Dougs951S

HUGE shout out to fellow lister and good friend of mine Cale Babarovich! He built me an awesome strut bar custom fit to my car. The ends are forged and zinc plated, and the center is a whopping 1-1/4 inch diameter. The nuts are tig welded and all the parts were CNC plasma cut and designed by Cale. This bar has to be seen in person to appreciate just how massive it is. We had to do some light grinding on the bar as well as massaging to the AC lines and the master cylinder heat shield to make it fit. I believe it is the largest, sturdiest strut bar one could possibly put into our cars with the stock hood and intake. You can tell from the look of the bar we had to cut and weld on it several times and then reprime it, hence the mad max style finish on it. I like the worn torn look personally, gives it character.

Now on to my impression of it...WOW! This made more of a difference before/after than going from stock springs to coilovers. It was a more dramatic difference in the character of the car than going from a k26/6 to a k27/8. We were both surprised but agree it might just be the single best mod I've done to the car yet. The steering feels incredibly sharp and nimble now, the car handles dead flat and I can't get it to step out if I tried. That means I am getting substantially more grip in the front end now. We took the car on a "Very" spirited run after the install and we were both floored by what a significant change it made to the handling. It also added a fair bit of harshness to the car in terms of vibration, but it is felt all through the car now and is definitely a consequence of the much stiffer chassis. Its hardly noticeable at idle or when cruising, and is worst between 1500-2300 rpm. I think it is some sort of harmonic from the suspension oscillating that is now being transferred to the chassis. Tripled checked everything and the brace is not contacting anything anywhere, and the car feels great so I'm definitely willing to live with a little more NVH in exchange. It never seems to work when I insert images into posts so I am going to link them instead. A few shots of the bar installed...

http://postimg.org/image/c8ebssog5/
http://postimg.org/image/lykrp3fuv/

Pay no mind to my extremely dirty engine bay, I know its a mess but you guys finally get to see a few shots of my car.

Thanks again Cale for an outstanding job! You WAY exceeded my expectations for this piece and I'm pretty sure you exceeded your own as well. Cheers mate!

Voith

Looks nice, but that thing must weight a ton..

Dougs951S

not really, and it has a wall thickness of probably 3/32 so its really maybe ~5 lbs heavier at most compared to your typical steel strut brace of ~3/4 inch diameter, and its definitely stiffer. The whole middle bar with the forged ends is probably less than 10 lbs. Hopefully Cale will see this thread and he can chime in on it since its his design.

admiralkhole

I really doesn't weigh that much, definitely under 10lbs, probably more like 5. I built one for my car too...check out my build thread for it...installed picture on page 2 also.

Strut bar build

Thanks for the props Doug!

lart951

In reality it doesn't need it to be super strong

admiralkhole

I know, but these materials were available to me for free...and I'd rather something be overkill than guess work. Believe me, I would have liked to make aluminum ones and be able to work a lot longer on them but this was done in a tight time frame with limited supplies. I consider this more of a stepping stone in to better future fabrication....it just so happens that it works...really well.

Black51

Holy crap that's a messy engine bay!! I mean... nice strut brace!

EDIT: Is that the ISV on top of your intake??! lol

Dougs951S

lol thanks! It wasn't always that messy, that mess is mostly from fire damage that was hastily repaired to make the car driveable but not exactly pretty. Its actually not as bad as it looks, its just the vac lines need to be rerouted and shortened to take out all the slack and the wiring needs to be cleaned up. I rock my ISV on the outside because I'm a man and I have no shame! Let that hang out

s14kev

You had an engine bay fire and went back to using f.i. hose clamps on the fuel lines? I guess thats why they call it natural selection

Black51

Jerry! Jerry!...

Black51

lol, talk about getting 'flamed' pretty hard...

Dougs951S

Nice try, I had an engine bay fire because my 25+ year old stock swagged fuel lines broke and spilled fuel onto a glowing header. I am now running E-85 rated fuel lines sitting on the factory barbed fittings, double clamped on each end with 200 psi rated FI clamps. My setup is safer than tons of guys still running the factory setup. Just because it isnt braided stainless doesnt make it unsafe. My friend who engineers hydraulics systems for a living looked at it and he approved as well. He aught to, since FI clamped fuel lines on barb fittings are OEM on tons of applications, especially on older vehicles. Even Porsche used them, go look at a fuel injected 914. They also used clamps on the fuel injector bodies and the fuel rail! I also check those lines constantly, but thanks for looking out.

On a serious note, thanks Black51 for motivating me to go out today and tidy up my engine bay. I rerouted everything and hid it all, and it looks 10x cleaner. Probably would not have bothered without the gentle ribbing

blade7

Yep and I'd expect stiffening the front end without doing the same at the rear would promote understeer, unless the car was inclined to oversteer before.

admiralkhole

I'm sure he will chime in with his full suspension detail, but he pushed the car pretty hard and it remained neutral, plenty of grip all around. Stuck well in the corners and stayed flat all the way through without any hint of slipping.

Dougs951S

I didn't take a car with a stock suspension and decide to toss a massive strut brace on it. The car is reasonably stiff for a street car as it is. 300lb springs up front, m030 sways, 28mm Tbars, and the car rides as low as I feel comfortable putting a street car. 225 sticky tires all around. The car tended to oversteer before and now with the bar its completely neutral. I'm very happy with it.