so you had a header, mam midpipe, and the mazdaspeed axleback, and now will have a header, mam midpipe, and racing beat catback? that's EXACTLY the switch I made :P (catted midpipe of course because I'm cool like that)

yes it'll be MUCH quieter. hugely

 

Everything except the header. No header yet .. but looking

 

p.s. I've made progress on my front sway bar situation.

this was the state of affairs when I first started pulling things apart to get better access to the sway bar:



here's my zip tie contraption helping me bend those brackets back down:


man those brackets are really quite strong.. that and it's nearly impossible to gain access to them, and I worked out for two hours this morning and it was my arms day (yay poor planning).

I did find out something though. To move the crossmember at all you have to completely disconnect the steering linkage. It's bolted right to the crossmember with massive brackets. I knew to actually remove the sway bar this would need to be done, but I'm saddened that it has to be done no matter what (even just for bushings)

here it is right now:

 

Dude that's a pain in the ***. I refuse to ever mess with that ..

 

What if you just cut the new bushings in half and then wrap the halves around the bar?

 

Tried to get the car clean for a huge mazda meet in Highpoint tomorrow. buckets of rain are throwing my plans off though!

 

did you see the last two pics? the bushings are in place.. but I can't get the brackets bolted back down. the brackets have been pulverized by the sway bar for MONTHS.

Even with a 24" pry bar I was only able to get enough leverage to bend them down as they are in the final pics I posted.

It pisses me off that Mazda designed the car with such a difficult design for that. IT'S A WEAR ITEM!

It's WAY easier to pull the transmission than it is to properly replace the bushings.

oh and add the fore-aft engine bay brace (goes from radiator support to crossmember, the front motor mount is attached to it) as well as the front motor mount to the list of things that have to be removed to change the front sway bar.

 

Jeebus, that's way to much work for this cracker

 

a shop will charge at least 6.5 hours of labor to replace the 6 dollar bushings.

and there's a damn good reason for it. I would hate to work at a dealership and have to deal with this crap

 

What's next? New brackets, then?

 

probably.. but to install new brackets the crossmember has to come out of the car, or at least down an inch but as I found out, you do have to take everything apart to move it at all so you might as well just get it out from under the car to work on it.

and if I got the crossmember out, I could easily bend the brackets to the right shape.

I think I've done as much as can be done without getting the crossmember off.

I'm really not looking forward to it, nor do I have the supplies. I'll need to replace at least one of my midpipe gaskets, and I don't really know what to do about disassembling all the steering stuff (I can see the 4+ massive bolts attaching it to the crossmember, hopefully it's just a matter of removing those to free the crossmember).

my lower control arms are still attached too, but if I get everything else undone I think the crossmember will be able to sink down enough for me to get a wrench in there (if only a simple wrench would work.. I need to use a socket on it, and with my smallest driver and shallowest socket I still need about 2mm more clearance to get it in).

 

Yuck yuck yuck. How much more work would it be to put the MSP bar in there?

 

it would be no more work, but I don't want the MSP bar. I really like how balanced it feels with just the rear in. no more understeer!

oh and plus.. if I have to take the crossmember off, I need new front endlinks (would be my sixth set of front links).

 

agreed. Stock front + mazdaspeed rear = very tossable P5

*sigh* my poor front tires.

 

All this talk of how great the MSP rear swaybar is makes it really hard for me to stay away from purchasing one. Damn you forum junkies!!!