To some of you this may be redundant, to others blasphemy, and to hopefully a few of you some exciting news. But we felt that this section of modifications seems to be the path less traveled. We really hope this strikes a chord with you all because it seems that FRS/BRZ owners are truely in love with suspension theory and tuning. We challenge you to read and think about this. Wed love to have an
open minded and
positive conversation about the effects of chassis braces and answer any questions you all may have regarding this black art.
WHY CHASSIS BRACES?
Chassis Braces are the most overlooked part of building a performance car. People will buy an intake then exhaust then coilovers when they begin the process of modifying their car. Chassis Braces are viewed as the last piece of the puzzle or a "bonus part." This logic has some flaws in it however. Chassis braces provide the best "bang for your buck" when attempting to extract everything out of your ride! These parts shore up deficits in the stock platform and don't impact the drive-ability of the car. Not only do they make the car a more stable platform to work on, but the price is in competition with an intake. Now you may say, "yeah but I want a little more power and braces don't add any horsepower or torque!" By having a unified chassis you are able to put more power down to the ground! These products help extract every ounce of power by making sure none is lost in chassis slop, wheel hop, or flex. When you think about an intake giving you only a few horsepower but compromising engine reliability, leaning out AFR's, and negatively affecting drive-ability why would this be the FIRST modification to chose? The same can be said for exhaust. It seems counterproductive. By contrast installing a full set of braces will not only improve handling, and drag times, but also make it easier to learn how to drive your car to the best of its ability. If the chassis becomes more predictable you will have an easier time taking your car to its limits because you will have a more tangible limit. We don't modify cars for the sake of adding parts to car, we modify cars to fix problems in the car. In today's world of advanced 4 cylinder designs factory intake and exhaust systems are refined so far that its hard to extract any more power out of them without removing emissions control devices, yet the factory chassis is as weak as ever!
For example we personally have had a bone stock ford fiesta with only braces on it go out on an autocross course(his first time at a track mind you) and beat turbo miatas, Evos, Stis, and a myriad of other "better" platforms that were extensively modified.
He actually laid down one of the fastest times for the day. There is a reason why chassis braces have such an impact on what class your car runs in autocross events.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44360
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8400qUXT68&feature=c4-overview&list=UUqrsh8Wh-lJ3bXT4TE3-oOw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8400qUXT68&feature=c4-overview&list=UUqrsh8Wh-lJ3bXT4TE3-oOw[/ame]