Front strut tower brace?
 

Hi Guys,


Is this the right place to ask this question?


I have been driving a car for 6 years now. Want to make some slight changes. I have added quite a few small changes like tint, splash guard, raceseng shifter knob, center console cover, weathertech floorliner etc. Most are just for look and functionality. The front tower brace would be the 1st mod that is actually kinda performance related.


So my question is that whether you guys can tell any difference after installation on street/highway driving? I am driving daily on 280 of SF bay area. So quite some turns on the highway. My major concern is, of course, whether the added weight of the bar will make it undesirable?


Finally, I plan to pick a good brand bar. So how would you rank the common brands? from ftspeed.com, looks like the carbon fiber Cusco one is the best w.r.t. weight. How does it compare to others? Like aluminum Cusco? is Beatrush a decent brand? Thanks.

the general censuses is that it's not really needed for street driving. most recommendations for track builds will even recommend to leave the strut brace as a lower priority item, as there's more things that can be done with coilovers/springs, tire compounds, brake compounds, and swaybar differences that will have a much more dramatic effect on the cars handling characteristics.

I agree with Soundman98. I have read many of the threads over the years and have come to the same conclusion.

What is your goal from installing a strut bar?

Have you upgraded your tires?

I want to add some new items to make it a bit more exciting. I recently picked up a brand new set of PP performance wheels with new OEM tires. So I will upgrade tires later. I am basically trying to do things slowly and add easy stuff first. Strut tower brace might be the easiest thing to add.

GrimmSpeed bar is inexpensive and from reviews a lot of the guys like it. GrimmSpeed even has an article on the product.

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I have Cusco front and rear strut bars as well as TRD door stiffeners. I felt a noticeable difference for each. Regular street driving, you won't notice. Find a nice empty highway or parking lot and do a slow speed slalom, you will feel it. My brother swears my car rides rougher. Small differences.

PP wheels are great looking! Nice upgrade!

Idk about a strut bar adding excitement. Especially for DD.

IMO a stiffer suspension is more exciting. :burnrubber:


Random musings...

I would skip coils if I had things to do over again.

I would get Pro-kit 1" drop springs, camber bolts, SPC rear LCA, upgrade the shocks to koni or bilsteins, and add a bumpsteer kit. It would be a perfect setup for DD, IMO. And cost a bunch less... :bonk:

I am not going to drop the car. Prefer to make DD easier. Also won't buy coilovers. I read from many sources that inadequate setup actually ruins the experience. So high expenditure + risk makes it undesirable to me. But will upgrade to better shock absorbers later on. The biggest game changer should be tires. But I am financially responsible and will wait till I wear the current tires out.

If you're trying to make the car feel sportier, get front and rear swaybars with aftermarket endlinks. This removes compliance and body roll. It will make the car respond faster and with less body roll, but will remove absolute grip at the limit with no supporting mods.

Sway bars are the best "feeling" mod for a daily besides tires that you just want to spice up and don't care about the overall loss of peak grip.
Strut tower bars are neat but nowhere near help fight body roll like a swaybar upgrade does. Strut tower bars are nice eye candy though!

I have the grimmspeed strut bar and I feel the difference during hard cornering only. Would I recommend it? Yeah. Would I absolutely recommend it? Mm probably not. I felt much more of an oomph from engine mounts to be honest, but that’s not exactly cornering related. The perrin steering rack lockdown made the steering feel less wobbly and more direct.

+1 for the sway bar upgrade. You'll notice the difference from stiffer sway bars MUCH more than strut bars.

Typically when people install stiffer suspension, it's to help remove the body roll lot reduce the transition time the suspension takes when moving left to right quickly. Sway bars would accomplish this, but still keep your ride "feeling like stock" during compression and rebound of the damper.

Another nice "upgrade" would be wheel spacers. You can run as much as a 25mm with a 225/45/17 tire without running into issues. It'll not only improved the look of the car, but will increase the track width of the vehicle by close to 2".

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Forget all this stuff until you get an alignment.

