It's great...The car hardly leans at all on tight turns. I didn't notice a slight loss of traction taking moderately fast turns though, but that could be because of the wet roads from rain the past 4 days. The car is actually more fun to drive now, at stop lights I can make super fast turns and my car doesn't look like it's being thrown to the side. I would recommend this to any V6 without the pony package, it's a really cheap way to enhance your handling.

One weird thing is happening though...I can actually hear the sway bar. On bumps and potholes, I can hear the swaybar making noise. It sounds like the the parts that are holding the bar are rotating around it, and that it wasn't lubricated or something. I can live with it, it's just kind of weird and the more rough the road is the louder it gets. If I didn't have my music on all the time I would constantly be hearing it. Is this normal??

umm did you change the front as well? because twice i've had to have my front sway bar end links tightened because they came loose, basically it sounds like the cars falling apart. Ford'll fix it for free, but who knows it couldve happened to the rear for you as well.

No I didnt change the front because other people have said that they have the front stock and hellwig rear and they have no problems. How could my car be falling apart when I just got the sway bar put on two days ago? I doubt my front is falling apart, the sound is coming from the rear sway bar. And I'm confident in my body shop that installed it.

My first thought, ( I put on my Hellwig week before you, same set up) is that the bushings were not lubed when they put it up on the hangars. Also the link ends should not be so tight that it crushes the bushing against the bar. (lube between the bar end and bushing/crush sleeve) The whole bar should be able to pivot up and down with the suspension travel. In other words I get no noise with mine.

This will also help. The two main bushings on the rod connected to the hangars are split on the top allowing quick snap on uninstall/install and re-lubing...you dont have to slide em all the way into position from the bar ends...

Also, the traction loss is because the geometry of the rear end changed. your body lean, that has been reduced/eliminated, was taking lots of the lateral force of the cornering and applying it to upward momentum, lifting the body up and shifting the weight to the outside tire on the corner, giving you maximum traction on the outside tire holding the rear to the corner and now the force is enirely direct right angle force against the rear end tires throwing the flattened out rear end to the outside corner (thats what drifters like) the only fix is to re-learn the cars limits to corner just at the edge or get better tires that hold lateral force well...

Thank you very much for that info. I had a feeling the sound was because it wasn't lubricated properly. But about the bushings that connect to the hangers, I looked and didn't see that they were split on top at all. The bushings that I'm talking about are the D-shaped parts that are in nearest to the center of the bar. Are these the one's that are supposed to be split on top? Cause I looked and they're not split at all, and they're attached to the hangars by nuts/bolts. So now I don't see a way I can get inside those bushings without taking the whole bar off, which I definitely do not want to do.

Ehhh I guess I just have to live with the sound..

Are these the one's that are supposed to be split on top

Those are the ones. If you unbolt the center hangar brackets one at a time and take the d shaped bracket off and see the red bushing there on the bar, they are split only on rounded top part of the "D" bushing allowing the bushing to pull staright off the bar, then clean it and re-lube it, replace on the bar by spreading the top of the "D" bushing and put back on the bar. Bolt it back up and do the other one. if squeek is still there the only other spots to re-lube are the top of the hangar brackets in the middle of the bar that attach to the body of the car or the ends bolted to the shock base.

ORIGINAL: billybix76


Those are the ones. If you unbolt the center hangar brackets one at a time and take the d shaped bracket off and see the red bushing there on the bar, they are split only on rounded top part of the "D" bushing allowing the bushing to pull staright off the bar, then clean it and re-lube it, replace on the bar by spreading the top of the "D" bushing and put back on the bar. Bolt it back up and do the other one. if squeek is still there the only other spots to re-lube are the top of the hangar brackets in the middle of the bar that attach to the body of the car or the ends bolted to the shock base.


Thank you so much for that info. Yeah I see what you mean by they are split now. I unbolted the D-shaped bushing and took the silicone thing off and sprayed it with wd-40 along with the bar itself where the hangar attaches. Took me almost a half hour to do one side (my body shop put it on there so tight I could barely get it off). So now I have to do the muffler side. Hopefully the noise will be gone after I do this...I'll give an update once I drive over some serious bumps.

Luck!

Good news...drove the car around a lot today and there's no noise at all. Your advice worked perfect..thanks!

You might want to get some silicon or marine grease, because the WD-40 will wash away in the rain once water gets into the bushings.

ORIGINAL: Black GT

You might want to get some silicon or marine grease, because the WD-40 will wash away in the rain once water gets into the bushings.


Ye it already did wash away and the creaking came back. I took it off for now because I'm putting in a new muffler soon and it's a pain to have the sway bar there...I'm gonna get some heavy duty auto grease to lube the bushings and then I'm going to re-attach the sway bar to the more aggressive inner hole.