Front strut brace

[Kristian_Wraae]

Hi guys

I'm looking for a front strut brace for my MKIII.

What I would like is something that looks like this:





This one is for a MKIV. I like the strong powerful look. The ones I have seen for MKIIIs look like tooth picks.

Does anyone make one like this for a MKIII?

[dcrusupra]

Well, thats exactly what it would be. For looks. They serve little to no purpose on MKIIIs. The only one I've ever seen that looks like that are the genuine TRD ones and the go for about $6-700 USD. They are very rare.

[Kuban]

keep in mind all that is, is two hollow pieces of steel tubing welded together inbetween is sheet metal. The sheet metal wont do anything, and hollow tube is pretty fragile. So in reality that "toothpick" which happens to be about and inch and a half of SOLID steel tubing, is much more durable. I have mine off right now because my hard pipes wont allow it to fit, and i notice a huge difference with it not there.

[Kristian_Wraae]

Originally Posted by dcrusupra

They serve little to no purpose on MKIIIs.

Ok, I didn't know that. For what I've heard they tend to firm up the car.

The normal ones look extremely flimsy with their joints. I thought that specially these joints would make the strut brace useless.

That was why I was looking for someething like the TRD:

[dcrusupra]

A reason why it's almost useless.

Originally Posted by IJ.

Something I posted over there <pointing at SF>

Not wanting to start shit but these Bars are 9 parts useless in our cars...
(thanks to SR49 for the great pic)

Shock load/force is along the blue line as our cars are double A Arm suspension so there are minimal side loads/forces being transmitted to the shock towers.

"A" becomes a pivot point allowing the force to deflect along the red arc line.

Any "improvement" is likely to be the placebo effect, If the Bar had 2 or more bolts one above the other it would make much more sense or with some Triangulation back to the firewall but as is it's just a pretty Chi Chi.

[Kristian_Wraae]

Yes, exactly.

If you look at the one I posted a picture of (the pink car) you can see it has no joints. So no pivot.
That's why I thought a model like that one was the only thing that would make sense.

[Kristian_Wraae]

Can you mount a strut brace from a mkIV on a mkIII?

This guy has a strut brace that looks quite a lot like the one I linked to above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjZgQ...related&search=

[Kristian_Wraae]

I found it here:





The car belongs to someone called Ron Ramirez.

[supramacist]

I don't agree with this, but that's no big surprise, right.

It seems to me that it takes less torque to travel straight up and down with the blue line. Than it does to create the flex to follow the arc of the red line.

These things were not designed to teminate chassis flex or body sway.
They only dampen it. So to think that this 1 strut tower bar is going to stop it completely. The front strut bar should be used in conjunction with the rear for the desired responce and sensitivity.

Sometimes I think some of us overthink a project. I know I do. It may become a pivot point at A in the picture. But it has to require more torque to follow the arc.

Some of you guys are running these things with over 500hp. That may be exceeding the maximum torque capacity of any rod you apply.

And ya....., They sure are pretty and look like you have done something.

I hate to say it but I think e bay is the best bet to find a real trd. i had one located and bought and then I woke up and realized how much money the guy wanted for it, not to mention finding a match for the back.

I went with JIC strut tower bars. Front and rear.

[kwnate]

Originally Posted by Kristian_Wraae

I found it here:





The car belongs to someone called Ron Ramirez.

Ron bought a TRD bar for a mk4, then modified it to fit the mk3.