Well as some of you may know I made a beefy rear strut tower brace, Well I have some metal laying around and some spare time figured I'd start on a front one because it cant hurt.

Unlike the rear one where I have a bad picture of the almost finished thing I figured I'd start from the beginning and show a full build of it just to entertain the ones out there that like to get ideas or see something diffrent.

So here is the first picture. Just got 2 6"x6" x 1/8" pieces of steel and put a 3.5" hole in the center of them, its a litte rough just give me some time. its 98 degrees out and 85 percent humidity so I was only outside long enough to do this little part.

 

so far you have a picture of a circle fitting into a square.
lol

sub'd for progress

 

Hey OP i know what you are saying, it is definitely too hot to work in the garage for too long, tuesday my town was hottest in the US. Sucks. But i am interested to see how this turns out, my pops works at a utility body production place so he can get steel and whatnot fabricated if need be...

 

Well got the brackets for around the strut towers cut out today.



and placed on for fitment of course.

 

hope you make a triangulated strut brace.. that would be FTW!

 

what do these do? what are they for? jus for strength? sorry newbie question but still!? lol

 

Hang in there...you'll see soon enough.

Or just read the title of the thread.

 

Bro, you are using mild steel or hardened steel?

 

I wa wondering this my self, along the lines of what gauge steel

If I was building this I would love to make a double bar FSTB

 

Those are just Mild steel. These mounts are 1/8inch, the strut tower has a slight curve in it so this steel was able to slightly bend to that curve. should be plenty stong I think

 

i feel like an ebay one would be cheaper, look nicer, and be less time consuming. good job anyways though it looks like its coming along nicely!

 

Well my orginal design was 2 seprate 1inch c shaped steel, but I have none laying around. And I have yet to sandblast anything and paint it just raw steel as of now. And I get more joy and satistfaction from making my own stuff not buying. and this is just time doesnt cost me anything for materials

 

and I got it built today







now all I have to do is sandblast it and paint it. looks a smidge ruff right now will clean right up.

it helps out on real hard turns, and steering feels a bit tighter car doesnt lean as far on curves with this and back strut brace combined.

 

Looks great, real sturdy. Paint that ***** already.

 

Looks good!

 

Nice. Fixed FSTB FTW!! Lookin' forward to when you paint/polish that bish up!!

 

well damn! go ahead and make yourself a rear sway bar!!

 

im sorry , but the pics are horrible and i would'nt want that monstrosity on my max unless it was polished and the lines refined and trimmed up a bit. otherwise, props for the build.

 

triangulate that ****!

 

I'll use my good camera also next time, not my phones shotty camera. these pictures dont do much justice. I can stand on the bar and bounce around and it hardley flexes so it should be plenty strong. How much better would it be triangulate? Im not sure where I would attach it to.

 

nice work man. Clean her up and post some pics. YUP!

 

hehe





heres a start.

 

Well I sandblasted it...



then wirewheeled it to shine it up



now im giving it a paint job be done here shortly letting it dry good

 

How much does attaching it to the firewall really help I wonder.. Id rather work on building a lower control arm brace myself than spending the time on attaching it to the firewall

 

okay its done.. nothing fancy for paint. just a rustolem hammered look color, I actually thought it would be more gray than brown but it matches my dull engine bay and doesnt look ricey is all. Just there.

 

looks pretty good for a home made one!
Props to you and your skills.
notice any difference driving with it?

 

how much??

 

Looks good in the engine bay. Easy to overlook at a glance, just the way I like it

 

I could have ground the welds, and chamfred the edges gave it some style didnt see the need myself. it does the job and doesnt look tacky. It makes a noticable diffrence having this stout bar on there. seems alot sturdyier than a ebay one would be

 

Looks good!

 

WOW!!! That really cleaned up nice!! Goes to show dont judge a book by its cover. It looked a little rough at the start, but Rome wasnt built in a day.
Nice skills!!
S

 

That was an old fence post. Needed a new home.. Sandblasters are an amazing device

 

much better bro. came out decent!! how heavy is it??? build me one!!!

 

makes me want to go buy a welder lol i know enough about welding to do the work its just a matter of having the materials.. id be up for buying a Front Strut Tower Brace depending on how much it would be for shipping to 72401 and how much you would be wanting

 

well look at all the people that do road racing, mostly everyone i come across, they have a triangulated fstb.

http://www.sr20-forum.com/suspension...ated-fstb.html

 

when you triangulate it .. it pretty much just removes any give that it would have, it would tighten up the steering even more bc when its just mounted to your strut brace it can still give a little bit but instead of just one strut flexing now that you have that on there it can flex both of them a little bit.. but if you triangulate it it pretty much removes any give that is possible.. it may flex a lil but it would have to bend the metal where its mounted to the firewall.. so long story short.. its like like having old plugs and wires in a car, they will perform fine but if you put new plugs and wires they perform better and you should be able to feel the difference..

 

thats some analogy...

 

Great build man! Props to your workmanship!

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. makes me feel like I did good.. haha and I may triangulate it in the future

 

Agreed, you'll get more satisfaction building your own stuff, Btw, looks like the C shape steel could kill some dude, man!