strut bars

a good one can do alot, the pep boys and apc shits suck they flex due to having the bolts they can piviot on
 
I had a cusco strut bar. I had a pilot sport bar. The difference was a sticker that said cusco. A strut bar's a strut bar. get whatever's cheapest.
 
Mine= 23 bucks shipped from ebay...its a peice of metal that connects your strut towers together...ebay ftw in this case.
 
Tonymac said:
I had a cusco strut bar. I had a pilot sport bar. The difference was a sticker that said cusco. A strut bar's a strut bar. get whatever's cheapest.
Click to expand...



Not true by any means. Cusco uses high quality metals which do not stretch, bend or weaken as easily as the materials used in $30 strut tower braces..

Ebay companies use cheap alloys which overtime will weaken. You need to think about how hot your engine compartment gets. that heat over time can and will weaken metal especially on the driver side if your running a Turbo car.

As far as whether or not they actually help. I'd bet a few fingers on it. I drove my car for 9 months without. then put cusco front and rear in and yes I noticed alot of difference both front and rear. The car wanted to oversteer alot easier, and the front was more stable diving into turns.

Any reduction in chasis flex will always be helpful. and if nothing else it helps saves your motor if your in an accident. My strut bar saved my motor when I hit the wall at OSw.
 
Replace it with a Pilot bar and tell me if you notice a difference. I drove for years with Pilot bars, crashed with it (which saved parts of my motor as well), and replaced it on the new car with a Cusco unit. No difference. Same hollow aluminum construction. They weren't the first top dollar strut bars I've owned either - in the past, I've had Spoon Strut bars and Apexi strut bars. They're all the same stuff. I don't have anything now since I have a top mount turbo, but if you really want functionality, use some mild steel and triangulate them to the firewall - bling.
 
I used to use a cusco on my s14 and took it off when i went top mount as well... Really no difference at all imo. I Have a JIC carbon fiber rear stb and megan rear c-pillar bar and it made a very slight difference in the rear of the car but hard to notice. Go cheap or just buy my cuscu bar off me now that it is just sitting in my closet :bigthumbu
 
you wouldn't feed your baby dog food so why skimp on suspension parts???

I'll go with race proven engineering over billy bobs copied and made from crappy materials product any day! But I guess thats just me. I don't skimp in the important areas and chasis rigidness is important to me!! Can't afford a cage yet.

and we may not be able to feel the difference between the 2 but I gurantee there are drivers out there who can.
 
I don't skimp on suspension parts! A strut tower bar's primary purpose is to help strengthen engine bays which are inherently prone to flex (being nothing more than a big open space). My engine bay is spot welded around the strut towers and if I really wanted it any stronger, I'd have a custom core support made instead of the crappy stock piece. But all those bars are just hollow aluminum, so I'm definitely going to have to disagree with you here.
Strong design:
imprezawrc05engine2bkln5.jpg
 
Of course I'm not saying that. Compressive strength and torsional strength would be in question here and what I'm saying is that for this application, the differences in an alloy's strength would be negligible. If this weren't the case, there would be a lot of guys with deformed strut tower bars from simple driving. I know i put my pilot bar through hell - the seams of the strut towers on my green hatch were rusted to hell as was the rest of the chassis (Canadian model ftl) - and it never showed signs of deformation...until I crashed!
 
Tonymac said:
Of course I'm not saying that. Compressive strength and torsional strength would be in question here and what I'm saying is that for this application, the differences in an alloy's strength would be negligible. If this weren't the case, there would be a lot of guys with deformed strut tower bars from simple driving. I know i put my pilot bar through hell - the seams of the strut towers on my green hatch were rusted to hell as was the rest of the chassis (Canadian model ftl) - and it never showed signs of deformation...until I crashed!
Click to expand...



They you agree that one bar made of stronger materials would be less likely to stress, flex, bend and will weigh less, then a bar made of lesser materials. ???? I don't see top racing teams putting boop bars on their cars.

Cause thats all im trying to say.
 
If they are in fact made with lesser materials, of course they will likely have less strength. My original point is still valid though - for the application of a stb, it doesn't matter. Top racing teams don't use strut tower bars b/c they don't do anywhere near as much good as the bracing I posted does.
 
i agree with tony.. 150 bux or 30 dollars they do the same job.. and its freakin metal.. and im sure its of better strength that the aluminum valve cover allready on your motor..its not going to snap on a decent chassis.. however if your car is rusted out and flexing even more than say a stock car would be flexing.. i could see it bending or snapping a brace bar.. either one.. if its that bad that its going to break something fix it or get a new chassis

now 2 strut towers bolted together will double each sides effective stiffness by using the other sides rigidity . then there comes a point when you have that much stress on the front end that they will bolth now flex in unision with eachother and the only real way to stiffen that is 3 points of contact ..i.e triangulated bars.. and then you can go ahead and do a rear engine bay lower brace, some fenderwell brackets and a front lower brace.. to maximize the rigidity ...then the next step would be through firewall rollcage extensions with a crossbar in the front..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom