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2G effective bracing

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romeen said:
If I ever learn how to weld then stitch welding will definitely be something that I will do.:thumb:
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In my 4 mins of welding experience I'm absolutely positive that I could do stitch welds no problem. Once I get my tax check (I'm so tired of saying that) I'm going to buy a little $90 harbor freight flux welder and get started.
 
Man if you could just take some pics and point out where you welded that would be awesome. Maybe just circle the areas in MSpaint or something... I've got a friend who can weld and it'd be sweet to have something to go on.
 
Ok guys.

Originally Posted by romeen View Post
If I ever learn how to weld then stitch welding will definitely be something that I will do.
Click to expand...

In my 4 mins of welding experience I'm absolutely positive that I could do stitch welds no problem. Once I get my tax check (I'm so tired of saying that) I'm going to buy a little $90 harbor freight flux welder and get started.
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Ok on the welder front. I have the 90$ harbor freight welder (actually mine says craftsman on the side, but every single part is the same and they are made in the same factory in china. not worth the red box). Its a piece of shit, but a damn useful piece of shit. its fine for making braces, stitch welding, small projects, pretty much anything your would want to tackle on your own.

two pieces of advice, 1 practice on some scrap steel till you have the wire feed settings figured out (i used an old jeep bumper), and 2) once you have had some practice go buy THE BEST FLUX CORE WIRE YOU CAN FIND. it makes a Huge difference vs the cheap crap they give you. also before you go buy wire, be sure to check what size you will want to do thin sheet metal with. the welder has only a high and low power setting so the wire size /speed are the best ways to get clean welds out of it.

i picked up the welder, read/watched some how to videos, and am now able to stick two pices of metal together without tape or glue. kinda makes a mans head swell.


without further delay. PICS (of my shitty welding)
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some notes on the stitch welding:
I used a wire wheel on a drill to clean off the paint first, then i used a socket extension as a punch to assure the pieces of metal were in the best contact i could get. with my cheap welder and lack of skills burn though was a problem if i moved too slow, when i changed wire diam at the end the welds got much better.

pretty much anywhere two pieces of metal meet and were held together by a spot weld i added seem welds. when it was all done i hit it with some kinda close to color automotive spray paint to better disguise my poor welding skills from the casual onlooker.

the same can be done all over the car, i really had a hard time stopping for the night once i got started. I really wanna start digging our all the caulk that the factory used all over the car at the seams and stitching along them but i have yet to be that motivated.


as far as results. i posted what i noticed in the epic post on the last page (above cburke's pics)

NOTE: be careful of proximity to wires as a good gob of splatter will ruin your harness. be careful of your electronics, make sure your ground is as close as possible and disconnect the battery, if your really worried and you will be doing a good bit maybe un plug your computer. Be wary of the location of your gas tank/fuel lines. Proceed at your own risk.

I did a quick image search and found an example of what can be done with little skill and some time.

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probably a better example than my stuff. many seem to prefer many small tack welds close together, i went the 1/2 weld 1/2 space route that we have used on derby cars and jeeps. dono about the difference in strength to either but its better welding practice to lay beads so i was (attempting) to do that. again very tricky when you low setting isnt low enough, but im sure skill would have helped too.
 

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There is NO reason for welding the plate to the fire wall. There are a few companies out there making the 3 point and they are proven effective!
 
habitatguy187 said:
endeffect0 has been promising pics this whole thread LOL. Comon' man post em' up!
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I know :cry: ! I suck with the whole being able to find my digital camera thing. Sorry guys. Ill get pics of the bars as soon as i have them back too. 'I promise'

romeen Wow, you're welding really sucks!
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indeed it does. well atleast on this part of the car, I can lay good lookin beads on steel that isnt way to thin I swear i can! i would glady post pics to regain my honor here, but yea I really had a hard time with the sheet meal on our cars. no way around that.



Thanks for backing me up Kevin! :D

cburke23 said:
There is NO reason for welding the plate to the fire wall. There are a few companies out there making the 3 point and they are proven effective!
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ehhhh..... yea, i agree with you. dont bother welding a plate.
that said, the bolt holes are are using and tacked onto really thin steel. if your only going to pick up two bolt holes i can absolutely see the firewall flexing where you have bolted it. Hell i can tell you the fire wall we be flexing with a 3 point brace with just two bolt holes inplay i do worry about the strength and i think welding the plate from the strut bar to the fire wall would be the best way to distribute load over a greater area.. now you pick up more bolt holes and use a plate (On The Bar!) to spread out load over the firewall and i think everything will work much better.

also, if there were a few companies that make (IMOP) Effective 3 point braces for this car i would likely not have made this thread..
 
No, not for this car, but that is just because of the motor placement..............And really you have to be putting in some major G's to be worrying about your fire wall flexing. All you are doing with a 3 point is making it more structurally sound, in a nut shell, tying the front together with the fire wall. The fire wall on the Eclipse can't be any thinner then a Honda and when I made mine you could damn sure tell it was there. The front was so much tighter in the turns! I can't wait to see what you have come up with; I am very interested in what you have.

On another note the fire wall mount does not have to be centered, you are just (like I said) tying it all together. The back and forth motion is getting handled by the strut mounts.
 
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I agree with it not needing to be centered, and of the similar gauge steel used in construction. But keep in mind the weight difference with these cars. If i am at an autox lifting the right inside rear wheel...

well put it like this; i have corner weights for my car with a full interior and 1/4 tank of gas. with my 200lb ass in the front seat lifting the inside rear tire you got 1800lbs on the front left corner. i understand the dynamic distribution would be a little different but thats still Not taking into account cornering forces..

