BRZ/FR-S Strut Tower Brace - Any Interest?

[Captain Snooze]

Originally Posted by disgruntld

$20 for a 0-80 ft-lb torque wrench at Harbor Freight.

Yeah but that's probably the issue; cheap torque wrenches aren't accurate at the low end of torque.

[Speedie]

Originally Posted by Evil Jesus

Are new people still installing these? Impressions? Issues?

Can't wait to pick mine up if all is well.

Hi,

I recently received my GS bar, and was keen to see the difference this modification would bring to the feel of the car. With the help of my brother we came up with a homegrown blind test. (Both my brother and I have science backgrounds and could be fairly accused of suffering from mild OCD ).

The test was this, done five times.

A. My brother would toss a coin, heads the bar is installed, tails not.
B. In either case, step A would take fifteen minutes.
C. I am not in the garage and cannot hear what he is doing
D. My brother when finished step A and B would then pack up the tools, toot the horn and leave the garage.
E. I would take the car for a fifteen minute drive. Same circuit each time, I would note down whether I thought the bar was in or out.
F. When I returned, I would signal with the horn, leave the garage without crossing paths with my brother
G. At the end of five tests, we compared the results.

My brother had out, in, in, out, in.

I had out, in, in, out, in.

I don't want to scare anyone with how OCD I am, but the chances of me guessing correctly this sequence is one in thirty two, or a little over three percent.

Apart from having an enjoyable afternoon spent with my brother having some fun with cars, which we both have keen interests in, I am happily convinced this modification does make a difference for me.

For me it was clear very early in each drive whether the bar was in or not. The noise from bumps was subdued, the steering felt tighter and sharper and the car felt stiffer. I know these are all seat of the pants observations and hard to measure, all I can say is that for me I noticed differences that I liked and when I noticed these differences, it lined up with the bar being in.

So for what it's worth, I am satisfied that the bar makes a difference for me, which I very much like.

Ralph.

[sierra]

Originally Posted by Evil Jesus

It really seems that that was the case. The GS guys have put on 100s of prototypes without issue they said. Haven't seen a single other person with issues either.

How tight is 12 ft/lbs anyway? Just slightly snug? Not looking forward to buying a $100 torque wrench to put on a $160 part if I don't have to. :happy0180:

I wonder if they are saying nothing to save embarressing the guy?

I checked the break torque on mine and it was spot on 12ft/lbs
Don't waste your money on a $100 torque wrench, a reasonable cheapy will do.
If you are an angler and have the old type spring weighing scales that hangs with the hook on, just pull the socket bar at a 12" radius from the nut with those to 12lbs.
1ft x 12lbs = 12ft/lbs

[GrimmSpeed]

Originally Posted by Speedie

Hi,

I recently received my GS bar, and was keen to see the difference this modification would bring to the feel of the car. With the help of my brother we came up with a homegrown blind test. (Both my brother and I have science backgrounds and could be fairly accused of suffering from mild OCD ).

The test was this, done five times.

A. My brother would toss a coin, heads the bar is installed, tails not.
B. In either case, step A would take fifteen minutes.
C. I am not in the garage and cannot hear what he is doing
D. My brother when finished step A and B would then pack up the tools, toot the horn and leave the garage.
E. I would take the car for a fifteen minute drive. Same circuit each time, I would note down whether I thought the bar was in or out.
F. When I returned, I would signal with the horn, leave the garage without crossing paths with my brother
G. At the end of five tests, we compared the results.

My brother had out, in, in, out, in.

I had out, in, in, out, in.

I don't want to scare anyone with how OCD I am, but the chances of me guessing correctly this sequence is one in thirty two, or a little over three percent.

Apart from having an enjoyable afternoon spent with my brother having some fun with cars, which we both have keen interests in, I am happily convinced this modification does make a difference for me.

For me it was clear very early in each drive whether the bar was in or not. The noise from bumps was subdued, the steering felt tighter and sharper and the car felt stiffer. I know these are all seat of the pants observations and hard to measure, all I can say is that for me I noticed differences that I liked and when I noticed these differences, it lined up with the bar being in.

So for what it's worth, I am satisfied that the bar makes a difference for me, which I very much like.

Ralph.

This is AMAZING! Thanks for sharing your day with us!

Originally Posted by sierra

I wonder if they are saying nothing to save embarressing the guy?

I checked the break torque on mine and it was spot on 12ft/lbs
Don't waste your money on a $100 torque wrench, a reasonable cheapy will do.
If you are an angler and have the old type spring weighing scales that hangs with the hook on, just pull the socket bar at a 12" radius from the nut with those to 12lbs.
1ft x 12lbs = 12ft/lbs

This is good advice. 12ftlbs isn't much. Might even be able to swing by a local tire shop and offer a tech a couple bucks to torque your brace on his break or something. If any of you are local to us, swing by and I'll be happy to do it for you.

