anyone have any pros and cons about both of these, im considering getting them, because i see alot of cars have htem so they must help the car out, and it makes sence that they would. But since ive no personal experiance with them, i am comming to you for your input

 

i built my own torque brace from a hatch strut.

keeps the engine from moving around in the engine compartment during power engagement/disingagement.

if anything it prevents miss-shifts.


as for the strut braces..i plan to get them. if you look at the RX-7, it's front struts are mounted a good ways away from the firewall, so they don't have a lot of rigidity due to the wide open engine bay. also...being a fastback instead of a coupe, our cars naturally have less rigidity in the back..

so i suggest all types of bracing

 

i do want a torque brace.

 

Who makes the torque brace?

 

You can make a torque brace out of cable. peejay has done it. I've got some spare cable and a couple U clamps. I think I'll try it after my engine is in.

 

racing beat has one for 64 bucks

 

Only con is that you'll get a bit more noise (at least with the Racing Beat setup) and some vibration...the exact amount depending on how much you tighten the rubber busings. Once you drive with it, you'll wonder how you ever drove without it!! The drivetrain will seem a lot more "tight". The annoying shuddering you get off-throttle will disappear. I had one on my turbo II and would strongly recommend it.

 

BTW, there's an excellent write-up on Dave Gibson's site for the install of the RB torque brace. It applies to the 2nd gen cars but I beleive the 1st gen torque brace is very similar.

http://www.fc3s.org/how_tos/suspensi...ine_brace.html

 

I show this picture every once in awhile, so I hope you guys aren't getting tired of it, but here's my engine bay with the RB strut tower brace installed:



You can see from the image that the triangulated design of the RB part helps to keep the strut towers stiffened against the firewall, which I think makes a significant difference in overall handling improvement. The strut rods that you see on a lot of cars definitely helps when cornering, but if you can triangulate this against something even more solid, it gives it that much more torsional rigidity.

As a testimony to the strut brace idea, about 2 weeks after installing mine, the driver's side strut tower mount (rubber pillow mount) blew through the rubber donut, so I ended up with the strut cartridge rod sticking out from the hole, straight up through the cutout in the brace, and banging against the underside of my hood. I'm convinced this is due to the additional stress that the brace was applying during cornering - instead of allowing the flex to absorb the bumps, the brace forced the strut mounts to take the shock, and they just were too worn out to take the punishment.

I'm a big believer. Rear mounts are a harder sell for me, though - I think the rear of the car is already strong enough, since you have the center pan that covers the rear end along with the spare tire well, which all adds structural rigidity. The problem with the front is the big hole that you have to have to mount an engine. HTH,

 

I made myself a peejay style engine torque brace just the other week. Only cost about $20 to put it together, works awesome.

Benefits that I felt:

Crisper initial response from the pedal

3rd gear stays in pretty much the same spot

Engine can coast down further without bucking


I'll post a pic as soon as I resize it.

 

Note: The bolt on top of the tensioner is not the one holding the strut. The strut bolt fit inside the loop, that's another strut bolt form the spare pile, with a washer that doubles as an adjustable flat head screwdriver underneath, NIFTY. Hahaha, I'll probably never use it but it was the right size so on she went.

 

Uh, if I was you I would remove that right now. Don't ever apply stress to the rotor housings. They are soft aluminum and will warp and break easily.

You are much better off installing it on one of the iron plates.

 

I would never have thought of that. Guess I'll make a longer cable, hmmm I think I have enough cable left over to make it too. Sweet. Sigh.

 

I was thinking of making one out of an old sway bar end link (with bushings) and some angle iron. Bolt one piece of the angle iron to the old A/C compressor mount, so it extends high enough above the strut tower. Bolt one end of the sway bar end link to that piece of angle iron. Use another piece of angle iron bolted to the top of the strut tower, then bolt the other end of the end link to that. Thats the way I visualize it, if it makes any sence.

 

here's mine..you can see it tucked below the upper radiator hose.

 

Here is my take on strut bars and torque braces. They are great upgrades for you car. They are cheap and they look cool. About the strut bars they work well because they stiffen and connect the top of the suspension , but the only "bad" thing about this is that any damage/shock/force on one side is going to transfer to the other. With the Torque brace, stay away from the solid ones and go with the ones that have some kind of dampering mechanism. I know this from experience. Me and my friend were looking at his newly purchased (used) FD and thought that the braces were cool. We decided to make one instead of spending a hundred bucks on one. We took a metal pipe flatened the ends and bent them to fit one side to the inner fender wall and the other side to the motor. Fast forward about a year and we ended up with a chunk of metal being ripped off of the inner fender wall. Now that I think about it it might of worked if we placed the engine bay side of the brace somewhere else that had more reenforcement. Just something to think about when you decide to make or purchase any of these products. BTW the engine brace made a huge difference in accelerator response, shifting, and it felt like more power was going to the wheel because of the way it keeps the engine from moving around wasting all that energy.

 

That looks perfect !Can you post some close ups of the connecting points? Please...

 

Don't have any pictures because we did this several years ago before that particular FD ended up in a scrap bin.

 

I may be wrong but is this cable brace on the wrong side of the engine? I thought the top of the engine moves towards the drivers side?

That would put the cable in compression and the brace would be useless???

I need to build one this week so my airfilter won't be hitting the hood scoop on acceleration. I will be using tube but will still like it to be in tension and not compression...

 

Does going to the iron plates work? I was thinking this might cause the plates to flex. Would going to the bellhousing-engine bolts be better?

Totaly unrelated... NanaimoRx-7 why did you ground all your rotor housings together? Should they be or is this just overkill to be sure everything is grounded?

 

rcurrier44, you're wrong. It torques over to the intake/exhaust side of the engine. I had an oil pan that would contact the crossmember because the engine would torque over so far. I needed something on the plug side of the engine to keep it from torquing over.

The cast iron side plates can take more uh pressure than the aluminum rotor housings.

I'd like to electrically connect all of my rotor housings to the alt and the ground strap for better spark plug grounding. I don't really care about grounding the side plates (the rear plate has a water temp sensor in it, but meh).

 

I was having some electrical troubles awhile ago, I remember hearing about making a daisy chain of grounding straps from the alt to each individual housing from Rx7Carl ( I think ) It's something that cost less that $10 to put together, and I really wanted to make sure I was getting good grounds. Turned out that most of my problems was from the ground and power wires running to the starter, completely useless. Thinking about it now, in stock for the rat's nest would do something similar anyways, I think....it's been a long time since I've had one.

 

I'm glad I looked at this post then...it is alot easier for me to mount my brace on the drivers side. Thanks...I know I read the opposite while searching on here a couple of weeks ago, glad to get the correct info.

I know that the cast steel plates are stronger than the aluminum. Imagine having a deck of cards and then fanning them out, thats what I was worried about when attatching to one of the rotor housings. All the aftermarket braces I have seen go to the bell housing bolts and I was wondering if there is anything behind this.

Thats a very good reason to electrically connect the housings together...I think I will do that since I have a bunch of cable sitting around.

 

can someone take some pics of a tribar like the one at cp racing but not like racing beats, i want pics of the kind with bars. I figure why buy for 100 bucks when i can make for 20 so imma make one but i need to see how it mounts everywhere

 

Also I tightened one of the strut nuts really tight, and the whole stud just sheared from the strut..... so I would move it to somewhere else.....



Laters,Andrew