2nd Gen Tacoma Hellwig Rear Sway Bar install

I decided to buy the Hellwig rear sway bar for 2nd gen trucks. @Torspd made a good point to take some pictures, so I did. This isn't a real review, and its not really a full tutorial either, just a general overview of the install since I wasn't able to find anything similar when looking into reviews of this bar for our trucks.

The bar cost me $240 shipped to my door, and the kit seems to of good quality.


According to the literature it is a 3/4"s bar that feels to be solid. (as opposed to hollow)

I went ahead and laid all the hardware out in order to figure out what needed to go with what and how many. Its worth noting that the U-bolts are double nutted, normal nut first then a lock nut on top of that.

This is where I drilled a 1/2" hole for the largest bolts the kit came with. I measured about 2" in from the center of one of the rivets holding the rear X-brace, as that is what Hellwig seemed to do.

(Same thing on passenger side)


Here you can see the larger 9/16" hardware holding one of the mounts loosely in place
(Same thing again on the passenger side)

Next I lubed and installed the sway bar bushings onto the bar itself along with the mounting brackets.

This next part was tricky since you really need 4 hands to hold the thing up to the axle.

After the bar was mounted I moved onto the end links.

The kit came with some silicone lube so It was applied to the bushing outer surface and the link's inner diameter.

Here I recommend pushing the lubed side in first, as this forces the grease across the surface of the un-lubricated part due to the conical shape of the bushing.

Here we have the completed links with metal sleeves pressed in.

And here's the final product

A side note. I have a flow master 50 series on this truck (Center in Center out) and I'm not sure if its the reason, but my exhaust came within half a millimeter of the passenger end-link, depending on how the wind blew. So in order to make some clearance I moved the exhaust hangers over and locked them in place with some worm clamps. This seems to work well, but may not be needed on your truck.


I did drive the truck after the install to get a feel for the new sway bar. The best way I can describe it is that the front and rear are much more connected. Pre-sway bar the front to rear response time was, say, 300 milliseconds (hypothetical and probably wrong). Now with the bar its more like 100ms or even less. Basically the rear end tilts over in a turn sooner than before, but with less tilt over all. Like a faster, lesser travel tilt when turning. I ended up installing on the medium setting and this seems fine so far.

TL;DR: Easy install. May have exhaust clearance issues.The sway bar is a definite improvement over stock with tighter handling in turns. I'd say its worth the price at ~$240.

 

Nice write up! I installed the same rear bar in my 2015 and ran into similar clearance issues with the stock exhaust. Hellwig products sometimes lack refinement in my experience.

I addressed it by making my own end links using PTFE-lined rod ends, and mounting to the outside of the bar, straight up into the frame rail:







Coupled with Hellwig's front bar, the truck corners like it's on rails. Of course, this comes at the expense of off road articulation (not an issue for my use case).

 

That's a much nicer solution! care to drop the parts detail on those end links? If not, no worries.

 

The rod end joints are McMaster-Carr # 60745K661. They are alloy steel joints made by FK, rated for over 16,000lbs! The PTFE liner keeps them nice and quiet. I machined the main body of the links from 3/4" aluminum hex bar, tapped each end for the respective threads, and powder coated them. Energy Suspension bushing set # 9.8126G (88A durometer) along with some grade 8 threaded rod + washers top it off.

 

Seems I have an upgrade to make now. Thanks!

 

Sure thing, good luck!

 

Going to be doing this on @Lucario Runner 's soon enough.

This will greatly help. Bravo sir.

 

Now to make a panhard bar.

 

I put the same bar on my 2015 Sport.......no exhaust clearance issues, stock exhaust.

 

I haven't received mine yet but was planning on powder coating the bar and whatnot. new end links look good. I did think the exhaust might be an issue but a good idea on the spacer. My exhaust is 3in.

 

Does that have a noticeable effect on a leaf spring setup?

 

The springs do sway laterally.

 

It would. For example @Torspd and and myself have a friend with an xrunner and on track days his axle would shift so much laterally that his rear sway bar endlinks made a nice notch on his composite springs.

 

This is true. I even have a video of it, while at the track.

 

Inspired by OP, @Brice and @matt2491, Installed Hellwig rear sway bar and went for a 100-mile drive today. It corners like it’s on rails, and definitely one of my favorite mods!

 

Looks awesome Matt! Interested in making these for others??

 

Unfortunately, I don't think I could make them for a price that would be worth it for either of us. They would cost more than the swaybar!

 

I have a Hellwig rear sway as well but it's non-adjustable and the hardware isn't nearly as nice as what the OP has in his kit. Looks like they've upgraded the mountings, made it more flexible and robust.

 

Where did you pick this up from for $240

 

Amazon.