Strut Brace

[domtoni]

For a sunday driver, is there any benefit to a strut brace on the front shock tower? Any particular brand better?

Dom

[911hillclimber]

Imho, no.
If your top mounts are still factory rubber they will move about far more than the inner wings will flex.
I added an 'rsr' type front brace because I had, then, solid top mounts, i.e. Steel bearings.

That was when I hill climbed the car for 13 years.
I softened the car when I retired it from competition back to rubber top mounts, and noticed no handling difference, just less vibration and harshness.

[MikeB]

The Weltmeister bar attaches to both the strut top itself as well as the strut mount, tying both together. But agree with Graham, if your rubbers are in good condition then you won’t notice any difference on a Sunday drive.

They really are for cars with hi-grip front tyres, such as racing slicks, which Porsche found were distorting the inner wing and moving the top of the strut outwards, you are unlikely to be generating such forces on the way for an ice cream

[sladey]

But they look cool when you open the bonnet

[Gary71]

And this is why I have one

[911hillclimber]

[fetuhoe]

Strut braces do offer some benefits but only in cars that have high levels of grip and that are driven hard.

The RSR style with fixed ends are the most appropriate design as the rose joint now commonly used still allow a degree of freedom and allow some movement of the towers. The rose jointed designs certainly have more optical appeal but don't work as effectively.

There is a theory that strut braces are always in tension but this isn't correct. If you look at the Free Body Diagram it is easy to see that some compressive forces are applied on bumpy surfaces and the rose joint can then articulate and allow relative movement of the towers.

There is also a school of thought that suggest pre-tensioning during installation but IMHO this is a mistake. If you apply a tensile preload to the strut brace the towers will move slightly due to this force and as the car drives on a bumpy road the preload will reduce and the body will move back to its original unstressed condition.

Strut braces should be fitted with a 'zero' preload when installed with the car at its normal ride height.

The Weltmeister strut brace is an interesting design and as has been described it not only acts as a strut brace but also fixes the position of the damper insert relative the strut tower.

This means that the bush in the camber plate becomes ineffective. A rubber bush will still provide some vibration damping but the feature that clamps the damper rod will bot allow the strut to move during cornering.

The bush or the spherical joint in a monoball camber plate is designed to allow the tyre to maintain its angle of contact with the road during cornering. I believe that the Weltmeister strut brace will produce a subtle increase in understeer which is not ideal.

[911hillclimber]

Totally agree.
I remember a long morning down at Bobs discussing the next moves for my hill climb mods on my car.
He did the steel bearing top mounts for me, so no rubber there and I deleted the lower arm and arm drop link and through body rubber bushes for nylon.
Certainly increased NVH at the front but it was sharp too.
All gone now it is a Sunday driver.

The brace on my car is a Demon Tweeks kit, rh and lh threaded tube and rose joints. Brackets I made and fitted, Bob approved them.

The strut that had a connection to the top damper shaft to me is wrong.
As the suspension moves up and down the top mount rubber allows the strut to articulate 'freely' with a steel clamp in it the mount is forced to flex or the strut shaft to bend.

Best strut is triangulated, horizontal across the towers and one leg from one tower to the opposite lower wind i.e. By the chassis plate area.

Can't see the wow factor in a brace!

Altogether different, but the RSRs on large slicks at high corner speeds had a lot of cross bracing in the front across the towers and down to the lower A arm locations at the very front.

Think this shows race cars with these shells need help, but a road car never sees these loads.

I was alway surprised to see the movement of my 911s suspension on a hill climb at full chat but that was with tyres almost as grippy as hill climb slicks and on the brink of break away as much as I dared to.

[domtoni]

So I will pass on the strut brace. Thanks for the advise.

[T911UK]

Weltmeister Cambermeister kits are NLA