Whipped this up the other night for my tercel.
1/8" plate and 12g 1" square tubing. The center has a reinforcement plate inside the cowl to hopefully add strength.
Car feels amazing. Almost disturbing how much this changed the feel of my car. Damn near telepathic steering input.
Next I want to make an underbrace as the UR one doesnt fit with an automatic and I think I can make a better one. Also I want to make fender braces.
I was once told a strut bar needed to be the closest thing to a straight bar that you can get. Looks like you nailed it.
Looks better than store bought and it's CUSTOM..... oooooo.....ahhhhhh. I like it.
Thank you guys. Im pretty proud of it.
Ill get started on the underbrace next week
That's a nice looking piece.
YES!!! more tercels on GRM! awesome job, how heavy is it?
I need to try this.
Can you explain the reinforcement plate more?
Looks good!
Strut bar helped a lot on my '05 Malibu that I take to HPDEs as well.
In reply to echoechoecho :
The bar is about 2wice the weight of a factory starlet bar. Which is surprising since the starlet bar feels like its made nearly out of tin
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
The cowl is pretty thin sheetmetal so I made a plate for the backside (that the bolts are welded to as well) to help distribute the stress loads.
Very professional looking.
made a lower bar yesterday. Ill make it a 4point when I get more material. It will go towards the back and pick up on the rear control arm mounts.
The plan is to build a splitter eventually and ill have tabs on this to mount it
Robbie
PowerDork
10/26/17 9:05 a.m.
excellent work. I need to do that lower bar on the saab.
I have plans to do this to the Civic as well. Taking notes.
I see you have those anti-lift plates, those things dont work. I did some testing on my tercel and all they do is bind up the suspension. Also get some OEM lower paseo braces, they will help stiffen the lower bar by triangulating it.
I have a UR 4pt lower brace on my car, and I can tell you that you'll treasure any bit of ground clearance you can keep below the firewall area. Also it seems that the bar tying the forward mounting points of the front LCAs together makes more difference than the rear bar, from the accounts of people who put the JIC 2pt brace on the same model.
This is why I love being a good welder.
Anything out out there will become whatever the berkeley I want it to be.
need a tool? Build it. Custom parts to help your car handle better? Build em. Bumpers? Easy. Roll cage? No problem...
In reply to echoechoecho :
I took the braces off. They come on these cars as well. One of my bolts actually had chewed the threads up. Went to chase em and snapped the chase.
I'll be pretty much rendering them useless once this becomes a 4pt.
I do not seem to get any bind. My control arms moves very freely.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
I still have my UR 4pt from my old car. It hung low too. I cannot use it on this current car because the auto does not clear it well.
heres a much better shot of the UR brace on my old car