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Joined: Oct 2003
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I am thinking about having some tabs welded to my subframe connectors when I have them put on tomorrow. The steel tabs I have are 7 gauge plate. I want to experiment with some bolt in cross braces and see what happens. The cross braces will be removable in case I need access to the exhaust or anything else under the car.
My questions are:
Does anyone have any ideas on this? Would cross bracing make the car even stiffer than the SFCs alone?
Should it just be one cross brace alone (essentially an H brace) or should I place one near the front and one near the rear?
I could use two braces that form an X under the car. This is a little more complicated but is that the way to go?
Let me know your thoughts.
Jon
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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 46
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i would go with the x bracing by far the most rigidity. i would also pm bigballedox he has been talking with logan motorsports bout extra bracing for his car or just call logan and speak with dewayne
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Joined: Mar 2003
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Hard-core CEG'er
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Hard-core CEG'er
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If you're talking about the framerails, your car should now be plenty rigid without cross bracing. Without gobs of power on tap, you're just adding weight for a minimal - perhaps non-existant benefit.
That said, since you're just experimenting, you could possibly set something up like a rear strut tower bar with the opposing thread direction for adjustment.
Seems to me the rails vary in width, so you'd need lots of adjustability and/or various lengths of bar to work with.
Must be that jumbly-wumbly thing happening again.
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Joined: Jun 2000
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CEG\'er
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Originally posted by TourDeForce: If you're talking about the framerails, your car should now be plenty rigid without cross bracing.
How do you know this? I, for one disagree. Longitudinal chassis braces merely affect bending and compressive loads. Lateral braces are much, much better at handling torsion loads which are the type of loads your chassis sees during hard cornering.
Think about strut tower braces. Are they longitudinal or lateral braces? Do they work in our cars?
The very best type of braces, bar none, are X braces. So if you can triangulate your chassis braces, you will have a very effective improvement. The problem then becomes clearance - exhaust, fuel lines and ground.
I'm working on similiar braces. Be interested in how yours work out.
Redcoat Raceworks. Performance parts and custom fabricating for Contours, Mystiques and Cougars. Specializing in chassis and suspension parts. Custom end links, control arms, strut tower bars, engine torque braces, etc.
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Joined: Oct 2003
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Well, I had my SFCs welded in yesterday. I have a problem with them rubing a rear exhaust hanger but no big deal. BTW my car is a 98 zetec.
My car is also not lowered and therefore I have massive amounts of ground clearance. It will be coming down a little with the upgrade of the rest of the suspension but nothing that will cause cross bracing to scrape.
I also will be re-doing my exhaust. This will allow even more clearance. I am purchasing some weld tabs from some racing fabrication places.
I am wondering if I can build the cross bracing from the same size rectangular tubing that the SFCs are made from. This would assure clearance. The only thing is making sure the center of the X is built well. I really don't want to add 80 lbs of steel under my car. I could always use a hole saw to take some weight out of the cross brace without significantly reducing strength.
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Originally posted by DESIGN:
I could use two braces that form an X under the car.
I was considering the same thing the other day. Surely cant hurt.
-Ken V.
1998.5 SE Praire Tan Zetec ATX
psycho_bass@hotmail.com
Roush springs Roush rear sway bar BAT struts 17" Millie Miglia HT3 and a ton of subtle asthetic mods
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Joined: Jun 2000
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If you are truly interested in doing this job correctly, do not use rectangular ERW tube. It sucks compared to round DOM tube.
Using the right materials is at least half the job. Proper design, then execution.
Redcoat Raceworks. Performance parts and custom fabricating for Contours, Mystiques and Cougars. Specializing in chassis and suspension parts. Custom end links, control arms, strut tower bars, engine torque braces, etc.
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Joined: Oct 2003
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I agree, It will need to round tubing. My only concern is how to build it in such a way that it is removable.
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Would heim joints be strong enough for the load? If so, you could weld brackets onto the SFC's and attach the heim joints to the cross tubing, then bolt the heims to the SFC brackets.
morbid
2000 Contour SVT (black)
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Joined: Oct 2003
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They might well be but would complicate things from a fabrication point. I would actually like to find someone locally that could crush form the ends of round tube. This would allow me to drill/punch a hole through the end and bolt them at each end. It would look somewhat like the end of sway bars.
The other way that could work would to weld a verital piece of tubing on the end of the cross tubing. Press in an approriate size bushing and use that to bolt to the the mounting points.
I haven't had the mounting tabs welded in yet. I need to spend some quality time under the car finding the best place to put them.
I have noticed there is a section of my SFCs that are not flush to the body. This could let me experiment further. I am thinking of building a true bolt on cross brace. I could build a mounting point that sandwiches the SFC. Similar to how a leaf spring mounts to a solid axle. Then I wouldn't have to commit to a location.
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