Strut Brace

[StOjA]

Hey guys i was thinking about fitting strut braces to my 32GTST i was wondering if it was easy to do yourself

and what would i notice about the handling in my car afterwards. do they make that much of a difference?

[Josh]

I haven't done it but it wouldn't be that difficult.. only 4 bolts each end.. except at the rear you've gotta take the carpet and othe crap out..

[StOjA]

im curious to know if it will be worth doing?

[Josh]

I'm not sure if they make a huge difference - but i'd imagine they'd do a little - just don't get a cheap one as I have seen some that you can actually move when they are bolted down - which would defeat the purpose of having them there...

[Bl4cK32]

The front one does make a heap of difference to corner handling. The front feels flatter (less body roll) as you go through a corner.

The rear makes less of a difference (due to it being in a different point in the suspension geometry) or something liek that

Worth having on the car though...

[Duncan]

I don't think so, just buy a set of sway bars for a much bigger difference

[Miller the hoon]

I liked them i have 1 front and back

back end loser when you go side ways and front takes out the body roll

i like them my self

i payed 100 for the front and 125 for the back easy to fit front but back you will need to cut the boot pannels

james

[Neil]

Strut braces do very little,,,they do not reduce body roll at all.

2 things that strut braces do are

1/ Help mantain wheel alignment by reducing strut tower flex

2/ Look good

Neil.

[scathing]

2 things that strut braces do are

1/ Help mantain wheel alignment by reducing strut tower flex

2/ Look good

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And not necessarily in that order.

A good strut brace, that works as engineered, will work on a car with a soft chassis. Its there to stop the car's body from flexing under lateral loads, and let the suspension do its work.

On older cars it will make a noticable difference, since their chassis would be relatively weaker...even before several years of wear and tear have worked on them.

Both of my cars have had factory strut braces, so I have no idea what its like without them. But, as people have said, it had better be bolted on solidly.

[GTRgeoff]

The only way to know is try with and without through the same series of corners. It does make a difference on the front as it makes it a little more responsive to wheel inputs. there are also a number of other mods that can do this so consider it part of an overall system improvement.

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

i was quite sceptical when installing mine, as to if it would make any difference at all.

Front didn't make much difference (I put them on first) then a week later I put the rears on and it felt heaps better, (using for drift, tended to be alot more stable)

[Neil]

Merlin,,,is your rear brace mounted in the boot area or on the top of the parcel shelf?.

Neil.

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

in boot area

[salival]

See, I've got an R32 GTS 4 door.. standard open wheel diff.. I bought the car stock as a rock..

Added a front adjustable strut brace, you could DEFINITLY feel the difference.. the body felt alot more solid..

My flatmate then made me a box section strut brace for the rear.. again, him being an engineer and not into cars he definitly noticed the difference as did I..

I've got an open wheel diff as I said.. 90% of the time at speed it now spins both wheels.. not just a single one.. Made a huge improvement..

Next thing i'm going for is sway bars..

[gt-t_r34]

ive got front and back on my r32 and i noticed alot of different with the body roll not sure if it was from the front or the back on put the on at the same time put you cant feel it sort of pulling or leaning out in corners i was happy with mine

[Sydneykid]

The usual strut brace design links (RHS to LHS) the top suspension mounting points and effectively doubles the rigidity of them. By reducing the flex, this stops changes in the suspension geometry, mostly camber. The springs and stabiliser bars work exactly as they did before, so there is no reduction in roll. The improved in handling comes from helping to maintain the static wheel elignment settings when the suspension is moving and the chassis flexing.

On R32/33/34 Skylines (2 door & 4 door) and equivalent Stageas, the front strut brace actually serves to effectively link the upper control arm inner mounting points to each other (RHS to LHS). This is because the upper corntol arms are actually mounted to the inner guard (chassis). You can see this by simply looking through the front wheel arches. So a front strut brace does serve quite a usefull purpose in helping to control the suspension geometry.

On the rear (of these models) this is simply not the case, the upper control arm inner mounting mounts are mounted to the sub frame, not the chassis. Adding a rear strut brace to the chassis between the rear shock towers, doesn't help the rigidity of the sub frame. You can also confirm this for yourself by loooking through the rear wheel arch and examining the upper control arm mounting points. Then compare this to where the strut brace actually mounts. Therefore the effect of fitting a strut brace to the rear is much, much less than the front.

cheers

Edited December 25, 2005 by Sydneykid

[flagger]

fitting strut braces (front and rear) made a noticable difference on my r32 gtst.