describe the changes in balance, grip (subjectively) and also difference in body roll. The balance I have now with the stock bars is excellent.

 

I had them on my (old) car. I was running Tokicos with S-Tech springs and I had the Widefoot swaybar mounts. Most people typically don't like upgrading the rear bar on the FD since it already has a tendency to oversteer. Adding both will basically keep that tendency. For me, I prefer a little more oversteer as understeer can get you into snap oversteer situations (which I tried to avoid).

I was running rcomps on the stock rims and felt my car was under-sprung for my needs but was very predicable. Had I kept the car, I would have went with a better damper/spring combo. The sways did stiffen the car but I had also added a 4pt rollbar which added a lot of stiffness at the same time, so it was hard to just solely what came from the swaybars.

In the end, I didn't regret the purchase and really thought they added (positively) to the handling of my car. It was a noticeable difference on the higher speed sweepers in which the lean of the car was less, allowing the tires to work better (and I was able to carry more speed in those situations).

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. It makes sense that adding stiffer swaybars front/rear equally will keep the balance the same. The only reason why i am not so eager to add the rear tanabe bar is because i am worried about losing raw rear grip especially during corner exit. I suspect that is why most hardcore track cars keep the stock rear bar or even lose it. They do also have very high spring rates.

 

Ive got a nearly new tanabe rear if anyone is interested. The addition of more power to the rear from v8 made it too hard to modulate so i went to a stock rear bar. Id love to get it out of my garage and help someone save money.

 

Personally, I think people do that as an easy way out... It's a lot harder to study and adjust dampers, springs, motion ratios and everything else that goes into suspension setup than it is to just disconnect (or use a weaker) rear sway bar..

Sways are for weight transfer. What happens when you transfer weight onto a tire? It gains more grip. However, what happens when you transfer that weight? The unloaded tires lose grip. Unfortunately, the unloaded tires lose more grip than the loaded tires gain so limiting that weight transfer helps allow you to have better overall traction (provided you have the tires to handle it).

Now, they are effectively "springs" so yes they do influence the balance of the car (i.e. a heavier spring up front, more understeer). Sways won't have that much influence on corner exit. You'll notice the swaybar influence mostly on corner entry and mid corner. Typically your differential will have the most influence on the car's behavior through corner exit.

 

I wonder how one can compare the dynamics of increased spring rate vs stiffer swaybars. Marginally speaking

Your explanation on weight transfer is really understandable. People should really read this and understand the physics before beginning to touch the suspension. As for corner exit, i always felt that some weight transfer (lean, squat) helped absorb the thrust + lateral accel and thus increase the corner exit speed.nI guess the only way to find out is to buy the matching rear bar and swap them on track days for back to back comparison.

I should mention that I do have a carbonetic carbon 1.5 way lsd and it sure did help with corner exit. Most people (especially corvette guys) approach me on track days shocked over how early and hard i come out of corners. Rx7's really do shine in this aspect.

 

I'm definitely not a suspension expert. I know enough to be slightly dangerous. It likely has more to do with the design of the suspension as there are vehicles which don't really have swaybars (IIRC, the Ariel Atom doesn't or at least it didn't before use swaybars in it's suspension geometry).

I suppose you could lower the cg and stiffen the springs which could give a similar behavior. However, you sacrifice suspension travel which may or may not be a bad thing depending on the dampers and tracks you are running.

 

new bar, nothing on it where the endlinks go.

 

That's actually great that they actually listened to customer feedback and fixed the issue. Unfortunately, there is probably still stock out there of the bars with coating on the threads, but it still good to see the response from Tanabe!

 

anybody using upgraded mounts with these? Or sticking to the stock mounts?

 

Read the thread .. stock mounts for stock suspension, driven like a checker cab. There is a section devoted to upgraded front mounts. I have tracked the car with stock mounts reinforced with welded on flat steel stock, and my home made braces that function like the RB brace.

 

Howard is an FD guru. But, for those Tanabe dimensions I get:

front bar -- +35% over stock, D=28.6mm, t=.150"
93 rear ---- +54% over stock, D=17.3mm, t=.105"
94 rear --- +136% over stock, D=15.9mm, t=.083"

I made this comparison table BGH (before grey hair), but some of the bars are still made, or for sale used.
Antiroll Bars
The old Racing Beat multi-piece front sway bar is listed.

For the Tanabe rear at 20mm OD, that's much larger than the oem bars, creating more oversteer.
I wonder if they had drifting in mind, putting rear biased bars on a car with oversteer.

.

 

Depends on what you mean by adding bars equally. Although the effect on wt transfer bias should include the contribution from both springs and bars, you can maintain the F/R bar stiffness ratio by matching the oem bar F/R stiffness ratio. That helps keep you in the ball park of not changing the cornering balance. About perfect balance:

Now on just stock suspension and hi perf all season tires, I've been hitting a 30 mph, 270 degree exit ramp when I need a fix. With stock 93 rear bar, car was too tail happy. With no rear bar, better control, 5 mph faster, but front was jumpy. Just put the smaller 94 bar on, and perfecto. Up to 60 mph and perfect balance.

 

Does anyone on here have a Tenabe rear bar used? I'm thinking I'll give it a shot. I'd like to eliminate a little bit of roll out back. Although it's a drift car..I think it'll help with the twitchy-ness I sometimes get.