If you were just to tie a bar from that corner into the firewall i am sure you would see some pretty good deflection. now of-course we are tying the two struts together so the major effects that the 'third point' will produce is stopping deflections in caster angle and any other changes of the strut towers relative to the length of the car. As far as the effects between the towers the third point will help cancel any unwanted changes in individual wheel camber angle that would be caused by a the loaded tower pushing up and in and the consequently pushing the unloaded tire outward.

I know you know all this stuff. please dont assume i am trying to lecture you on anything, Just talking it out to make sure this all makes sense.


does anyone know how we could go about measuring the deflection of the strut towers vs other points of the car effectively? I would love to know how much my front end deflects. as i have seen on breaking the tac welds on the first strut tower bar i made, just while doing a quick K turn, i would imagine its quite a bit.


in reference to the bars i am making, the doodles i posted on the last page were made after i did the 'mock up' set that i have been driving around on. so no real surprises as to what i will be finishing up this week. just (Finally) some good pics of them.
 
Here is a strut bar I had on my old 1g...Bought it from RRE...It was their discontinued hardcore strut tower bar...
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Dont mind all the crappy blue wire loom...autoparts store didnt have any black....also yeah I know the mbc was tee'ed onto the bov line LOL
 

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:Face palm:

that's scary close to the design i settled on. granted i am dodging a 6 bolt manifold but other than that and the mount point we came to about the same conclusion on how to build it and how it should be braced.

Not sure if i should be pissed that someone else did a similar design before me, frustrated that i didn't find it in my research, or a little flattered that my design was similar to the solution that RRE came up with before i even bought my first car.

:ohdamn:WTF:coy:
 
I'm wondering if you could just weld bars in on the near-backsides of the strut towers and connect them straight to the firewall, similar to the pic below but the bars would end at the firewall instead of going through it. Opinions?


greengoblin said:
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Also, as far as seam/stitch welding goes. I was looking at my kneebar today and noticed that the ends where it connects to each side of the car don't look like they're welded on very well, should that be an area of concern or are we looking more so at places where sheetmetal meets sheetmetal?
 

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The only thing about that strut tower bar I had was that it was a total pita to install....if they would have made it so that it goes around the top of the strut area unlike on 2 studs it would have been easier...

I found myself pulling on 1 bar getting it started...then smashing down on another to get it over the stud...popped out a stud everynow and then...
 
One thing about the Archer cage I noticed was it looks like there is very little if ANY room for the brake master in the stock configuration.

Also what makes the Archer cage so nice is it ties into the towers in two places. So not only does it act as a strut brace but also a fender brace. I'm sure it does wonders to keep the front end from flopping around like a dead fish. I also like how the braced the rear diff area.

As for the fire wall flexing? I'd thing that yes it would and does. Esp if your talking about the wiper valley. Still, I'd think it would be an improvement over the typical braces you see.

Kevin
 
the interesting thing about the firewall is that its length is running parallel to the load put on it while cornering.

Think about your IKEA bookshelf without the cheap cardboard back on it. the backing couldn't stand up to an attack by a house cat, but go ahead and lean against that bookshelf without the backer on it..

Taking that into account i think stitch welding all connections to and around the firewall should be a primary concern to anyone with the motor out of the engine-bay.

load put on it by a three point brace will be along both axis as the strut tower will deflect in and back under cornering and breaking force. so while it will hold up to load parallel to its length, i still think it would be a good idea to try and spread out that load with as large a plate and as many bolt points as feasible.

I also think the fender braces will do a much better job of keeping the strut towers deflecting toward the rear of the car than a 3 point brace will, and they would take some of that load off the firewall leaving that mount point to only deal with stress along its length.
 
So it looks like there may be frame bolts in the trunk?!?!? Can some one take a look and let me know? I don't have my car yet! Doesnt seem like that would do anything. That is why I build mine like I do.
 
Yah I just canceled and order I had placed for the DC rear strut, I am now deciding whether or not to dive into the GT cage spec. Out of everything I have seen or debated on, if you not fabricating a custom 1 off for your trunk, this GTSpec trunk "cage" seems to be your best bet for 380$. Still, it IS rather pricey.

The thing I like about it too is that my sub box will still fit right inside the "cage" area of this design. I use my back seat as my "trunk" anyways ;-)

I have also been bugging RRE to produce some more of their hardcore firewall braces, those combined with this trunk "cage" I believe would be a great addition for the average tracker.
 

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Hey guys a few updates/ comments.

been trying to work with the fabrication shop this week. its been a major pain in my ass because my freind is treating this like a favor, when i am really trying to pay him for his time and work. Bottom line is he is putting 'business' in front of the business i am trying to give him. SIgh.... working with friends ya know.

either way I had the opportunity to sit down and talk materials and design with a custom suspension/chassis builder which got me a bunch of cool information and new alternatives as apposed to making this out of chomoly.

-=[~>

Jeff:
IMOP that rear brace is no more effective than any other single bar design. attaching it to the floor pan with spherical bushings rear of the strut towers makes zero difference. the bumper of the car is not flexing upward, the strut towers will not flex toward the rear bumper under load, the spherical adjustable bushings negate any help that would have been in bracing side to side load.... unless they intend you to use that as a harness bar the bar bolted to the ground is Useless in the way they have set it up.


--=[~>

as for the pics, I have more or less decided that I wont be posting pics of the bars untill i have the final ones done. partly because the mock up ones look like shit, partly because i just really dont want to see my design end up with someone selling it on ebay.

if anyone wants pics of the mockups ill be happy to pm them to you. I also did a regular 2 point brace for the rear of a gsx this weekend for a buddy of mine last weekend. it came out really good so i would be happy to send that out too.

bottom line, PM me if you want pics. I have half a mind to produce a few of these because of how happy i am with the design, maybe not. But until then i just don't want someone running off with my shit.

when i have a shiny final version i will post it.
 
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