peter y.s pang

Did 993 which manufacture from 1996 onward still need to install the steering rack brace when using 18 inch wheel ?

IXLR8

Attached is a Porsche Technical Bulletin on the subject.

geordie

Available here:

http://rothsport-racing.com/Products...Rack-Brace.htm

Al Z

You can also get it from sunset porsche for around 48 bucks

pp000830

Seems like one could be made DIY from a $2 bar stock and some spacers from Home Depot.

chaoscreature

You can definitely make these if you want. If you do make your own the dimensions from hole to hole are 10.04" or 255mm. You will need to relieve the brace to clear the brake booster and the brake lines.
I also sell a billet aluminum rack brace for $57 which is a little beefier than the OEM ones.
PM me if you want a mount or some help fabbing up your own.

peter y.s pang

Hi Chaoscreature, send you PM, Please check.

bosoxfan

What does the installation of this result in? Better steering feedback? Response?

RocketJohn

Keeping an unbraced rack from leaking due to more forces than designed for tweaking it out of alignment.

pp000830

Interesting. The rack really just floats in the rubber bushings so making the metal u clamp attachments incrementally stiffer seems to be meaningless for positioning purposes. I really don't see a clear purpose for the brace as it just seems to lock the front side of the u-clamps to each other at the point where the cap screw heads clamp down on the u-joints. These sides of the u-clamps already come into contact with a frame part that would seem to lock them into position rather well. It seems to me that the clamp's rubber bushing has a lot more flex than the metal clamp anyway. Maybe the brace solves a clamp twisting problem although I am not sure what force would be great enough to cause this. Or it may simply be an added measure as the bolts are not torqued down tightly enough for a positive clamp load connection.
The bolts have thread locker on them that would not be necessary if they were torqued into a clamp load within their elastic range. I suspect if they were torqued into their range they would strip out the threaded frame member they screw into.
Andy

chaoscreature

I too have pondered the what the true intent of the rack brace is. The bottom line is Porsche in their use of hindsight engineering made the decision that the rack brace is necessary.
My intuition is that the two rack brace cradles are essentially cantilevers. Adding the brace ties the two cantilevers together boxing the system in and helps distribute forces.
I have never heard of a broken rack mount, with or without the brace but Porsche must have had a legitimate reason, Mfg's don't publish TSB's without putting some thought into it.

IainM

I, too, was considering this when I looked at my rack this weekend. '95 993 with 18" wheels, 75Kmiles, no brace:

bcameron59

Uh oh. It should look like this (but preferably cleaner):

IXLR8

If I saw a pic of the mounting points with the rack removed, it might be easier to understand. Does anyone have a pic?

With the brace in place, there might be less chance of "flexing" at the fastener mounting points during side loads.

993Porsche

Would the brace have prevented that? Just asking. What's the real purpose of the brace anyway?

Ken