Rear Upper StrutBrace

[yetyGT]

Moved into the next step of stiffening the chassis by adding the rear upper strut brace. Seen some of them manufactured by Wiechers mostly. They all attach to the inner side of "wheel arch" though. Decided to make one on my own rather. I'm not a welder nor a mechanic or anything similar by profession so please apologize the look of my joints .

As you can see from the pictures below it's rather simple design connecting upper mounts of rear shocks. As they are actually forming the A shape and to make it even more stiff had to make it adjustable by adding opposite thread rod. It made it a bit heavier however saved the weight using extra strong thin sidewall steel tubes. All together it weights 1340 g before powder coating.

Lower brace will follow later. It will be either a rather simple Unicorse design or maybe even the stiffer Ultra Racing one.

[markwg]

I could be wrong, & well done for having a go, ( if I tried it would look like a lump of angle iron a dog had been chewing...) but that looks to me like it uses the top mounting of the damper to bolt onto? I understood the idea is to brace the shell, so it needs to mount onto the bodywork? But I can't quite tell from the lower picture if that's what it does (& mine is an SW anyway...)

[yetyGT]

You're correct. It joints shocks only. Is that wrong? I thought it's better than only to connect the bodywork.

[aziraphale]

Ideally it should do both. There was a photo of a cross brace I had on a ford cougar years ago, I'll see if I can find it.
Is there enough bolt thread on top of the suspension?

[yetyGT]

On mine it is. 147 is different layout as we just found out with Gotcha. And I have used 38 mm tube that fits almost bottom of the "plate" holding the shock. So the same nut is used.

I will redesign it so it joints the bodywork as well. Thanks both for pointing on this.

One more question : why would you want a lower strut brace ? Installing one will negate the advantages of having independent rear suspension.

[NineOneSix]

This is the ultra racing lower strutbrace for the rear of a 156

http://i759.photobucket.com/albums/x...werRL4-935.jpg

Alfa Romeo Products

[aziraphale]

here we go.

Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

the cougar's a hatchback but the premise could be the same. copied from one used in a cougar model that was never made.

the rear lower looks awesome, but where does it mount to?

[yetyGT]

Originally Posted by Alexandrus

One more question : why would you want a lower strut brace ? Installing one will negate the advantages of having independent rear suspension.

And the unicorse design:
http://www.unicorse.co.jp/new/produc...-lowerbar2.jpg

Sorry I don't understand a connection here. Could you explain me what do you mean with negate the advantages of having independent rear suspension ? A strut brace only stiffens the chassis and body work in my opinion.

[yetyGT]

Originally Posted by aziraphale

here we go.

Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

Very nice indeed. Worth considering as an option to improve it.

Originally Posted by aziraphale

the rear lower looks awesome, but where does it mount to?

It will be more clear to you if you see the picture of Unicorse design above. It bots in to the screws holding the rear straight arms and joins the rear subframe at the back where the rear arms joins it.

[aziraphale]

that unicorse one looks good.

wouldn't come any lower than the rear subframe either by the look of it, although i bet being Unicorse it will be expensive compared to the Ultra Racing one.

[yetyGT]

If I will reproduce the UltraRacing design I will be some 20 mm below it. However that's not a problem I guess. Front is even much lower due to EL downpipes anyway.

Yes. Unicorse is usually very expensive. That's the reason I'm doing it myself.