JBR rear sway bar review

Decided to swap out my racing beat rear sway bar with one from JBR. The RB one was a little narrow for the 2012 5. It placed the brackets at the start of the bends and was eating bushing, breaking brackets and causing slight binding until the bushing were worn. Note: RB does not make a bar specifically for the 5. I used a 3 bar, removed the stoppers and added shaft collars to adapt it to the 5.

JBR Bar


RB Bar


The first things I noticed with the JBR bar was it's much lighter. Quality and workmanship is top notch. It's thicker at 1.25in (31.75mm) vs racing beats 1.062in (27mm) but RB is solid. The JBR bar has 3 settings vs the RB's 1. The last thing I noticed is that the endlink holes are drilled at 12mm. (uhm) Both the 3 and 5 have 10mm endlink studs. A quick email to JBR yielded "All of our sway bars have the 12mm holes. We do this because the 2mm difference is insignificant. Also because many choose to upgrade the rear end links to the Mazdaspeed OEM or OEM equivalent and this wouldn’t be possible if the holes were only 10mm."

I didn't agree on the idea of relying on the clamping action to hold the endlinks in place so I set out to find or make a spacer. Going through my junks I came across some heli-coil inserts. They were the correct thread m10-1.5. I placed them on a bolt and voil! almost a perfect 12mm.

Heli-coil insert on bolt


Heli-coil insert in the softest setting


The rest of the installation is pretty simple. Didn't even have to jack up the 5. Sorry no pics of the whole process.

Result vs RB...
Ride is similar. Performance is a little improved. I set the bar to it's middle setting. Car is closer to neutral. I didn't want to go to stiff because with the H&R and Koni shocks, I didn't want to introduce oversteer. Esp since it's been raining quite often the last few weeks.

Result vs stock...
Ride is a lot rougher over uneven bumps. Bumps and dips that both tires travel through are unchanged. Much less understeer closer to neutral.

other notes: I opted for the upgraded brackets and have AWR endlinks. The AWR endlinks do make a little more noise but Tony's newest ones are 10x better that those I got from him just a few years ago for my NC Miata. He is using teflon inserts and big rubber o-rings to bring the noise down to a minimum. I switched to AWR's rose joint endlinks after breaking my stock set and 2 sets from corksport.

Bonus shot

Looks great. Thanks for the review.


My only concern was when you wrote "Ride is a lot rougher over uneven bumps."

90210 said:

Looks great. Thanks for the review.


My only concern was when you wrote "Ride is a lot rougher over uneven bumps."

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Yup, that is the one drawback of sway bars. It connects the left and right. It basically increases the spring rate of the outside wheel in a turn. Good for the mountain roads bad for potholes and bumps.

I haven't regretted installing my JBR rear seat bar, best thing for control.

Looks great in there! Nice use of the heli-coil!

Why not just get ms3 rear links? The stock ones are prone to bending, especially with stiffer rear bars, and the JBR is one of the stiffest, IIRC.

Don't say price, because you replaced one aftermarket bar with another, plus extra goodies, you weren't doing a budget ms3 rear bar setup.

Edit to say that I wasn't trying to be negative, although my post kind of sounded like it. Nice pics and writeup.

Anyone compare the Hotchki's bar versus the JBR? I need to do the RSB and maybe FSB eventually after I finish up all the electronics stuff.

sac02 said:

Why not just get ms3 rear links? The stock ones are prone to bending, especially with stiffer rear bars, and the JBR is one of the stiffest, IIRC.

Don't say price, because you replaced one aftermarket bar with another, plus extra goodies, you weren't doing a budget ms3 rear bar setup.

Edit to say that I wasn't trying to be negative, although my post kind of sounded like it. Nice pics and writeup.

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No problem. From what I understand, the MS3 endllinks aren't any stronger. Yes, they have a larger 12mm bolt but the rest of the hardware is the same. Plus, I already have AWR endlinks that are holding up perfectly well.

Oh, I missed that even though it was right there in the OP.

It was one of the first things I did; I like those new mount brackets they have. Wish they were available when I bought mine.

ブレイク;6315509 said:

Yup, that is the one drawback of sway bars. It connects the left and right. It basically increases the spring rate of the outside wheel in a turn. Good for the mountain roads bad for potholes and bumps.

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Yeah on my 93 MR2 Turbo, once I upgraded the bars, ride was dramatically changed.

However, living in LA, and the 405 and the "constant thumping" of the street on OEM setup, I am not sure my Mazda5 ride can be further compromised

Damn those new brackets are nice.

Indelibility said:

Damn those new brackets are nice.

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No kidding! There should be another word to described those. The JBR looks like a find product and quality construct. My only question is, do you really need (being a subjective matter and all) such a stiff bar for this car? What type of bushing does it come with? Those rear links would contribute to harshness making the setup overly stiff.

Silentnoise713 said:

No kidding! My only question is, do you really need (being a subjective matter and all) such a stiff bar for this car?

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Nah, you really don't need such a stiff bar. But for the 2012, because the bracket mounts were moved further outward, the style of the bar makes it the most logical choice. As in my OP, the bends on the racing beat placed the brackets practically on the bends. Also, there really isn't a 5 specific bar. I didnt want to have to guess that it would fit.

Silentnoise713 said:

What type of bushing does it come with?

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I would have to guess it came with energy suspension bushing. I had previously inquired about using the JBR brackets with the RB bar and was told that the ES bushing I had would fit.

Silentnoise713 said:

Those rear links would contribute to harshness making the setup overly stiff.

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With the RB bar, I went through 3 different end links. I didn't notice any difference in ride between them. The AWR link do make more noise though. The only complaint I have about the AWR links is that at stock height I feel they are too long. They are significantly longer than the stocks and place the bar at a less than ideal angle, reducing it's effectiveness. Now that I'm lowered it's a little better but ideally I'd still like them a little shorter. I may try to change out the threaded stud and lower male rose joint for a female joint. Making it similar in design to the discontinued tripoint one. I would loose the fine adjust-ability but 1/2 turn increments is still pretty adjustable.