Project Mazda3 Part 3: Improving Our Contact Patch

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Street Touring F rules allow you to change both front and rear anti-roll bars.  Changing the rear is pretty obvious, as most front-wheel drive cars can stand for some more wheel rate in the back and bars are an easy way to get there.  Racing Beat has a bolt-in 24mm bar that takes the place of the standard bar, which measures 18mm . The installation is pretty straightforward and Racing Beat does a great job of documenting the process—PDFs of which are available on their site.

 
To remove the the anti-roll bar, you need to disconnect the end links from the suspension arms.  A 5mm allen wrench and a 14mm box wrench take care of that.  
We decided to drop the springs out to make installing the bar a little easier.  A 19mm socket on the lower control arm bolts…
Supporting the lower control arm with our “trusty” Harbor Freight jack.  
Now with the jack lowered and the springs pull out of their mounts. 
The bar unbolts from the chassis with four 14mm nuts and we snaked it out the left side.  Once on the ground, it's easy to disconnect end links attached to the bar. 
Sitting on the ground, you can see how much bigger the Racing Beat rear bar is.  
We are replacing the stock springs with a set of drop-in “Sport” springs from Racing Beat.  These are said to be 20 percent stiffer than stock and lower the car approximately .75 inches.  While we know we're ultimately going to wind up with a coilover package, we wanted to start somewhere to get a handle on the handling, so to speak. 

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