Call me stupid but....(Strut Brace question)

Caporegime
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Lisbon, Portugal
Tupac requested a pic of my engine bay

here's the link

http://www.je-design.co.uk/engine.jpg (pic is huge)

Now I've been thinking about getting a strut brace for the front and back to improve handling but correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that black bar going along the top a strut brace?

Many Thanks :)
 
Looks like it.

No idea why you'd want one on a standard Saab, will do next to sod all.
 
andi said:
Looks like it.

No idea why you'd want one on a standard Saab, will do next to sod all.

I beg to differ.

Many many people on specialist Saab forums have said it has greatly improved handling.

Does anybody know if the Saab's came with those as standard? and that strut braces you buy will be stronger/more rigid?

Thanks all.
 
There is a large placebo effect on this kind of item though. You've just forked out a load of cash, are you going to go on the internet and say "No, I wasted my money!" or are you going to convince yourself its wonderful?

I'll see if I can find the Prodrive suspension guy's post about braces on scoobynet if I can, he knows a bit more about these things than me, funnily enough.
 
Yeah it is.

I'd also be very surprised if it made a massive difference.

There may be some placebo :) Like putting 98 RON fuel in a car.
 
Gilly said:
Yeah it is.

I'd also be very surprised if it made a massive difference.

There may be some placebo :) Like putting 98 RON fuel in a car.


For some reason when i refreshed and saw Gilly had replied, the first thing I did was to see if the thread had been closed :p
 
andi said:
There is a large placebo effect on this kind of item though. You've just forked out a load of cash, are you going to go on the internet and say "No, I wasted my money!" or are you going to convince yourself its wonderful?

I'll see if I can find the Prodrive suspension guy's post about braces on scoobynet if I can, he knows a bit more about these things than me, funnily enough.


Ok mate, cool beans :)

I look forward to what he has to say.
 
Quite common with Saab Turbos IIRC.

Something to do with Torque Steer I think, was drunk and was being bored by someone who thought that Saab Turbos are the BEST cars in the world.

Yeah right!!! Everyone knows that BMWs are the best!!!!111!oNE!

Don't worry I spat my drink on him and put him straight.....
 
Maz said:
Something to do with Torque Steer I think, was drunk and was being bored by someone who thought that Saab Turbos are the BEST cars in the world.


You mean there not? :eek: :(


/cries
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
Gilly looks weird posting with that Commissario pic :p

That does look like a strut brace though, maybe the last owner put it on


I've spoken with the last owner, hes a 65yo pensioner.

I bet he was a chav at heart :D
 
TaKeN said:
You definately bought a knacker, chances are its been thrashed to within an inch of its life ;) :( :D


:D lol

would have been better off buying a scooby that had 7 previous owners and all of them ranging from 18 - 21 with no service history
 
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.

Last two paragraphs are the important bits. Thats written by Damian Harty, Prodrive's chief engineer of dynamics.

Personally i fancy a set for the bling :D
 
andi said:
Last two paragraphs are the important bits. Thats written by Damian Harty, Prodrive's chief engineer of dynamics.

Personally i fancy a set for the bling :D


Very interesting to read :)

So would I be right in thinking that unless I stiffen the suspension on the car the strut brace will do very little?
 
Probably.

Interesting that Saab fitted one as standard, they must have found it solved a problem, they wouldn't fit it without reason..

I wouldn't bother changing it though, no.
 
andi said:
Probably.

Interesting that Saab fitted one as standard, they must have found it solved a problem, they wouldn't fit it without reason..

I wouldn't bother changing it though, no.


Might take it off and paint it blue and put it back :D

and fit some blue hoses.

does nothing but it's something to look at when you open the boot :D
 
I fitted one to my R5 GTT and it made a massive difference (also had lowered suspension too). That might've been because the body was made from tin foil though, who knows?
 
Firestar_3x said:
I thought the term 'Direct Injection' as written ontop of your engine was reserved for Diesel cars, you have a petrol turbo?
Eye sight alert! No where on that picture does it say 'injection' it does however say 'ignition' :)
 
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