New to this side of the board and I have a question
10-31-2003, 02:09 PM
#1
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New to this side of the board and I have a question
Hi,
I'm new to this area of the board because I sold my 1980 930 2 years ago. As luck would have it i just bought it back and love it. Take my advise, never sell your turbo. You will regret it forever.
I am one of the owners of KLA Industries and am just wondering why our 911/930/993 strut tower braces don't seem to be of interest to the 911 guys? We sell lot's of 944/944s/944s2/968 bars and tohes guys love the. Can someone fill me in on the scoop so we can try and meet your desires?
Ken
I'm new to this area of the board because I sold my 1980 930 2 years ago. As luck would have it i just bought it back and love it. Take my advise, never sell your turbo. You will regret it forever.
I am one of the owners of KLA Industries and am just wondering why our 911/930/993 strut tower braces don't seem to be of interest to the 911 guys? We sell lot's of 944/944s/944s2/968 bars and tohes guys love the. Can someone fill me in on the scoop so we can try and meet your desires?
Ken
10-31-2003, 06:13 PM
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In this market for sure but $130 does seem a little cheap since everything is so expensive. I paid $240 for the Kokeln front strut brace and it's really nice but again too much $$$.
10-31-2003, 11:27 PM
#5
Burning Brakes
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I'll chime -
I bought my 911 Weltmeister brace from Perf Prods because they were having a 20% sale. I think I paid $200.00.
The reason I didn't buy from KLA is I had never heard of you guys. I found your link while looking for stuff for my 951. Your items look to very well made and a bargain. You'll be hearing from me.
BTW, I think the white 930s look great. The first 930 I ever saw was white with full red leather and it seared in to my brain. I have never another seen one since. Still my favorite color combo.
Welcome back.
I bought my 911 Weltmeister brace from Perf Prods because they were having a 20% sale. I think I paid $200.00.
The reason I didn't buy from KLA is I had never heard of you guys. I found your link while looking for stuff for my 951. Your items look to very well made and a bargain. You'll be hearing from me.
BTW, I think the white 930s look great. The first 930 I ever saw was white with full red leather and it seared in to my brain. I have never another seen one since. Still my favorite color combo.
Welcome back.
11-03-2003, 10:04 AM
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11-03-2003, 11:14 AM
#8
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I’m sorry for the delay in replying but went to a PCA event in Springfield, MO. This weekend. Great event.
I had some good questions about our bar on the 911 board so I thought I would post the information here also.
When I designed the bar I took all the loads on the strut towers into account. I would like to address each of the components separately. The flexing and the resultant stress loads on the shock towers are a function of the ultimate side loading on the tires before they break loose and how that stress is placed into the shock tower. I took into account the geometry of the front end and the bending moment of the tower and determined the expected tension on the bar, joints, ends and the hardware.
The center bar and end joints are not in a shear load. As the shock towers try to flex in and out the joints and bar are in either tension or compression. I have selected the material and thread design that will have an ultimate tensile strength that is over 20,000 psi or 20 ksi using the SI unit of measure. This is many times the maximum tensile load that the tires can exert onto the towers.
The mounting plate was designed to also carry many times the calculated stress. If you look at the design, the mount base it is designed capture two (2) of the three (3) upper strut bolts. It is not holding the strut in any way so no damage will occur to the strut top. The material that I selected for these parts has very good shear and tensile strength characteristics. When calculating the shear strength of this part, the rod, rod ends and mounting base shear and tensile strength far exceeds the strength needed to maintain the front-end geometry of the car without failure. According to the United States Steel Corporation (USS) Handbook Of Plate Products, the material we selected has an ultimate strength if 24,000 PSI or 24 KSI using the SI measure. The smallest area of material under load is approximately ½ resulting in that area maintaining a minimum of 12,000 pounds of ultimate strength. The material is also very ductile and therefore not susceptible to vibration cracking.
The last area of consideration was the selection of 3/8 grade 8 bolts. The bolt is the smallest part that is in shear loading. In reviewing the ASTM table for grade 8 bolts, the 3/8 bolts have a body shear strength of 9,940 Pound Feet (lbf) of strength. The threads are not in shear so their strength was not calculated.
The next question was why don’t we triangulate the brace. Well if you look at the design of the strut towers, they have additional beef to help prevent the towers from flexing during hard cornering. I know it might sound simplistic but all a strut brace is designed to do is to prevent the tower that is on the outside of the turn from flexing out. When hard cornering the car rotates (shifts weight) primarily to the front tire on the outside of the turn. This applies forces into the outer strut tower creating a bending moment that can cause the tower to flex outward. In this situation the front tire on the inside of the turn is lightly stressed. Even with a good sway bar the car rotation still applies most of the force into the outer tire. The strut tower brace is simply a mechanical tie between the two tower that will transfer the load that the outer tower cannot carry (without flexing) to the inside tower. The combined strength of the two towers can carry the load for most cars.
