Mazda Protege 5 Track car project : Jzilla Automotive Ironman at Atlanta Motorsports park

Back in 2019 I installed the Racing Beat Rear Swaybar on the P5.  It dramatically increased the amount of rotation the car had in initial turn in.  Which lead to me spinning at Road Atlanta at Turn 1.  At the time I dont think I was ready to deal with it.  Fast forward now, I was advised by someone that ” I cant continue to hold the car back ”   Its been 2 years and I have learned alot about the car on track.  So I decided to go with the Progress 23mm rear sway bar.  

The stock Protege 5 rear sway bar is 21.5MM, so the extra 2mm is a great upgrade.  

The install is pretty straight forward and simple.  It does take a little bit of effort to get the mounts into the subframe.  But fitment is perfect..  

While installing the rear sway bar, I saw brake fluid leaking from my passenger rear caliper.  I tried to reseal it, but it had seized, and would not slide back in place.  So I did have to replace my freshly powder coated caliper with a new one.  I was just happy that I was able to catch it…

Back out at Atlanta Motorsports Park in the Protege was a much different experience with the Progress rear sway bar. In the first 2 sessions the car rotated much more. After the second session I made some adjustments to the rear coilovers, and reduced my air pressure. The more I threw at the car the better it seemed to behave, and it almost felt like we were dancing at times. The Falken RT660s were consistent all day, in the video you can hear the tires talking, but it was very predictable. I was able to put down a personal best of 1:41.2 this go round. The car was perfect at AMP, and it gave me great confidence to see how the car handles Road Atlanta with the rear swaybar..