chassis bracing interest

[oscar]

the moment the front brace was mentioned my first thought was the JDM twingo ''coupes des alpes'' with it's mad underside bracing. that beautiful rare as hell little authentic jap frenchie haunts my dreams

how many of you would be happy with a single straight bar in the mid section which would be cheap as seen in the coupes des alpes? i'm actually away to get a price right now chaps. and then we can start work on the front one?

 

[oscar]

had a discussion with the man in the know, we are going to develop this in two parts beginning with the simplest section first as seen below marked with the green arrow. he suggested that the original idea that i wanted to make was overkill and would entail unnecessary costs for it's application. Tim's got my car currently to take measurements for the single chassis brace, it will be made of CDA steel and will comply to MSA / FIA spec in regards to the welding and material choice or at least this is what he rambled on about when i mentioned material choice. it will also be supplied with the required bolts and hopefully a sleeve for bolting through the chassis rail. the design is going to be our own interpretation of this, and we will have a finnished product in 2-3 weeks time and not a moment later

i don't know how much postage will be, we can only find out once i take it to the post office wrapped up to ascertain a price. this will be £119.99 unpainted + postage and supplied with the full fitting kit. choosing to do this unpainted because you can take it yourself to be powdercoated / nylon coated for £20-£30

in regards to the front strut brace, i'm going to have one made for the GT models, but i'm going to ask martin (supermrtino1) very very very very very nicely if he wouldn't mind allowing me to use his car for precise measurements for making the 133's front brace or maybe the twins (Twins go)

also discussing a front strut mount, which isn't 'for show' and flexes all over the place which will be significantly cheaper than current options on the market

 

[Matthias]

This is awesome, keep up the good work. Really looking forward to seeing this developed!

 

[oscar]

This is awesome, keep up the good work. Really looking forward to seeing this developed!

thank you matthias, keep an eye out over the coming weeks. the first one starts being made on tuesday of next week (may 13th)

 

[oscar]

There's already a front strut brace for the twingo, look on KTECs site.

i did, and i've seen it in person and managed to flex it with my 2 arms meaning that not only is it over priced, it is actually useless in terms of it's intended application. and that's only an engineering judgement, no personal gripes whatsoever with ktec

 

[Matthias]

No problem, I just really like all this, because suspension and chassis is where my money is going next. Would be really happy if you could make a solid front strut brace for the RS133 as well. Have you seen those GTT ones for Mini's? Those look like some solid piece of equipment. I believe you about the KTec strut brace though, it even looks frail

 

[oscar]

matthias - it's quite funny that you should mention this, that was the idea i wanted to go down for a solid top strut brace! the advantage with that sort of design is that top flex is eliminated. but really quite useless without stiffening the underside of the chassis too ..... but we'll get there eventually

 

[Spitfire1]

There's already a front strut brace for the twingo, look on KTECs site.

i did, and i've seen it in person and managed to flex it with my 2 arms meaning that not only is it over priced, it is actually useless in terms of it's intended application. and that's only an engineering judgement, no personal gripes whatsoever with ktec

Remember a brace works in tension / compression not cross flex (I use to run a Cusco on the front of my MR2, yes it flexed but the towers when corning never moved - I was running Tein Monoflex as well - great bit of kit.), so as long as its holds the two towers level then that's fine, too ridged and you will break something else, you still need a bit of flex in your chassis for the same reason.

What you need is to tie in the front subframe to the body - that's your weak point on the whole of the car, ever tried jacking up the car by the front chassis - just see how much flex you get

Rob.

 

[maggi200]

The Renault wind has some brace on the underside and I seem to recall our Belgium friend telling me it scrapes on the bumps a lot. Ive never actually seen the underside of a wind though to know exactly how It looks

 

[oscar]

tension, compression, lift and twist all seem to be the main forces at work when it comes to the top strut mount. the best type of strut brace will be one that deals with all of the four forces at once. it would need to be CDA or Billet, tackle the four forces and not just the 2. although i suppose tacking 2 is better than tackling none should you really want to turn your car into a something special

cusco are okay i suppose man, i had one on my subaru but it was only the front ... i just bolted a straight bar across the rear and it done the job fine


maggi - yeah it'll be x-braced of sorts, as it's a 'roadster' it'll already have a fair amount of chassis reinforcement as do all 'convertibles' to use the phrase loosely to anything that comes without a roof

 

[maggi200]

My point being, what's the chances of these scraping

 

[oscar]

you mean the first one i'm making up? zero chance of it scraping. this ones for stopping flex (compression and tension) on the rear / mid section of the chassis rail and sits well above the rear beam and below the sump to rear beam axis line. i would hazard a guess that said belgian'shire bracing would only be scraping becauseracecar lowering perhaps?

i'm on coilovers and mines will sit way above the rear beam when the suspension is fully laden

 

[Spitfire1]

This is the underside of my 2 - this was a cross brace made by TTE, really worked very well:

As for the rear top turret brace - C-One with engine damper - the dogs danglers :lol:

 

[oscar]

looks pretty strong that, rob. nice strong triangle shape, was that billet aluminium?

 

[Spitfire1]

My point being, what's the chances of these scraping

I've got a rear anti roll bar fitted to the beam and that's not hit anything so a cross beam as mention above will have no problem, unless your car has been stretched in which case you should avoid level crossings :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Spitfire1]

looks pretty strong that, rob. nice strong triangle shape, was that billet aluminium?

No it was made from steel - needed to be as it's quiet wide, that was the only brace I had fitted as my car was a late 2004 with the most up-graded standard bracing fitted, it removed the scuttle shake you got if going over bumps.

 

[Spitfire1]

As for the front top strut, I've been looking at this from K-tec, https://www.k-tecracing.com/show_product.asp?id=4932&catid=&appid=2&pic=3 not sure how much wider the Clio is though, but I have already got the K-Tec top mounts fitted in the correct orientation.

 

[oscar]

had a discussion with the man in the know, we are going to develop this in two parts beginning with the simplest section first as seen below marked with the green arrow. he suggested that the original idea that i wanted to make was overkill and would entail unnecessary costs for it's application. Tim's got my car currently to take measurements for the single chassis brace, it will be made of CDS steel and will comply to MSA / FIA spec in regards to the welding and material choice or at least this is what he rambled on about when i mentioned material choice. it will also be supplied with the required bolts and hopefully a sleeve for bolting through the chassis rail. the design is going to be our own interpretation of this, and we will have a finnished product in 2-3 weeks time and not a moment later

i don't know how much postage will be, we can only find out once i take it to the post office wrapped up to ascertain a price. this will be £119.99 unpainted + postage and supplied with the full fitting kit. choosing to do this unpainted because you can take it yourself to be powdercoated / nylon coated for £20-£30

in regards to the front strut brace, i'm going to have one made for the GT models, but i'm going to ask martin (supermrtino1) very very very very very nicely if he wouldn't mind allowing me to use his car for precise measurements for making the 133's front brace or maybe the twins (Twins go)

also discussing a front strut mount, which isn't 'for show' and flexes all over the place which will be significantly cheaper than current options on the market

thought i'd bring this back to the front of the Q for anyone who doesn't fancy getting lost in the sea of myself and rob slevering on about strut braces! (ps - rob, i'm confident that'll fit. if not, cut and extend or shorten > weld. bingo! but i may or may not have a lovely solid one available for much the same price )

 

[Spitfire1]

thought i'd bring this back to the front of the Q for anyone who doesn't fancy getting lost in the sea of myself and rob slevering on about strut braces! (ps - rob, i'm confident that'll fit. if not, cut and extend or shorten > weld. bingo! but i may or may not have a lovely solid one available for much the same price )

Yes only right to do so.

I'll ring K-Tec to see if I can get a measurement. :lol: :lol:

 

[Matthias]

Exciting! Don't forget about the 133 owners as well, would love to see these underbraces - strutbraces for GT and RS models But above all, take your time and develop something good and something that will perform well, I'm willing to pay for that kind of thing Keep up the good work!