Heavy duty sway bar mounts for NA/NB chassis
Heavy duty sway bar mounts for NA/NB chassis
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Description
Under extreme use, the stock front sway bar mounts on the Miata can tear right off the frame. This is usually only a concern with oversize sway bars and motorsport use with sticky tires, but it can happen in these conditions. The NB is weaker than the NA in this regard.
The solution comes from AWR in the form of these upgraded mounts. Fully boxed, they're much more effective than band-aid solutions. To install, you'll have to drill out a couple of spot welds to remove the old mounts and bolt these ones in to place. No welding is required and all hardware is included. Mounting points for both 1990-93 and 1994-05 sway bars are included, which is useful if you have a 1.6 with a 1.8 engine and need to move the sway further forward for a little more room up by the pulley.
Fits all NA and NB Miatas. Sold in pairs. We have found that these are made to fit very, very tightly to the chassis and will likely require a hammer to force into place. Some power steering cars will need to disconnect the lines running to the cooler so they can run through these boxed brackets. They'll fit fine once routed through the new bracket.
Note that the side-to-side spacing for your sway bar bushings is slightly different than stock with these. That's normally not an issue, but if you use them with stock sway bars that have pre-installed collars, those collars will need to be removed in order to use these brackets. Of course, these brackets are overkill if you're still using the stock sway bars, but that's your call.
Instructions
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What does it fit?
Emissions
Emissions do not apply.
Warranty
lifetime
SKU
These sway bar mounts are solid and seem to perform very well. They pair nicely with FM’s sway bar and billet brackets. I wanted a beefy setup so I couldn’t skip on these.
However, these were a beast to install on my nb2. Similar to other reviews, the width of my frame rails were significantly wider than these mounts, requiring lots of hammering, prying, and use of a jack. It also didn’t help that all 8 bolts securing the original mounts snapped due to corrosion (of course, no fault to FM), just be prepared to extract broken bolts and/or tap new threads. After lots of persuasion I was able to mount them.
Install tip: when you’re close to getting these to fit, put the bolts in one side and use a floor jack to help the mount align with the bolt holes on the other side.
If you have aftermarket sway bars, eventually you will need to add these brackets.
I added FM Sway Bars on my '99 in '06 at about 70K miles. I live on back roads in SE Kentucky and drive the car hard & no track time. In 2015 at 140K miles I hit a construction site pothole at maybe 5 mph. I heard a bad noise like something broke. Upon inspection both horns of one Sway Bar Bracket were torn completely, with the bar hanging and the other bracket both horns were partially torn. I had no choice but to install these.
Removing the old brackets, and having to temporarily move the Power Steering out of the way was hardest. I don't remember that it was difficult to install these. These brackets did make the car feel more solid.
Beware NB owners, I would rate this install as a frustration level of 7.5/10. It definitely seems like this product is designed for NA miatas, with NB as an afterthought. My frame rails measure 3.2 inches wide, while the flanges measure 2.6 inches apart at their narrowest, requiring a lot of hammer work to get them onto the car in the first place. The bolt holes did not line up well with the chassis mounting points, and would likely require slotting them an additional 1/4 inch or more horizontally. This wasn't an issue for me, because I was replacing the OEM mounts due to the chassis threads disintegrating from rust, so I welded the mounts in place. Once everything was in, it also requires cutting a slot out of the radiator brackets because there is a significant amount of interference.
After a little over half a day of hammers, grinders, and the welder these brackets are probably more solid than the frame they attach to, but are they worth nearly $200? The only reason I would buy them again is because I'm not aware of any good alternatives.
Note from FM: These can be a bear to install, but that's not accidental. Part of it is that your frame rails might be a bit wider due to rust, undercoating, damage, etc., part of it is because we want them to be tight with no slop. We'll often use a jack to press them into place. Please note that there should be a gap between the bottom of the frame rail and the top (inner) of the mounts. As for the radiator mount interference, that's a new one - perhaps they were located too far forward. Andrew, if you don't feel like that's the case, please reach out to use at [****] with pictures.
Built like a tank! As FM states, these are a very tight fit on my 96’ Miata, and I did have to hammer the chassis rails to get these to slide on. If you have the Racing Beat sway bar reinforcement bracket, (white bar) it won’t work with these. You will have to drill out new mounting holes to make it work. - 1 star for the trouble.
Built like a tank! As FM states, these are a very tight fit on my 96� Miata, and I did have to hammer the chassis rails to get these to slide on. If you have the Racing Beat sway bar reinforcement bracket, (white bar) it won�t work with these. You will have to drill out new mounting holes to make it work. - 1 star for the trouble.