Heirsh

Calvaire,

/shrug

We all have our opinions.

Put a string between the towers with a loose knot in it. You might be surprised at how much it will loosen after you go through a couple hard corners. Then again, maybe your car is just a lot stiffer than mine.

Don I'll send you a pm.

Calvaire

I know it will loosen but I still insist it has no advantages/benefits.. anyway it's just a technical consideration.

good luck!

MarkD

My understanding (based on reading and looking at the construction of numerous braces) was that the brace is effective under tension, not compression... and in cornering... that is how the manufacturers advertise them.
Interesting.

Calvaire

laterally it has no effect since the lower frame ( lower part of the drivetrain, susp, ecc) and the top mounting have relative movement one another when cornering . Opposite under braking the top tend to close and the lower to open. strut braces (they exist also for lower frame) stop this movements. on topof that braking forces cause much higher stresses to the chassis that lateral acceleration.

MarkD

Calvaire, I see your point and it makes sense.
So, are all of the strut brace mfg. wrong? Wouldn't be the first time promises were made to sell a product....
Perhaps the lateral movement in cornering is not equal?

Real life experience for me: In a Cab it made a noticeable diff. in corners.

Calvaire

mfg?? why wrong? sorry but I can't understand. can you rephrase? thx

MarkD

Sorry that wasn't clear. I was trying to say that every strut brace manufacturer states that these braces improve cornering.
See Pelican's listings: http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/..._pg2.htm#item6

example from Rennline's product description: "These braces bridge both shock towers, eliminating virtually all camber change that occurs during hard cornering."

Calvaire

in my opinion it can't prevent camber changes that much. maybe it reduces the relative movement of the top mounts, but they will always change the angle. I'm confident to say that this is a second minor effect whereas the main purpose of the brace is under braking.

Camber changes are better managed by setting suspensions and anti-rollbars to thier best.

Heirsh

If you consider the outside tire in a corner.

The tire/wheel combination has a force placed at the contact area with the pavement. This force translates to bending through the axle (also an axial load, but thats irrelevant to my argument). The suspension is forced to equalize this in that the lower frame pushes out from the car and the top frame pulls in. The lower frame is stiffer (via inspection, it has semi-solid structure across the car) thus the top is going to move more than the bottom (The geometry dimensions are also important here to get magnitudes, but hopefully you get my point). But since they are moving in different directions any movement at all changes your camber. This seems a simple statics problem to me, but I'm frequently wrong, so if I am looking at it wrong, please enlighten me.

So assuming my basic statics setup is correct, I don't see your point, or perhaps I just didn't follow what you were saying.

Calvaire

I think is the other way. when cornering, if you consider the lower part, a force is applied towards the inside of the corner and the top tends to move outside. But this relative movement is "free" . take free as that the resistance made by the chassis and the strut itself is not enough to freeze the movement between the top and the bottom.
It is true though that there is a certain amount of camber change but I still think that a strut brace won't help that much. Even fitting the brace would allow this relative movement (maybe a little less) of the upper and lower parts. Infact both top mountings tend to move ouside and the lower part with the inward force to the opposite.

theoretically the solution for keeping the chassis straight would be fitting a cross brace ( X ) .