We've been in touch via email/phone privately and have talked through the situation. We can't find a way that proper torque might have caused this issue (all four broken) but we're going to do what we can to find out. He's sending his brace back to us for a QA check to make sure that it wasn't defective. Being that the braces are all robotically welded in the same fixture, the chances that one is different are slim, but we're definitely going to check it out. We will let you all know the outcome as soon as we've 3D scanned his brace. Either way, we've agreed to give this customer the benefit of the doubt and will be refunding his purchase in full (shipping costs included).

Matt Beenen
Engineering

[s2d4]

I can't see how ALL the bolts snapped and still be found after been driven.

Considering other vendors would deny all fault when facts stacked up AGAINST them, it is a breath of fresh air to see a vendor acting in good faith when all facts stacked IN FAVOUR with them.

[SliverBrz]

Originally Posted by s2d4

I can't see how ALL the bolts snapped and still be found after been driven.

Considering other vendors would deny all fault when facts stacked up AGAINST them, it is a breath of fresh air to see a vendor acting in good faith when all facts stacked IN FAVOUR with them.

I am a little worried now.

I was one of the first to receive the bar, and i bought a craftsman torque wrench for about 30$ or whatever but i haven't notice any problems.

I went outside today to recheck the torque and they are all still about 12lbs or so.

Its been on for about a few weeks now?

I wonder if his bolts broke because it has something to do with the thickness of the new bar coupled with the existing braces? Since the nut is now sandwiching something thicker, wouldn't there be more stress on the bolt itself?

I don't know anything about metallurgy, or bolt/torque science but I'm just worried lol. I really don't get how his thing snapped all 4......and didn't fall to the floor while driving. I hope he isn't hiding something. Then again if it broke while he was torquing it down he would of stopped after one snapped which leads me to believe it did sheer while he was driving......

[sierra]

Originally Posted by SliverBrz

I am a little worried now.

I was one of the first to receive the bar, and i bought a craftsman torque wrench for about 30$ or whatever but i haven't notice any problems.

I went outside today to recheck the torque and they are all still about 12lbs or so.

Its been on for about a few weeks now?

I wonder if his bolts broke because it has something to do with the thickness of the new bar coupled with the existing braces? Since the nut is now sandwiching something thicker, wouldn't there be more stress on the bolt itself?

I don't know anything about metallurgy, or bolt/torque science but I'm just worried lol. I really don't get how his thing snapped all 4......and didn't fall to the floor while driving. I hope he isn't hiding something. Then again if it broke while he was torquing it down he would of stopped after one snapped which leads me to believe it did sheer while he was driving......

I did wonder if the car might have had an accident that had slightly misaligned the strut towers? If all the strut braces were a snug fit on the studs then they could be in shear force restraining tower movement, especially if the thread was damaged putting them on.

[White64Goat]

I have a feeling those studs are aluminum and not steel. For the person who had all 4 of them snap off, if you remove the nuts from the stud, will a magnet pick it up? Are the nuts aluminum? 12 lbs. of torque is squat and I'm thinking the studs are aluminum.

[sierra]

Originally Posted by White64Goat

I have a feeling those studs are aluminum and not steel. For the person who had all 4 of them snap off, if you remove the nuts from the stud, will a magnet pick it up? Are the nuts aluminum? 12 lbs. of torque is squat and I'm thinking the studs are aluminum.

Nuts and studs are steel. They had to be but I just checked with a magnet so there's no doubt.
Once the nuts are torqued down the sideways force is transmitted through the base of the strut to the tower and not the studs. Especially with a low straight bar like this one.
A bar that is convex, like most of them, might be seen to be levering the stud up via the nut but not a straight one?

[TouchMyHonda]

Originally Posted by GrimmSpeed

I heard it'll match the GS intake perfectly. Oops, I've already said too much.

Matt Beenen
Engineering

Wut?

[boredom.is.me]

Originally Posted by TouchMyHonda

Wut?

Late much...we even already went over the turbo that's lubricated by unicorn jizz.

[TouchMyHonda]

Originally Posted by boredom.is.me

Late much...we even already went over the turbo that's lubricated by unicorn jizz.

Sorry, I did not read through all the 1159 other posts in this thread. I guess boredom is you.

[boredom.is.me]

Haha I'm just messing with you. And it's 1162 posts.

[LeeMaster]

One thing I would like to add to the benefit of the GS strut brace is that today when I installed my Raceseng Crank pulley, I held onto the GS strut brace as leverage and it worked pretty good. Kept my body from making contact with the fender

Originally Posted by Evil Jesus

It really seems that that was the case. The GS guys have put on 100s of prototypes without issue they said. Haven't seen a single other person with issues either.

How tight is 12 ft/lbs anyway? Just slightly snug? Not looking forward to buying a $100 torque wrench to put on a $160 part if I don't have to. :happy0180:

You can rent a Torque wrench from Autozone for free. You pay $80 up front and when you return the wrench with the receipt you get every penny back. Or you can go buy a $28 Torin Torque wrench from Walmart which goes from 10-140 ft lbs torque(I personally use it and it works flawlessly for the price)