Choosing body braces.

[Sam-Q]

1- pan-hard thing: complete waste of time

2- rear one: useless
2- rear top mounts? can't imagne that doing much, anyone elses thoughts?

3- looks really nice but how to you adjust the length?

[assassin10000]

^ pretty much what sam said.

1. useless (with that design/materials) but a proper panhard reinforcement can be of help on a car seeing significant side loads w/race tires.
2. upper piece is useless (across the bolts for the rear seat belts)
3. meh, hinged again. Or did you mean the 'shakkito'/shoulder plate things? If so those aren't worth a crap (if single layer/bolt in type).

Andrew

[ke_70]

adjust length? they're fixed and welded in.

yeah the sholder plates.

theres a hot version or ae86 club vid of testing those sholder plates. they seemed to really like them i think.

[Sam-Q]

ok I am confused what both you guys are talking about in regard to that strut brace. I don't have a problem with it having a pivot but it needs a length adjuster.

I can't see any pan-hard mount support helping. That area is so tough unless it's rested out I can't see how any bolt on part could help. Happy to be shown otherwise

[ke_70]

how's that?



edit. some people think the length adjuster on the strut braces weaken them. i can see how they'd help though.

[Sam-Q]

hahha I didn't even notice!!

no idea on how well they work

[assassin10000]

Really? I can't stand strut braces with pivots. Adjusters even more so (if made well it doesn't need them). IIRC The strut towers when not tied together can move 'up' independently under load in a corner and when it does so it will deflect in/out(L/R) to a much more minor degree. With the pivot it removes some of the in/out, and in doing so starts to limit the upwards movement under load, but because of the pivot as it limits it also pulls the opposite tower inwards. The a solid strut brace prevents both the in/out movement AND the upwards movement, some what like an anti-roll/'sway' bar reacts to the control arms. A lot of people (myself included at one point) forget or don't know/realize that the forces acting on the strut towers are of the vertical variety for the most part.

At least, thats my understanding of it.


I'm not 100% sure, but I think the N2 ae86's in japan started with the reinforcing of the panhard mount. It maybe they were tearing them on race tires when contacting the rumble strips or they were actually seeing unwanted deflection when racing. I'm not sure, and I don't have any really good sources of info on it. But I have seen that area fold/break on several cars that have slid into curbs without as much force as others thought it would take.

Andrew

[ke_70]

by solid strut brace do you mean eddie spec pipe welded to the firewall from the tower?

could you just weld the pivot?

[assassin10000]

I meant like the Carbing or Ueo style ones. No pivots or adjustments. A welded one would also work, but may interfere with working on your engine .

Andrew

[ke_70]