With all the technical jargon over let’s talk some logic. If triangulation is needed then you can run a simple test. If the car were actually flexing both towers in a trapezoid then the gaps on the hood would show it. In a hard turn the gap on the outside of the turn would get bigger and the gap on the inside of the turn would get smaller. I have driven my 930 for 5 years before I sold it. I ran autocross, DE and high speed touring at Hallett Motor speedway. In all of the track time I ran I never found the need for a triangulated brace. The tires adhesion give up well before the towers (if tied together) flexed. I agree with Elephant racing though, if you are going to full race prep a car and run oversize slick tires on a track then triangulation is needed. For the rest of us (in my opinion) it is overkill and is not needed.
Lastly, our bar is also less that 3 pounds.
I hope this helps.
Ken
I had some good questions about our bar on the 911 board so I thought I would post the information here also.
When I designed the bar I took all the loads on the strut towers into account. I would like to address each of the components separately. The flexing and the resultant stress loads on the shock towers are a function of the ultimate side loading on the tires before they break loose and how that stress is placed into the shock tower. I took into account the geometry of the front end and the bending moment of the tower and determined the expected tension on the bar, joints, ends and the hardware.
The center bar and end joints are not in a shear load. As the shock towers try to flex in and out the joints and bar are in either tension or compression. I have selected the material and thread design that will have an ultimate tensile strength that is over 20,000 psi or 20 ksi using the SI unit of measure. This is many times the maximum tensile load that the tires can exert onto the towers.
The mounting plate was designed to also carry many times the calculated stress. If you look at the design, the mount base it is designed capture two (2) of the three (3) upper strut bolts. It is not holding the strut in any way so no damage will occur to the strut top. The material that I selected for these parts has very good shear and tensile strength characteristics. When calculating the shear strength of this part, the rod, rod ends and mounting base shear and tensile strength far exceeds the strength needed to maintain the front-end geometry of the car without failure. According to the United States Steel Corporation (USS) Handbook Of Plate Products, the material we selected has an ultimate strength if 24,000 PSI or 24 KSI using the SI measure. The smallest area of material under load is approximately ½ resulting in that area maintaining a minimum of 12,000 pounds of ultimate strength. The material is also very ductile and therefore not susceptible to vibration cracking.
The last area of consideration was the selection of 3/8 grade 8 bolts. The bolt is the smallest part that is in shear loading. In reviewing the ASTM table for grade 8 bolts, the 3/8 bolts have a body shear strength of 9,940 Pound Feet (lbf) of strength. The threads are not in shear so their strength was not calculated.
The next question was why don’t we triangulate the brace. Well if you look at the design of the strut towers, they have additional beef to help prevent the towers from flexing during hard cornering. I know it might sound simplistic but all a strut brace is designed to do is to prevent the tower that is on the outside of the turn from flexing out. When hard cornering the car rotates (shifts weight) primarily to the front tire on the outside of the turn. This applies forces into the outer strut tower creating a bending moment that can cause the tower to flex outward. In this situation the front tire on the inside of the turn is lightly stressed. Even with a good sway bar the car rotation still applies most of the force into the outer tire. The strut tower brace is simply a mechanical tie between the two tower that will transfer the load that the outer tower cannot carry (without flexing) to the inside tower. The combined strength of the two towers can carry the load for most cars.
With all the technical jargon over let’s talk some logic. If triangulation is needed then you can run a simple test. If the car were actually flexing both towers in a trapezoid then the gaps on the hood would show it. In a hard turn the gap on the outside of the turn would get bigger and the gap on the inside of the turn would get smaller. I have driven my 930 for 5 years before I sold it. I ran autocross, DE and high speed touring at Hallett Motor speedway. In all of the track time I ran I never found the need for a triangulated brace. The tires adhesion give up well before the towers (if tied together) flexed. I agree with Elephant racing though, if you are going to full race prep a car and run oversize slick tires on a track then triangulation is needed. For the rest of us (in my opinion) it is overkill and is not needed.
Lastly, our bar is also less that 3 pounds.
I hope this helps.
Ken
11-04-2003, 08:50 AM
#12
Former Sponsor
Originally posted by Ken From KLA Industries
Our sales guy hasn't been doing his job. The link is WWW.KLAIndustries.net.
Our sales guy hasn't been doing his job. The link is WWW.KLAIndustries.net.
Excuse me.....allow me to do my job.
We're celebrating our first anniversay with an Anniversary/Christmas sale. Everything we have is 20% off thru the end of the year. As Ken said, just because our prices are lower doesn't mean our quality is less, it just makes everyone else more expensive.