What are the top three companies as far as strut bars are concerned for my 996 TT?
What are your reasons for selecting those and do you currently have any of those picks in your porsche?
Please include contact information as to where I can obtain them and how much the cost is?

 

THERE HAS BEEN a debate here that strutbars dont help in the 996..

i persoanlly want to get one...

evo makes one in cf covered aluminum and an aluminum one too..
i believe sharky has it onhis cars and has pictures posted here in the board..

sorry im just too lazy to find the pic in my comp... ...

 

My opinion is that they do nothing. Unless you are bouncing
off berms on a race track there is no force on the suspension
that is going to push one of the top suspension supports
toward the other. In any case the chassis is not made of
string cheese. Strut braces are pure pseudo-tech bling
in street cars IMHO.
Joe

 

Jeez Joe, "psuedo-tech bling"? Pretty dog gone strong. How can it be "bling" if no one can see it?

Joe is right there is some debate on how effective they are on the 996 chassis. Particularly the C4 base chassis that our cars use. It is well thought out design.

Having said all that (and I do have one; by TechArt) the factory race cars use one so they must feel there is some incremental gain. Is it necessary? Naw, but then neither is a lot of the other stuff we do!

And Joe, if one can't see it would it truly be "bling" in the carnal sense of the word?

 

The 996 chassis differs from prior 911 chassis' in this area. the struts top in the front are interconnected with not one, but two sheet metal bulkheads. The first one is the vertical sheet metal in front of the battery. The second is the battery compartment floor. These two pieces of sheet steel are connected together to form a corner and they span from strut to strut across the car.

A struts braces purpose is to keep the two struts a constant distance apart from each other under cornering loads. Cambermeister used to have a really good cross section diagram that depicted the effects of hard cornering on "unstiffened" strut towers. The effect would be alignment changes mid-corner due to the flexing of the struts towards and away from each other.

A strut brace is a combination compression and tension member. Depending on how the suspension is loaded, it eaither acts in compression or in tension. The "L" shaped bulkhead cross section is far stiffer than any strut brace can ever be. If you want the engineering principle behind it, it is called the "radius of gyration" or "r". This value is the square root of the I/A (Moment of Inertia over Cross Sectional Area). The the effectiveness of a compression member is governed by the equation KL/r. K is constant (actually....K of the factory "L" cross section is less than the K of a strut brace...take my word for it please), L is constant (distance between struts). That leaves r. THe greater the radius of gyration, the smaller the KL/r and the greater the resistance to compression buckling.

Still awake???

So, the answer is twofold.....

Strut braces are ideal for all pre-996 cars
Strut braces do nothing but look cool on 996 cars.

By the way, the rear condition is very similar but I will spare you from the diatribe.

 

"car"nal

Race cars, yes, because they do bounce off berms, and run
with slicks for lateral forces that twist the tub much harder.
I guess it can't be bling unless you show it off. Yes some do
stuff that is unproductive or unnecessary. As long as the OP
now understands that they could do better spedning the money
on go-kart laps or getting their allignment checked, our jobs
are done.

 

Ken, what about R compound tires or slicks? You're applying a lot higher forces. Just asking?

 

Tim,
Go in the garage, open the front trunk lid, pull the plastic covers from the sides of the battery compartment and look down. You will see the sheet metal welded to the strut brace.

Analogy time....
Take two pieces of 1/2"x8" wide pine shelving 3 feet long. Screw them together along their mating edges to form an "L" cross section that is three feet long. Stand it on its end so it is upright on the floor. Stand on it. Voila!

Now, do the same with a broom handle.

Get it??

 

Ken,

Excellent analogy.

However, one might argue that ADDING the broomstick to the pine shelving certainly will not lessen the strength of the resulting whole. And that is what is being questioned. Not whether one is stronger than the other, but whether adding it adds ANY strength.

If calculated the added effect of the brace will be almost negligible, but certainly positive and not negative. Hence the use in certain race cars, even 996's.

Negligible is good enough for a lot of the mod-oholics on this board, if its cool. I've certainly been guilty of this in the past.

I ain't got a brace but I got CF mirror covers, good for absolutely nothin'

best,

Sean

 

Heya Sean,

You coming to the May 7th meet and also whadda you wanna do with that bike of yours?

 

Alex, I think Sean loves carbon fiber, you should start on his bike with it.... At least if you cant get storage fees, might as well modify it

all kinds of carbon for that thing http://www.sierrabmw.bigstep.com/cat...?UCIDs=1229089

 

It would be bling if it were CF covered Aluminum. Other than that, I doubt we could tell a difference in rigidity, but there is no question that there is an incremental increase of an already stiff chasis. My .02 is that in the rear, if you continue to use the Bose SW box and its metal holder brackets, the bars are a ***** to get on and off (for things like switching the computer chip), and it does slightly push up the carpet cover in the rear. In the front, no problems at all.

 

Ken you lost me at "radial gyration"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

james;
are your strut brace from evo?do you need to loosen all the bolts on the plates or you simply bolt over the existing points.does the woofer fit easily after the install?mine shld be here soon ,any info is appreciated.tks.