In no particular order, here are a few good cheap handling/chassis upgrades on a stock car for not too much money:

1. Performance alignment
2. Steering rack bushings or steering rack lockdown
3. Performance alignment
4. Whiteline rear subframe and rear diff bushing inserts (mild increase in noise)
5. brake master cylinder brace
6. good street/sport brake pads
7. uhhh a performance alignment is pretty good

All of the above are pretty easy to install, but the alignment takes a professional.

Swaybars are a good relatively inexpensive option too, but it depends on your goals.

The grimspeed strut tower bar is not a bad upgrade (i have one) but it's not as noticeable as other options.

- Andrew

Love that you stressed performance alignment [emoji1490][emoji1490][emoji1491][emoji1488]

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Unless you're doing it purely for visual bling, forget about it entirely for now.

OP, where in the bay area are you? You can try my Grimmspeed bar out if you want.

First of all, I actually passively recommend this as a good place to start. Years ago, I used to work on my cars all the time. Then I got consumed with work and school. Adding a strut tower bar to my car was the first non-oil change thing I'd done to a car in quite a while. It was nice getting into the spirit of modifying something and making it my own, even if the actual performance gains are negligible.
It's a good place to start, and an install that's unlikely to overwhelm you.

I installed a now-discontinued DC Sports front strut bar on my car. Some venders are now selling them for $65 + free shipping on Amazon, so it's a pretty dang cheap upgrade.
You can get triangular 3-link braces elsewhere, but that's another conversation.

Weight is pretty negligible. Assuming my DC Sports bar is made of common steel (vs. aluminum or something lighter weight), it weighs like 3-4 lbs if I had to guess.

Notice a difference? Not quite yet. I put it on about 2 weeks ago, and it's been primarily highway driving since. Haven't thrashed it too hard. Don't feel disappointed though.

Yes.
Definitely agree on the small differences part. Even if each addition isn't significantly noticeable, doing 3 or 4 small things can add up and help you get to know your car better.

Interesting note about sway bars not adding harshness unnecessarily.
The wheel spacers are also interesting from a performance standpoint, vs just adapters to make a certain wheel fit.
Are wheel spacers safe to add willy-nilly? Not much of an issue with only 25mm (at max) on stock lugs I'm sure, but I always feel it will overstress the studs. Also not sure if this would affect alignment. I guess it wouldn't affect the alignment, but the stock alignment might no longer be proper? Not sure...

Good list. Appreciated.

Like you OP I am pretty careful with the $. My mods to my 86 have been mild and focused on street handling performance. I have done the following:

1. Tyres: Bridgestone Potenza RE003, stock size on the stock 17" rims. (tyres are the Asia/Australia equivalent of the Firehawk Indy 500).
2. Brake pads: Intima SR. Street focused pad with mild track capabilities.
3. TRD lowering springs and TRD sway bar kit. Toyota (and Eibach) did all the hard work in properly sorting this combo out for street performance use - I am going to take advantage of that. I have no idea about coilovers and if I got them I'd probably never adjust them anyway. I love the TRD setup, it's complaint over bumps but when you're in the twisty bits the car feels way more planted, sits flatter but still has the playful character the stock suspension has. Still tends to understeer when approaching the limit which is a nice warning for those of us who aren't pro drivers.
4. Beatrush Brake Master Cylinder brace is on the way.
5. MTEC gearbox spring kit and MTEC clutch spring - awesome combo to tighten up the shifts in the box and provide more feel in the clutch.

I will likely do the steering rack bushings next but that will pretty much be it for me.

I just put on the Eibach sway bar set. 25mm front, 19mm rear. Both hollow.
It made a pretty noticeable difference so far. Especially the rear. The back end snaps out under almost any situation.

You said "still tends to understeer when approaching the limit"

I assume you mean it understeers until the rear loses traction and then it oversteers?

I haven't reached the limit on them with rear grip as once the understeer starts I just lift-off a bit or brush the brakes to pull the front-end back in. I know my limits - understeer is the warning I like to have lol.

I note you have another thread on your bars - mine are 20.6mm front and 15.8mm rear (up from 18mm and 14mm respectively), so nowhere near as stiff as the ones you have chosen. You shouldn't have the rear end snapping out under any situation on the street or on the track unless you are drifting.