Jackson Racing Solid Sway Bars
Photos are coming soon
I wanted a beefier sway bar than stock. I looked around for a brief while, read all the reviews on Miata.net and decided on the Jackson Racing bars. Installation is not terribly difficult, although you need to pay attention to which way the factory bar was installed, as the ends are cut on an angle. This means after you've spent 15 minutes threading the front bar through the radiator hose and the plumbing runs for the A/C, and you have it upside down, you get to reverse the process, and do it all over again. Not that anything like that happened to me. :-)
After I finished installation, I took a quick late night run through a park not far from me. This park is a three mile, one way run complete with twisties, sweepers, hairpins, off camber 90's and just about anything else any red blooded sports car enthusiast could want. Turns that had previously been tire screamers had suddenly become silent even though I was running much quicker through them. The car handled like a completely different animal. All in all a good move.
I was, however, somewhat concerned about reports of the front sway bar connecting points cracking. Apparently the larger bar applies more stress to the connecting brackets during hard cornering that the factory bar would allow.
However one of the local hot shoes on the autocross circuit suggested that while he had heard of the issue, it was always with autocross tires on concrete. The theory being that street tires on asphalt would break loose before the bar would create enough stress to take out the brackets.
WRONG!!
After several months of autocrossing 2-3 times a month and a 2 day stint at the McKamey School, the brackets were shredded. The car was handling for shit and I couldn't figure it out. I dropped the splash pan and the only thing holding the front sway in place was the aforementioned plumbing and the splash pan itself. As I have been running street tires (Dunlop SP8000's) and autocrossing on pavement, I didn't think I was a candidate for sway bar bracket failure.