TRD Brace set installed
 

Thought I'd post some pics and thoughts up, as I couldn't find any when I looked. Also the instructions are crap, so wanted to show where they all go.

You're supplied new bolts, for every bolt you take off. Take a bolt off, go find the TRD supplied bolt with slightly more thread, which is to account for the thickness of the brace obviously. You reuse any nut that you take off.

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Starting at the front of the car, we have these. From the front of the LCA. There are already black braces there, these are replacing them.

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Next we have a brace from the steering rack back to the body, you'll need to take the under tray off behind the skid plate, but not the skid plate.

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Next we have the subframe braces. Will need to take of the two mid/rear under trays off. The first two sets of braces above are easy, nuts/bolts off brace in, bolts back on. These subframe braces are a little trickier. The front bolt comes straight out, but rear lca to the subframe will require you to hold down on the lca to remove the bolt. It's not hard. You could use a pry against the bolt head I guess, it's not hard to get the bolt out. You can see in the picture at the point it mounts to the new brace via two points. These are small right angle brackets that connect on either end of new bolt you're going to use to reconnect the lca to the frame. Once you have all that pieced together and go to reattach lca, you'll need to get a pry bar to pull the lca down to get the bolt through. Or if you have a helper, get them to hold/pull lca down.

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Last brace there was a lot of misinformation about. Some said above the muffler, some said bumper MUST come off. Neither are true. It slips up behind the bumper, you may need a torch. You won't get a big socket wrench up there, but you won't need too. Can undo all with long spanner, they're all 14mm. When you put the brace on, you'll need a socket wrench to get to the top two bolts. Maybe one of those stepped spammers would work, I had a socket wrench that fitted close by so I used that. If you were really keen, you could probably put this brace in without removing the muffler, I managed to locate the brace up where it needed to be before taking the muffler off. But I took off the muffler because it was only two bolts. Hard to get a good pic sorry, but you can see it there between the body/shell, and the bumper.

[IMG]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/diss1dent/EC2117F4-A9FE-48D9-82F1-37***D20B652-42446-00002AE06433514E_zps19b1e268.jpg[/IMG]


While I had the muffler off, and was trying to tighten the nuts for the brace with my gorilla hands, my mate (who's hoist/workshop I was using) stopped working on the manifold he was making and refused to let me put the stock muffler back on. 2 mins later he'd found a flange, and was marking up some off cuts he had laying around. 5 mins after that, it was all welded and painted, and installed. I wish I could das fabricate.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...psb037e7bd.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...psd74a3eb1.jpg
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Back to the braces, what do I think? Well, they were expensive. I didn't tell my mate how much, he would've died. He even joked about just tracing the parts and selling them himself. The lca, rack, and rear subframe braces, I can see them having an effect, although I have yet to test running my semi slicks; which is where I think the difference (if any) would be noticed. I don't see the point in installing these braces if you're running standard bushes where they connect. While I didn't change mine today, I do have all the whiteline bushings on order.

The rear brace, behind the bumper, I almost didn't put it on. I fail to see what forces are even in this area that need bracing. I put it on, but I'm certain it does absolutely nothing. Maybe it's there to brace the boot if it's full of groceries, and you find yourself caught up in a fast and furious touge battle; that's why I ended up putting it on :D

Any questions, ask away.

Have you felt any noticeable difference when driving?

Those rack braces look promising ... ish

Is the above sentence missing a "don't"?

I haven't really noticed any difference with these but I don't seem to have the "feel" for the car that other people have. And, as you mentioned I have street tyres too.

I don't think it's missing a "don't". I think OP was saying you only get new bolts as replacements, but you use the original nuts that came with the car.

Ah, I see. I didn't see the "bolt" change to "nut" in the paragraph. As you were @diss7 :thumbup:

Any comments on these braces?

Have the braces actually changed anything? It looks to me like the front subframe pretty much only gets longitudinal bracing, I fail to see the point in a rear-drive car.

When I hit a decent bump in my car I get a slight shimmy from what feels like the rear of the front control arm mounts, know what I'm talking about? I wanna know if and where that shake manifests...

I wanna hear your muffler delete pipe thingy, make a video of it!

Keep in mind you have a model sold outside of the US and from what I hear you have to modify a part in the rear to accept the brace on the FR-S.

The OEM USDM bumper brace on the FR-S is thicker/stronger than the JDM one (which is just about as thin as the front bumper one), so to install the rear TRD brace you have to modify(i.e. cut) some of the excess metal because it won't allow the TRD brace to mount on.

What was the torch for? I was having this same brace set installed and the tech said that the only way he could get the last brace on was by cutting into the bumper to get through some tabs that are there for structural integrity. I told him not to do that, so it just didn't get installed.

Still, I'd like to install it - it's taking up precious space in my garage.

I think you can pull the bumper off and get to it easy...

How's it handle with the brace set?

I had an e36 that responded beautifully to an underbody brace.