Peter Bull Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 When I posted a bunch of pipes in another thread I got a lot of comments. So I thought I shold post a little update. For some reason or other these things tend to take a little longer than anticipated. Anyway, I have installed the strut brace and it looks like this. Almost all of the bolt in strut braces I have seen are hinged between the bar and the fixtures in the strut towers. I wanted to make the brace as stiff as possible so I chose to use fixed ends in stead. That is not as stiff as a triangulated strut brace, but I wanted a little boot space left. The sway bars are put on hold because I have ordered coil over shocks, and then maybe I have to recalculate the sway bars and make new ones. /Peter
nell Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 Hiya were have you ordered your coil over kit from please...cheers...
Peter Bull Posted September 21, 2006 Author Posted September 21, 2006 I have ordered it from Leda, with a custom valving that a friend of mine has developed and adapted to my car. /Peter
Peter Bull Posted September 22, 2006 Author Posted September 22, 2006 That looks the mutts nuts! Hmm? According to Webster that translates to small dog's balls. Is that good or bad? I'm not that familiar with English expressions. /Peter
Northy Posted September 22, 2006 Posted September 22, 2006 Hmm? According to Webster that translates to small dog's balls. Is that good or bad? I'm not that familiar with English expressions. /Peter Ha ha brilliant. Rest assured Peter, it means it looks good!
Peter Bull Posted September 22, 2006 Author Posted September 22, 2006 In the begining I was very sceptical to the strut brace. In my eyes it looked more show than go in a 911. There is no engine between the strut towers, instead there is quite a lot of sheet metal. A year ago I had a chat with a welder and mechanic who has restored quite a lot of interesting cars. Alfa GTA's is his speciality. He had a close look at the structure and said that he believed that a strut brace would stiffen it quite a lot. So I thought it was worth at try. After a rather enthusiastic test drive today I can't say I am a born again believer. The car does however seem to understeer less when driving very fast in roundabouts. But it could also be that I want it to be better, so the change was not dramatic. /Peter
johndglynn Posted September 22, 2006 Posted September 22, 2006 Did you add any camber Peter, or did you leave the top mounts alone? How is it fixed to the shell - any pics?
Peter Bull Posted September 22, 2006 Author Posted September 22, 2006 Did you add any camber Peter, or did you leave the top mounts alone? How is it fixed to the shell - any pics? I have as much negative camber as is possible without sheet metal surgery. About -1.6 degrees. I used the two rear bolts on each strut tower to fix the bar. I will take a photo this afternoon and post. /Peter
Von Twinzig Posted September 22, 2006 Posted September 22, 2006 Could be a "Tripe" business opportunity here for IB'ers
Guest Peter915 Posted September 22, 2006 Posted September 22, 2006 good one Peter, You have done what I have thought about before - pretty easy really - piece of pipe with a bracket at each end? Good One Dude
Jacob Posted September 22, 2006 Posted September 22, 2006 Hmm? According to Webster that translates to small dog's balls. Is that good or bad? I'm not that familiar with English expressions. /Peter that's funny. how about: verkligen god
Peter Bull Posted September 23, 2006 Author Posted September 23, 2006 Did you add any camber Peter, or did you leave the top mounts alone? How is it fixed to the shell - any pics? Here is a picture of the mount . good one Peter,You have done what I have thought about before - pretty easy really - piece of pipe with a bracket at each end? Good One Dude In principle, yes. It turned out to be a little more difficult than I first thought. In addition to be angled relative to the horizontal plane, the mount ponts are also angled a little like a "V" that points towards the rear. The brackets that I used were a little larger than the pipe so it was just a matter of welding the brackets pointing a little forward. I also had to allow for a little more than 20 mm of travel for the mount screws, otherwise it would be impossible to adjust camber. I have a half finshed Catia model of the strut brace, I just have to add a couple of the features I have mentioned above. If anyone is interested I can post a draft with the necessary measures and angles when I am finished. BTW, does anywone know a relatively simple way to remove the black gunk around the strut mount? /Peter
Peter Bull Posted October 6, 2006 Author Posted October 6, 2006 Now the Catia model is relatively finished and it looks like this. I fixed up the edges of the bracket compared to the strut brace in my car. The dimensions of the strut brace can be found here: And a detail of the bracket is shown here. Remember, though, that the mounting holes are a little (3 mm) off set so the left and right bracket are not similar. The drawing shows the right bracket. The outer mounting hole should be in front of the inner relative to the car. I cannot, and will not, guarantee that it will fit so a test fitting before welding the brackets to the bar is necessary. The drawings are available as pdf too, but Photobucket refuses to accept pdf files. /Peter
Guest Peter915 Posted October 6, 2006 Posted October 6, 2006 Great tihs Peter... top marks. nice CAD work too.. I will keep this one on the back burner, for next year maybe. Well done mate. Pedro.
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