Fender braces- Ultra-racing & Jasma. any good?

[tc-rolla]

- General fender bracing discussion



hey guys was just trowling ebay n that just wondering if anyone has used this "ultra racing" brand bars n that?
same as jasma. i've heard the name thrown round a bit. in particular the pulley kit.

just want to know if its utter shit or not?

cheers guys.

[Andy San]

jasma is a japanese national standard not a brand

while i have not used ultra racing gear n that it looks like all other brace type of stuff and it's not made from toothpicks glued together so it should serve it's (apparently useful) purpose.

there is a thread on this here:
http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/showthread.php/23475-Choosing-body-braces.

[assassin10000]

Ultra Racing? Uhh... not useful. And those that might be seem to be, have crap bracketry where it attatches to the chassis. IMO.

Andrew

[Gunner]

from what I can gather, some one has taken JASMA, and used it as a "company" name, to sell shithouse parts to confused JDM "enthusiasts" on ebay.

http://shop.ebay.com.au/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=jasma&_sacat=See-All-Categories

[mild seven]

lol at the copy logo.... i usually defend chinese products due to the fact i cant stand "JDM faggots" (people outside of japan who are MORE JDM than people in japan) but, well, this is just shit lol.

[Sam-Q]

don't buy anything from that discrace of a company

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/showthread.php/23475

[LittleRedSpirit]

I had the misfortune of a head on accident in a car that was equipped with Ultra racing fender braces. they did a great job of stopping the front end collapsing back. With those and the strut brace, it allowed the towers to stay more or less where they should be, despite having th battery driven into the strut tower so hard that it pancaked the fuse box. I think they did a great job protecting all the nice suspension and steering gear in my car, as well as the engine. I believe they literally saved me thousands of dollars, and what's more, I have thoroughly inspected the fender braces, and they have no damage and still have perfect shape, Ill be fitting them to my next car soon.

Obviously there are some bars that have dubious levels of effectiveness, but I think tarring all bolt in braces with the same negative brush says a lot more about the people saying the negative stuff, than it does the products that are being ripped on.

Once I had the rear 4 pint brace and the fender braces installed, my car as a whole unit flexed a lot less, especially noticeable backing out of the driveway where my car was popping a wheel all of a sudden. I think the majority of these products are worthy of use, especially considering the fact that all bolt in structural reinforcements are legal to do.

Its not like any of the people saying bad stuff about the products have actually bough or owned and used any of the products or furthermore done any scientific testing, for flex or for crash safety.

What harm can it do?

One thing about crashing a car that you may not realise, there are certain areas that will flex or fail upon impact built into the car, so that more impact can be absorbed. Sometimes stiffening things too much in the wrong places can result in more impact being transferred to the driver or the hardware in the car. For example your wheel gets a hit from the side as you spin. If anything the diff and the steel mounts on it are much stronger than whats on the body, so if you go and brace the shit out of all the places the car attaches to the diff control arms, then you risk braking the mounts off the diff and ruining more equipment than you otherwise would have. Whereas normally the floor under the links will twist to accommodate any movement beyond what the bush can allow. This is just a small example anyhow but its not something thats ever considered by people bracing up their cars.

[assassin10000]

Glad yours worked decent then... on the other hand:

http://forums.club4ag.com/zerothread?id=83595&page=2


I bought some ae86 Ultra Racing fender braces on ebay for $2.67 plus shipping to the US.
Utter piece of ...... not even close to fitting, I will have to grind parts of the car down to make it fit.
and at the most important pice of the brace they crush bent the pipe....very easy to bend again. Also the mounting flanges are unsupported. I knew this was going to a project but at this point I would have been better off making my own braces. Unreal.


Same guy, page 3


Ultra racing is retarded though...I literally bent the brace with my knee before I added bracing...to the brace. It bent back of course, I meant I could deflect it with my body weight....in the direction it's supposed to prevent bending =/

[Sam-Q]

hey assassin post a pic of the awesome one you came up with

[ke70dave]

For the amount of cash they charge for those ultra racing brace things....you could do a better job of just welding up a bit of 20mmx20mm SHS......cost you bugger all, for the same, if not better result.

they are definately worth it though to install, but i sure woudlnt be buying them. just make them.

[LittleRedSpirit]

Buy or build choice is more about what your time is worth. If you can make more than the bars cost in 2-3hrs of your job, then you'd be silly to spend 2-3hrs to make them. But yes David I think that DIY is always preferable if you know what you are doing, and yes you could design something really elegant too.

[LittleRedSpirit]

I dont think this person was buying a genuine product by the sounds. Theres a few wierd thing there.

- he paid $2.67, which sounds bogus. He also says he bent it with his knee, which could never happen wih the braces I have, they are light but quite stiff.

