t-von

iTrader: (8)

Well not if that spacer is welded into place. Then you shouldn't have a problem.

DamonB

These are the mounts I built. The upper and lower plates are 3/16" steel plate joined with a 1.25" steel tube. I made the plates in such a way that the cuts at the ends of the tube are perfectly square. The lower mounting plate is much larger than stock so that I can bolt the Tripoint bronze bushings on directly without using the Tripoint braces. These mounts maintain stock geometry with the car at ride height.

I was lazy and rather than make new tabs for the radiator to mount to I merely cut them off the stock mounts and welded them onto these.

You can see how the head of the pinch bolt in the bar arm if ground off as it occasionally is used as a skid plate A light film of grease where the arm slips onto the torque tube keeps the aluminum arm from squeaking or groaning on the splined steel torque tube. As they get wet tiny mineral deposits get in there and make strange noises. The grease prevents that.

In the pic of the car on the ground the bar is actually not quite parallel to the ground because I have it set on a stiffer setting than normal. When the droplinks are in the third hole of the arms (where they stay 95% of the time) the bar is perfectly horizontal to the ground with the car at ride height.

KevinK2

nice work Damon. if that arm is not parallel, it's close to it!

In the unlikely case you see any signs of frame cracking around the 4 threaded holes, a lateral support can be added to the steering rack studs, as with the RB brace. I did this with my reinforced stock mounts, using steel strip stock. I don't think it violates your autox class rules.

DamonB

The mounts have been on for quite a while now so it's time to pull them off and check the frame rails. I went way overboard on the thickness of the steel top plate and its footprint hoping to prevent any twisting at the frame rail but we'll see.

I have the keepers that center the bar in the mounts adjusted to have zero play laterally. I'm running roller thrust bearings on the bar between the keepers and the mounts so there is little drag even though the whole thing is preloaded. This makes the bar itself a lateral brace that ties the mounts together but it's also legal...

KevinK2

That preload will help "load share" lateral loads from a skew vertical link.

But some of the rocking is due to the lateral offset of each mount. Vertical reaction forces at the mount are much higher than at the links. In a hard corner, the moment reactions at ea mount are in phase (ie, rotating both in the same direction) so preload through the thrust stops for that loading is not very effective.

Debbie Downer (SNL)

DamonB

By this you mean how on the stock mounts the bar bushings are not vertically in line with the bolts into the frame, so when vertically loaded by the reaction of the swaybar the stock mounts try to collapse inward?

My mounts have the bar bushings directly below the bolts to the frame and the steel tube is in line with them as well. There was plenty of room to do it that way and it also made building them more simple. I think the Mazda mounts were offset because of the necessary room required to fit the radius of the bend in the stock sway bar or just to make it easier to get to the bolts? I don't know. With the Tripoint bar there is no need to offset the upper and lower bolt holes from eachother though. There's plenty of room. It's hard to tell without comparing pics directly but the bronze bushings on my car now reside about an inch closer to the tube ends then they did with stock type mounts. You can see how the bushings are no longer completely inside the belly pan.

I'm hoping all this will keep any bending forces out of the chassis rails where the bar mounts bolt on but I have yet to check for cracks. I had very, very slight ones around one hole before so if they are no worse at this point I'll call it a success.

KevinK2

Yup. With your non-offset brackets, I doubt if you will find cracks getting worse.

For oem type, load up bends it inward, while the related load down on the other bracket prys it outward, so they deflect in phase. That's why for 1 piece bars with bends, RB brace is a good thing (if they ever fixed the design so the cross beam offset is up, and not down into the bar).

DamonB

Mine started out that way just because it made them easier to build. It's only after I started fitting them that I realized I could refer to them as "improved" instead of merely "lazy" in that regard