|
Cheap shock tower braces (they aren't strut tower braces, as we don't have strut towers, because we have shocks, not struts) will still make a difference. The shortfall of these cheap bars is not the quality of materials used (steel ALWAYS has a modulus of elasticity right around 207 GPa), but rather the adjustment built into it.
Also, a good shock tower brace will have a solid mount between the stantions (mounting flange for the shock tower) and the bar, itself. On the cheap e-bay shock tower braces, there is a thin (1/8" or so) piece of steel that connects the stantion to the bolt that goes through the bar. This is where the majority of flex occurs.
Also, I recommend avoiding aluminum bars, as they have a much lower MoE, which is between 69 GPa and 72.4 GPa. The lower the number, the less resistance that there is to flexion. To put things in perspective, natural diamond of the highest quality has a MoE of 1200 GPa. Yikes. But I digress.
So, the ideal bar would be a diamond bar (bl1ng bl1ng, y0), but steel will work if you don't have that much diamond lying around the house. There would be no adjustment, and it would be a solid bar, with no hinge between the stantion and the bar. The bar itself would go straight across from shock tower to shock tower with no bends whatsoever. Angling a brace out to the firewall would make no difference, as the firewall is not a structural piece. There is no bar or brace on it, so any force vector placed on the firewall would simply distort the firewall. Bracing to the firewall doesn't make sense to me, anyways, as the point of a shock tower brace is to keep the shock towers parallel, not keep them steady in relation to the firewall. Who cares if you gain castor in a corner? What matters is that your chassis does not cuccumb to the stress in a corner and reduce your dynamic camber. This is what will reduce the contact patch, and not allow the suspension and tyre that you paid oh so much money for to do it's job.
The best option for a shock tower brace, of course, is not to brace from the shock studs, as the e-bay braces do. This is stupid. These are not load bearing studs. They can move about and flex, without affecting the suspension geometry. The upper A-arm studs, however, will have an effect on the geometry of the suspension. Notice that aftermarket camber kits move the mounting position of the upper A-arm, and not the shock. Strut based cars can use a camber plate, which moves where the top of the strut is mounted to the strut tower. Strut nuts are load bearing. Shock nuts are not. So, for Chrissake, mount the bars to what matter most. I must say it again. Shock nuts are a stupid place to mount the stantion. If the shock nuts (and, by extension, the upper perch of the shock) move in relation to the shock tower, then the geometry is not compromised. If the upper A-arm moves in relation to the hub, then the geometry will be affected. That is why the Neuspeed bar bolts to the rearmost upper A-arm studs on the front shock towers.
But, even with my crappy adjustable aluminum bar, I feel a difference. To be precise, when I drive around after pulling them off, I feel a difference. Installing them does not change the feel of a car, but removing them does.
-=B-= Dude, Boeing called. They want their wing back.
Dark0ne95: There is a butthole on that girl that his going to feel the wrath of 23 yeras of worldwide hate.
Me: Can I put that in my sig?
Dark0ne95: GO right fucking ahead.
|
), the one and only thing that makes a strut bar useful/less is its flexibility, or lack thereof. The reason the strut bars on ebay are so cheap are because they're made with really weak materials, they're adjustable, so that further eliminates their effectiveness, and while you might get some gains, the gains you'll get from a solid, no-to-little flex bar with no adjustability or weak spots are far more noticeable and worth it. To be honest, you may feel a slight gain with the ebay bars, but they're really more for show.
nespeed bar 
.
.
05 STi