Quick question on tower bars

[HillCountryGuru]

I looked through a few pages and wasn't able to find anything on tower bars. I am looking into getting one and looking for max performance. If you know much about what's available currently or have personal experience with one and would like to share. Please drop a line. Thanks.

[mrk1]

A design like the Grimm speed is a good choice if your aiming for performance and not bling. That being said don't expect world changing improvement from a single strut brace. I have a bar very similar to the Grimm speed with no joints and its a nice improvement for the short money.

[HillCountryGuru]

Mainly by performance I was meaning durability and rigidity. I am pairing whichever brace I get with Perrin sway bars. I will give grimmspeed and ones like it a look.

[SliverBrz]

have grimmspeed , felt a difference and its cheap

[xwd]

I think most strut bars are snake oil but I am a believer in the Grimmspeed one. It's not flash and it's fairly heavy but it does do its job.

[GrimmSpeed]

If you're interested in more information on strut tower brace design, I'd encourage you to check out this thread. Here's a chart that I just posted showing that these cars can DEFINITELY benefit from the right strut brace. Picking out the brace that best suits you is your call, not mine!

Matt
Engineering

[BRZNutt]

Satisfied GrimmSpeed strut bar owner here. Would highly recommend their bar.

[qoncept]

Originally Posted by GrimmSpeed

This graph unscientifically shows that your strut brace has decreased deflection from "about 8 human hairs" to "about 2 human hairs." Truly incredible.

[GrimmSpeed]

Originally Posted by qoncept

This graph unscientifically shows that your strut brace has decreased deflection from "about 8 human hairs" to "about 2 human hairs." Truly incredible.

Care to expand on this commentary?

It sounds like you might be confused regarding the function of a strut tower brace, the significance of this data and how it relates to chassis and suspension geometry. I probably have the answers you need, so feel free to ask away if you have questions or concerns. I'd also be happy to speak with you directly, so give me a call (612-379-0000)!

If you'd prefer to speak with someone else that's already running the brace, I'm sure somebody in this thread or in our 'Any Interest' thread would be happy to help you.

Matt Beenen
Engineering

[SkAsphalt]

brap brap

[qoncept]

Originally Posted by GrimmSpeed

Care to expand on this commentary?

It sounds like you might be confused regarding the function of a strut tower brace, the significance of this data and how it relates to chassis and suspension geometry.

To be clear, we're talking about a lateral strut tower brace, and your measurements above are showing deflection of the strut towers toward and away from each other, correct?

Your graph shows a decrease in deflection from 15 THOUSANDTHS of an inch (0.015") without the brace to 2 THOUSANDTHS of an inch (0.002") with it. My implication is that this is a minuscule number, that even though it's has decreased deflection many times over, the net impact is practically nothing. The amount of this negligible performance gain is probably in the neighborhood of the negative impact the additional pound added (or whatever it is).

The data provided is terribly unscientific in that it shows a mere 3 seconds of logging with no indication that the 2 tests were done in the same kinds of conditions, and in fact the data itself suggest the test ranges were randomly chosen.

[FastLane1000]

Originally Posted by qoncept

To be clear, we're talking about a lateral strut tower brace, and your measurements above are showing deflection of the strut towers toward and away from each other, correct?

Your graph shows a decrease in deflection from 15 THOUSANDTHS of an inch (0.015") without the brace to 2 THOUSANDTHS of an inch (0.002") with it. My implication is that this is a minuscule number, that even though it's has decreased deflection many times over, the net impact is practically nothing. The amount of this negligible performance gain is probably in the neighborhood of the negative impact the additional pound added (or whatever it is).

The data provided is terribly unscientific in that it shows a mere 3 seconds of logging with no indication that the 2 tests were done in the same kinds of conditions, and in fact the data itself suggest the test ranges were randomly chosen.

Would someone close by please let this guy borrow your strut brace so he can feel the difference. Everyone who has installed the grimspeed brace can tell a difference. It makes the car feel tighter and more planted. I highly recommend it.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by FastLane1000

Would someone close by please let this guy borrow your strut brace so he can feel the difference. Everyone who has installed the grimspeed brace can tell a difference. It makes the car feel tighter and more planted. I highly recommend it.

I'd love to see some substantiated evidence for this. Now if only there were some feasible way to do double blind testing....

[qoncept]

Originally Posted by FastLane1000

Would someone close by please let this guy borrow your strut brace so he can feel the difference. Everyone who has installed the grimspeed brace can tell a difference. It makes the car feel tighter and more planted. I highly recommend it.

I've driven cars with strut tower braces. You'd get more performance benefit out of a good wax.