modifying H-braces - under chassis bracing

[cjeff]

Hi All,

Ultra-Racing are selling these "lower front bar" braces for the AE92, and ebay has them cheap at the moment. Whether the quality is up to spec or not, I don't know, but for a bit over $100, it's got to be a noticeable improvement.

The problem I have is that according to the Ultra-Racing Australia Website, it's not compatible with the E-series gearbox which I believe I have in my Supercharged Nova (it's definitely got LSD, so pretty sure it's e-series). So my assumption is that the gearbox sits lower than the standard C-series gearboxes and causes the brace to foul.

What I want to know is, how hard and safe is it to modify the brace to get it to fit? Could a metal fabricator safely cut & shut the brace on the spot that fouls on the gearbox without effecting the reliability of the brace? If so, what kind of $$$ would I be looking at?

link to the brace on the website http://www.ultraracingaustralia.com/page22.htm it's about 2/3 the way down the page...

Craig

[Cuzzo]

Firstly its up for debate that these actually do what they say they do.

To answer your question..A fabricator can do almost anything to achieve what you want to do.
Dollarwise is around 50+ an hour for fabrication.

Id say save your money. Real life isnt like gran turismo where the more things you buy and install on the car gives it +hp.

[td42gq]

honestly you are best off with a front and rear strut brace if you don't already have one and as "Cuzzo" said forget the rest. It is debateable that all those bars do anything more than making the car heavier.

[pandaah]

have you got swaybars?.. these make a definete difference..

btw, what are you trying to achieve by buying this?.. or just the bling factor?

[Sam_Q]

Craig unless you enjoy being ripped off with bogus deceitful rubbish then that company is best avoided completely. That product linked is extremely unlikely to do anything at all. Give me a better picture and I will explain why.

If you want to know more about this topic see here:

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/fo...read.php/23475

[cjeff]

hey guys, thanks all for your input. I already have a front strut brace, and front and rear swaybars will be going on in the next few weeks. The H brace is NOT for bling factor. I'm readying the car for some track use, and am about to go through process of Nolathane bushes, swaybars, rear disc conversion, and maybe a steering rack upgrade (with power steering). I thought since I'm about to spend a few hundred (I know deep down its going to get more than this, but I like to kid myself...), what's $138 more if it nets some improvement. But having done a little more reading on these since Cuzzo first posted up, it seems the lap time benefit is quite small, so just going to leave it alone. Sam_Q I skimmed through your thread - some good reading, but I didn't see any reference to Ultra-Racing being crap? Either way, I'm not going to buy it now anyway, so all good. I am in need of some other advice, but will start another thread as it's a different topic. Thanks once again, it's really appreciated.

For those that are interested in this - I emailed the Australian Ultra-Racing distributor and asked them about the H-Brace for the AE92 with a supercharged/E series gearbox in reference to how much out the fitment is and whether they think it could be modified to fit and they replied with the following...

"Hi Craig,

We don't know the exact figures of how far it pushes out but it's not that drastic, i would say around 10-15mm but i could be wrong, one of our sponsored cars in NZ fitted the front lower bar on his AE92 with the supercharger box, all he did was cut the front brackets of the brace and weld some extensions to it, to allow the brace to sit properly, any exhaust place or metal fabricator workshop will be able to do this."

[TERRA Operative]

I have the UR rear sway bar and front fender bars (Hey, I had some spare cash...) on my AE101 Levin. It's not on the road, but a mate has the same in his AE101 Levin and reckons it was a pretty good improvement. He hasn't thrown it through the corners yet to see what the fender bars will do (if anything) but the rear sway bar seems as good as any other brand.

I'm trying to work out if the UR front under brace from the Starlet will fit a Sera. The area under the engine is wide open with no cross bracing or cross member at all, save for two little tiny braces way back at the firewall, and where they are mounted is prone to flex anyway.
I put a Cusco front strut brace, and generic ebay rear brace into the Sera first, and the improvement was drastic. My brother picked it before I told him I had done anything. Next is a rear sway bar as there is none there at all.

I've also put a UR rear strut brace and AE101 Levin front brace (strut to firewall to strut) into another mates Australian AE101 Corolla Seca (along with the thicker Levin rear swaybar and rear disc brakes), and again the improvement was dramatic. To the point that he was able to take a corner that was dicey at 40 before, at over 60 after with no worries at all.

Having said that, don't bother with a rear strut brace if your car is a sedan. The way the Corollas are designed, the rear parcel shelf acts as a brace anyway.
And their new little lateral arm brace is laughable.

[Sam_Q]

here you go cjeff, try this out:

http://forums.club4ag.com/zerothread?id=83595