i finally got a chance to get my sfc put on, had a local shop put them on for me. good friends of mine, anyway, they were really harsh on the design of the x brace. when they saw that the x braces were held with one bolt they laughed and said it would probly do little to strenghten the car, i asked what theyre suggest doign and weldign the whole thing together was the best outcoem they could give me. so we welded the whole thing together after flipping the x brace over for more ground clearance. then not only did they weld the long runners at the points specified they welding the whole damn thing, not a solid beam just a "tack" every few inches, i was told thats the strongest way to do it.

granted its not going to be fun if i paln on removing my exhaust, but i love my frankencar so i plan on keeping in on there for a while.

anyone else done this, or paln on doing this?

.the car feels amazign now, im gonna have to retune my suspension tho, im getting a tad more rear rotate than im used to.

 

I Like the idea of having them welded all the way down along the factor rail like that. May I ask how the fitment was? I believe someone had said they had an issue at one time with one of our 5th gens so I'm just curious.

Thanks,

-Sean

TMS

Ninja edit: Are you going to be at any maxus this weekend?

 

fitment was good, lil moding but nothing too extreme, or anything to really worry about. didnt even lose much ground clearance. doesnt seem like much more than an inch.


sadly no i have to work so no maxima fun this weekend except tuning my eu again, to compensate/adjust for my headers i just got put on today.

 

Welding the Xbrace on is pretty stupid, you will never be able to work on your exhaust if this is the case.

If anything stronger Xbracing would do the trick. I have my SFC welded every few inches and the Xbrace bolted on. Feels stiff enough to me.

 

After reading the initial reviews about benefits vs complications of the TMS Stage II and because my shop was going to charge me for drilling the bolt holes (I had one of the first batch SFCs with blank tabs and non-adjustable braces), I just skipped the cross braces entirely. They're sitting on my garage floor if anybody want them. I had already felt they were unnecessary from reading the old WS SFC reviews. I think doing the extra welding is even more unnecessary.

Stage I is plenty stiff for me, maybe even too stiff. I feel small bumps less, but I definitely feel and hear big bumps a lot more. Body flex is definitely down, as tested by my patent pending finger in the panel gap method. My car is so stiff with just stage I that it has started to shake itself apart, whereas I have never had a squeak or rattle before (surprising, given the amount of body flex before). But the corners and twisties are way way more fun now, so that's the major saving grace and what I really wanted to achieve in the first place.

 

wow...I think that was a big mistake.....

the crossbraces work fine with just the bolt, since they are basically resisting push/pull rather than providing torsional stiffness by themselves.

 

i figured as much, but then again how often do u guys work on ur exhausts? ive had mine on for a while and have no plans of removing it. i know its gonna be a b!tch to do any exhuast work, i took that into concideration when i decided to have this done.

the cars stiff as he!! i love it! got these, my headers, eu and just popped on a set of 350 18s. feels like a totally different car than it did last week. fun times

 

I'm thinking your suspension is quite stiff, so it's transmitting the road irregularites to the cabin, while before the chassis flex was masking them.
I'm puzzled because everyone else has said the opposite in terms of NVH.

 

I am currently and always have been on stock springs/struts. It seems to be a bizarre case of regression to the mean.

 

CAREFUL with welding the SFCs all along the frame rails. You can tweak your frame if you're not really careful doing it. Plus, there's no telling what will happen with heat cycling since the SFCs are not made of the same stuff as the frame rails...

 

By that you mean that in winter the rails could twist the frame for instance?

 

Pretty much.

 

i didnt have them welding along the whole frame, i was told what u said about the warping. i was also told that seam welding doesnt always increase strength. we welding like tacks every few inches, in addition to the welding that the writeup states. i think thats called stitch welding. i was worried about warping things as well.

and as far as the car being stiff, its much more comfortable than it was like many others have added in theyre reviews. its great

and upon closer inspection, it seems liek the exhaust wont be that much more of a paint o remove, since the axelback still come sout the back like normal, and the b-pipe is just straight and can just drop down and slide out the back at an angle. the headers were put on two days ago after the sfcs were on there, no problems as well, which makes sence. the cat on the other hand, that would prob require removing the b-pipe. i might be going to a test pipe in a month or so, so ill find out then.

 

I don't think it's that bad an idea to weld the cross-braces on. I think you can still get the catback out of there if you wanted. It's only the very middle of the crossbrace that blocks anything.

BTW I had my SFCs main rails seam welded all along the frame rails. Haven't noticed any adverse affects, and I suspect that since they're both made of similar steel, they are going to expand and contract at the same rate. We're not talking two completely different kinds of metal here. If someone has hard evidence otherwise, let me know.

 

I gotta agree here, your buddy doesn't seem like he knows what he is talking about wanting to weld a piece that needs to be removable......