Considering he makes it sound like he knows how to fab with this talk of reinforcing them, but then he has a cry about tapping down the one little metal edge thats in the way.

I have serious doubts about the legitimacy of that information. He posted no pics so who kows what hes got/had/done to it.

I have pics of my car...151911519215193

[assassin10000]

hey assassin post a pic of the awesome one you came up with


As requested :)

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/4/0/1/9/50699.jpg

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/4/0/1/9/50835.jpg


Andrew

[LittleRedSpirit]

LOL those are not ultra racing ones now are they.

[assassin10000]

LOL, I was posting those at sams request.

I asked Grant if he had some pics on club4ag.


Looking at your pics, I'd say the lower frame rail had much more to do with how it crumpled without much done to the strut towers/upper area than the UR braces.

Andrew

[LittleRedSpirit]

Yes I know you were, I realise they are not the ones the other guy was talking about, just the laughable example that gets posted as soon as Sam starts this discussion off every 6 months or so.

I'm real keen to see what's happening there with the bloke who said he can bend them by applying his weight. Does he weigh 550kg? Unless all of a sudden Ultra Racing started making absolute crap to save money... Hope he comes through with the pics.

[Sam-Q]

those pics would be good, I will hastle him.

What I don't get with the Ultra-racing one is why they made use of a bent pipe to go from the body end down to the bottom and then weld the other bar to the back of the bend. Now I am unfamilar with the specifics but I do know it's a bad practice to weld to any side of a bent pipe, just look at the trouble the companies go to to avoid this in making the BMX handle-bars. I just can't see why they didn't run a straight pipe to the top hinge mount and then weld the other pipe to the middle of that. Also it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference but they should of also put a gussets in the middle of the L shape brackets.

edit: looking at assassins brace makes me question why the UR one has the bend in the middle at all when it can be at the end? or atleast that's what it looks like from my angle.

[ke_70]

those braces look weak as shit.

its almost as if they've gone out of their way to make them weaker?

these are mine. probley not the best out there though.
http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/dcimages/2/2/1/59949.jpg

Andrew's are sweet. bit thick and heavy for me mabey? could just be the pictures? are they 10mm?

[Sam-Q]

do you have a closer pic for us?

I am going to rename this thread

[ke_70]

na thats all i have i think sam.
if your that interested i could rip a guard off tomorrow?

[Sam-Q]

no way, don't go to such trouble, thanks anyway. Mounting off inside the wheel-well at the front is unusual but you grasped the concept of using straight bars in line with the directions of stress, unlike something else... I at first scratched my head at fender braces but too many people have claimed a big difference in how their car drives. So when I get time I will make my own much like yours above however I will use 32mm 4130 pipe that are a bolt on but on the front end I will weld a solid point in for me to bolt to.

[assassin10000]

Mine are 1.25" x .5" rectangular tube, that's why they look heavy. In reality they're fairly light but still way strong. Yours are definately better than the UR, despite the single mounting point in a somewhat 'odd' position compared to the others out there. The only point I don't like is the bottom arm not reaching closer to the pivot point, as the material you used seems quite a bit weaker than what I did.



The UR is just poor design all around IMO.

Poor bracketry, where it bolts at the 'front' appears to be just a short piece of angle with no reinforcement.
The upper door mount having to unbolt the door completely which leads to realigning the door after install (a PITA for many people who aren't good at it)
The bend in the lower bar/arm which IS the most important 'arm' of the brace. All the forces a fender brace should counter act are in the up/down axis of impact/loading on the chassis/strut tower.
The forward mount being pushed so far to the front of the strut mount unnecessarily, a much weaker placement (think of how a pry/breaker bar works, refer to the ^ sentence above).
And the extra weight/uselessness of the bar between the upper & lower hinge mounts.


The lower arm on my design was pushed as far forward to the strut mounting point as I could get it and have it clear the pinch weld with no issues AND not actually interfere with tire/fenderwell clearance as well. Almost all the load/work is done through the lower bar of the brace, the upper just triangulates and stiffens it even more.

The braces I've been running are also probably why I haven't seen any 'cracking' of the seam sealer on my car despite having spring rates above 6/4.5k F/R, which is commonly seen on unreinforced cars driven on the street (as well as the track).

Andrew

[ke_70]

ha i thought they were solid!! lol

[86coupe]

I installed the UR ones to take some of the load off my chassis rails which were starting to crack. The design is puzzling and they needed some adjustment to make them fit. Also had to cut off the bottom half of the antenna holder as it was in the way. I did think the steering felt a little sharper afterward, but my car had been off the road for months, so I had no immediate comparison.

I like how they bolt on in line with the strut tower brace, but this may be more to do with aesthetics than physics. I'm running track suspension on rough country roads, so I reckon any bracing that helps stop the front end tearing off is beneficial. May go with something custom made next time.