Rear Sway Bar Woes...out with Racingline in with Stillen

Satisfying Conclusion!

A rather straightforward and uneventful install. As usual, you'll find some pics and some install notes below.

First off, the Stillen bar is a different shape than the OEM or Racingline, with an extra 'bend' at either end which is needed to clear the lower control arm spring cup at max extension, you'll see in a couple of pics the bar and cup get within an 1/8" or so of each other at the lowest point (ie jacked up). It's nicely painted? in red and very well packaged for transit.



I wound up using the supplied endlinks for a couple of reasons, largely because they are different in size and shape. The 'redesigned' endlinks provided with the bar a bit longer and have a 90' rotation between upper and lower joints, whereas the stock have something more along the 75' (approx guess). I took pictures once the bar was mounted to eyeball the relationship between bar end and the mounting tang on the suspension arm...and lo, yes, 90' is about right. I figured this was better than having a more limited range of movement by using the OEM fit parts...so I'll keep those Mevo parts and see if I ever need to replace the Stillen parts down the line.




The $6 Moog bushings, a strange blue colour, fit perfectly and I lubed them up with favourite silicone grease, Molykote 111 (which you'll have heard me praise earlier as it has a very high wash resistance)


Below image is upside down!


Some install notes:

Tools: torque wrench, 14mm, 17mm sockets, and for Stillen 5/8 crescent wrench and 9/16 long sockets
Grease: Molykote 111 or similar rubber/neoprene compatible bushing grease, Antiseize (optional)
Time: 1-2 hours...depending how good you are and how much you have to fight the old parts, and less with airtools.

-blocked both front wheels front and back and set parking brake
-jacked car up on each side and placed jack stand on the inside of the reinforced rocker panel, inline with the official jack point
-removed both rear wheels

I had already removed the old bar, but when you do it, note the following (and ref Stillen info in next post):
- mark the driver side of sway way
- note the orientation of the endlinks (ie endlink upper nut on front side, lower nut on inside, bushing bracket split on rear bolt etc.)
- I don't think you can put the Stillen bar on upside down, but in my case the white sticker was on passenger side
- remove the upper nut (14mm?) of the old endlink on both sides
- loosen the rear bolt (17mm) of the bushing bracket about 1/4", remove front bolt
- slide bracket forward until it clears bolt and lower bar onto exhaust system
- repeat for other side

I fished the bar in and out from the passenger side with the bushings attached. You do a little push pull first to get the bar ends clear and then slide it straight out from behind the rotor.

I pre-greased the bushing area of the new bar with MK 111. Opened the bushing split with a finger and slid it over the flattened end of the bar. It's not hard to work it around the 2 bends before it gets to where it needs to be, but at the 2nd bend, while the bushing split was at its widest, I put a line of grease in there with the hope that it would prevent water, salt and grit from catching in the crack. Once in placed I smoothed it all down and around to ensure no air gap into the bushing from either side or the split (which I mounted so that it was rear facing). I placed the OEM bushing D clamps over the new bushings and lightly push down on them to seat them. The friction fit and grease held them in place while I inserted the new bar into place.

I lightly touched the bracket bolt holes with some antiseize compound just to make hand tightening the bolts easier. New bar fished in same way. Lift one side at a time, slide split part of bushing clamp onto existing bolt, and while supporting, insert the frontside? bolt and hand tighten enough to hold in place. Repeat for other side.

Check both sides to ensure that the sway bar ends can move freely up and down and that they aren't on the wrong side of the suspension arm tang or tangled in the parking brake cable. Now torque the bracket bolts to spec, 22 ft-lbs. Expect some grease to squeeze out.

Lay the old bar on the ground, in the same orientation it was on the car (remember, you marked the driver side?). Match the new endlinks to their respective sides (they are mirror images of each other, remember nut to the front and inside?). Take one and hand fit on the vehicle, hand tightening the supplied nut enough so that it stays in place. Repeat for other side. Recheck that everything will fit together nicely.

I don't think it matters which end you do first, although you do need to know the upper nut is torqued to 32 ftlbs and the lower nut to 41 ftlbs according to the FSM. If you removed the two bolts holding the upper nut mounting plate/tang then they get torqued to 49 ftlbs. It's easiest if you can get the flats of the endlink stud in a convenient orientation for your crescent wrench. I found you could use the socket to rotate the flats until the wrench fit nicely. Torque to spec. When done, things should look a little like (driver side)




Hope that helps someone!

If you look closely at the stock Nissan sway bar, and the Racingline bar, they are built alike. The Stillen is "new and improved".

Here is why the Stillen bar is different: From Stillen's webpage...

Due to poor design many Nissan Altima owners have found themselves needing to replace their factory sway bar. After a close examination, the STILLEN R&D team learned why - the design of the sway bar is not allowing the suspension to twist the sway bar. Instead, the suspension compresses the bar up into the wheel well. This is causing the sway bar to bend in the middle rather than twist as it should. After seeing this, the STILLEN R&D team quickly began making prototypes until we got the perfect design that applies torsional load from the suspension travel to the center of the sway bar in a twisting fashion as it should.

This is the reason the Racingline bar broke, where it broke.

d0ugmac1 said:

So....been doing a little digging...I think the 'custom Stillen' rear sway endlinks are actually just stock 350/370/G35/M35 rear endlinks. Anyone have one handy they can measure? Looking for centre to centre distance of the two balljoints (within 1/4" accuracy is fine!)

EDIT: called Moog...very helpful people tech desk 18003258886 option 2 for suspension...given as 4.31" ctr-ctr

EDIT2: Winner Winner! Just measured the Stillen supplied links and they match! So Moog K750044 will work as replacement/upgrades to their part.

Click to expand...

Sorry to revive a dead thread, but I needed to replace the Stillen rear sway bar end links after I brought in my Altima to have it aligned, only for the tech to discover my rear end links are broken at the bolts on each side of the sway bar. The sway bar itself is still good, but the end links need to be replaced.

I bought this very rear sway bar and end links when it first came out a few years ago, and it's been great! Although last year, I started to notice my handling was off. At first, I thought it was my tires, only to discover that the rear ones have cupped very badly, on both sides. My thought was that my alignment was off, plus, those tires were at the end of their life, and were shitty Fuzion tires to begin with. Swapped out my summer set to my winter set, got an alignment, and carried on with my life. That was last November 2017.

Fast forward to the last two weeks, purchased new tires, and was wanting to get an alignment again, because new tires.

I tried to go through Stillen to see if they can send me replacement end links, but I couldn't get a response from them back, which was weird.

Then I found this thread, and you pretty much saved my bacon!

RockAuto and Moog, saves again!

Thank you!!

I've got the Stillen bar on order for my '07 Altima 3.5 SE 6-speed (the last year for the V6 / manual trans combo). I snapped the OEM bar at around 200K, and it broke right where other blogs said it would - right at the mounting bushing. I just removed (and kept) the offending pieces, and noticed that there was a crack at the same point on the other side. It definitely was bending, not twisting as it should. Now at 280K I'm replacing some worn out parts for the first time (it hadn't cost me anything previously, just oil, gas, rubber). After deciding to keep the car as a 2nd driver, it's getting new springs, shocks, front control arms (the car is otherwise still mint - no rust yet).

Looking at the picture of the end links, the Stillen ones are likely stronger (even though thinner) as they look to be welded steel, whereas the Moog one looks like cast iron or pot metal. I'd stick with the Stillen end links.