Strut Braces - Do they work on 'run of the mill' cars?

Soldato
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Hello chappies,
Drive a 2ltr Focus. It's lowered 30mm on eibach pro-kit. And I'm planning on changing the shocks at some point in the future.

Was wondering with a strut brace front and rear would tighten the handing up any more, or would I be throwing my money away?

The car is used often, and I'm a spirited driver. But's hardly track worthy or sporty :)

Ant :cool:
 
On most stuff - no - simply because the turrets are close enough to the bulkhead that there's little extra rigidity to be imparted by bracing the turrets against eachother.

Sometimes some cars need that bit of flex as well.

Your results may vary. Wildly. Are you just 'feeling' a result as you've changed something, or is there actual measured improvement? You know what I mean :)
 
I had strut braces on my old 106. The lower one was pretty amazing. Sharpened up the turn in imeasurably. Worth a go if its only cheap, can always sell it on if it makes no difference.
 
OK, a quote from the chief suspension engineer of Prodrive. He was talking about scoobs, but the points all still apply:


There is an awful lot of mythology around this stuff that goes back to body-on-chassis beam-axled racers in the 20s - I'm not kidding. There are two effects that are important. Basically, the body structure is like a "fifth spring" between the front and rear suspension. If that spring is not stiff enough then the body relaxes out any redictribution of roll moment that the anti-roll bars were trying to make and so the car is unresponsive to handling balance tuning with springs and bars. However, once the body is "stiff enough" then making it stiffer offers no benefits. A good rule of thumb is that the torsional stiffness of the body (between suspension mount points) needs to be about ten times the roll stiffness of the stiffest suspension end (usually the front). If you chase the numbers through you end up with about 5-7 kNn/degree as the requirement for a body structure. Most modern monocoques comfortably exceed that and the Subaru with its bonded screens both ends does too. Somewhere I have a figure but can't recall it right now. Anything over 10 is good, 15-17 is current "state-of-the-art". So in that case, a strut brace does very little. The second effect is a bit more complicated. The body moves on the suspension but the wheel also moves on the tyre - the tyre is in many ways a "secondary" suspension system. That movement is partially controlled by the tyre and partially by the suspension damper and happens 10 to 15 times a second. The body is a flexible thing that has its own resonances and because of the shape of most cars at the front - they need a hole to put the engine in - it can get quite flexible in just about this frequency region. If the body goes flexible - goes into resonance - then the damper just moves with the body and can't contribute to the control of the tyre and in fact can do something bad called "mass loading" where the tyre is carrying not only itself but also part of the body _while it resonates_ (it's important to separate the static 'weight carrying' from dynamic things in your mind). In those cases, the strut brace can help because if it is a good design then it stiffens the front end usefully.

What all of the above means is that the effectiveness of a strut brace is strongly connected to the stiffness of your suspension. So for a Scoob that is fairly standard, the strut brace probably doesn't do a great deal, but as they get modified and stiffened the brace will contribute more to a well controlled feel over less-than-perfect surfaces.

The final point about strut braces relates to the emporor's new clothes - having bought a flash one, not many people will admit they can't really tell the difference.

Sorry for such a long answer but it isn't straightforward, especially when I'm denied my usual engineering shorthand of "Hz" and "modal damping" and so on...
 
I had a Civic VTi, front strut brace is standard, I put coilovers on but could still feel what I thought was roll from the rear through higher speed corners, I fitted a rear strut brace and it sharpened up the rear and took away that rear roll/flex. I was really impressed and would always fit front and rear struts if I want to improve the handling of a car.
 
On my Corolla T-sport it made a massive difference, totally changed the steering feeling and even made it seem easier to get the power down. That was a huge TRD item that connected to the bulk head as well though.
 
The final point about strut braces relates to the emporor's new clothes - having bought a flash one, not many people will admit they can't really tell the difference.

This. Most people won't be sensitive enough to detect the slight difference to stiffness a strut brace will give on a modern car.
 
Those silly alloy E-Tech strut braces you can buy are more for show than anything else.

I have a solid OMP brace at the front and fairly hefty custom braces for the upper and lower rears.

I fitted each brace seperately so was able to feel the improvement that each brace gave... of which there was a considerable amount. The upper braces obviously helped turn-in feel but the rear lower seriously improved the stability of the car. It felt excellent!
 
On my VTS the top one did bugger all really, the lower wishbone brace was quite noticeable although it caught on everything even with the car at standardish height.
 
BMW actually added a strut brace to the E46 M3 in 2002, before that the cars didn't come with one and I can't imagine that they would have done so without good reason. I know an M3 is a bit more special but thought it was an interesting addition from such a manufacturer.
 
I had a Civic VTi, front strut brace is standard, I put coilovers on but could still feel what I thought was roll from the rear through higher speed corners,

Strut braces do not control body roll. Sound like you should have invested in a stiffer anti-roll bar.

Any strut brace with significant bends in it is inherently flawed for it's designed task, and the pathetically weedy alloy ones with bends (usually oval section) are as effective as tying a bit of string between your strut tops.

There is also the issue that if the strut tops are particularly flexible, then tying them together isn't going to achieve a great deal other than to get them to flex in phase. Many OEM strut braces tie both strut tops to a point on the centre of the bulkhead to form a triangulated structure.
 
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I hope Prodrive man wasn't meaning putting strut braces on 20's cars with beam axles. Being as they don't have struts or anywhere to put strut braces on... :D
 
Pop on to a Focus forum and see what their views are (mostly biased mind) but will give you an idea what to look for.
 
On my VTS the top one did bugger all really, the lower wishbone brace was quite noticeable although it caught on everything even with the car at standardish height.

Exactly as I find. The top one seems to be more for 'show', whereas the lower gives a healthy improvement.
 
ye the bottom ones make a difference but catches on everything.
plus if ur engine/g box is sagging slightly due to worn mounts then you could end up with a nasty vibration if its too close...
 
I hope Prodrive man wasn't meaning putting strut braces on 20's cars with beam axles. Being as they don't have struts or anywhere to put strut braces on... :D



I think he was talking about the things people say about torsional stiffness in general, etc, rather than twenties suspension specifically.



Personally I'd love to know if there's anyone knows anyone who has fitted a strut brace and they admitted that it didn't do anything. Because he I think his point about people refusing to admit mods had no effect is a valid one. As far as I can see he is saying that unless you drive a torsionally weak car on beefed up suspension, then a strut brace won't do anything. And there can't be many people where that combination of circumstances is true.



M
 
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