I finally finished making my engine torque brace, it is just like the one pictured here.
http://reganrotaryracing.tripod.com/powrbar.htm

Thanks to Chris for helping me through the whole thing. It was PITA to do and I wouldn't recomend doing it yourself.

I also wanted to say how unbelievable this thing is. I couldn't be happier with it. It feels like I am driving a new car. Everything is so tight. I was worried about the vibrations, but I haven't notice any at all. just maybe a bit at certain rpms, but very infrequently. Just even starting off in first the cars feels much, much better. like a rock. you can really feel the power being put through much better. I did mount the bracket on some3/8" rubber to absorb the vibrations a bit. no more shifter play from side to side either. I think I woudl have noticed more vibration if I hadn't already installed the unobotanium differential bushings. So for people with stock drivetrain I woudl expect a little vibration. but the improved drivability far out weights that.

anyway, just wanted to share this with the foum, it is so fun to drive my car now, oh.. one more thing, I did notice some torque steer appear when in say 3rd gear at 6rpm and 14lbs of boost, but it was actually kind of fun, felt like a drag car with front end bobbing a bit.

I checked into having this piece fabricated and machined from local shops, the price was rediculus, something over 200$ just for them to make parts. I was thinking of organising a group buy, so we could get them made cheaper because the cost significantly goes down with volume. and I woudlnt; mind haveing a new one with a better finish, my amke shift fab shop consists of a hacksaw, table vise and hand drill.

 

What is torque steer?

 

It looks easy enough to make. My only concern is about how much stress it would be putting on the inner fender well. I would hate to be one day notice a 3/8" gap between the hood and fender, or worse a bind. If I were to make one, I think that I would tie it into the wiper mount, fender, and the strut tower just to be safe. I might give it a shot myself though. If it makes as big of a difference as you say it will, then what the heck.

 

Borrow anyone's front wheel drive car, mash it from a dead stop and you'll know the meaning. It's also known as "P factor" in engineering circles and is something manufacturers have been trying to elimate in front wheel drive cars for years. My wife has a brand spankin' new 2002 Honda 2WD CRV and guess what - it' still apparent. If anyone could have gotten rid of it you would think that Honda could..........
There still is nothing like rear wheel drive for sports cars.

 

you bring up a good point, and I have thught of that. I think with a strut bar, we shoudl be okay. another thing, I am goign to try and tighten it up to load the passenger side mount, in which case the stress on the bar woudl be pulling, not pushing the wall. right now, the bar is not loaded one way or another, which is really bad for stress, I just have to figure out which i sbetter to load the driver or passenger or maybe none at all. I had one of these on a FWD car once, but it had upper engine mounts, so teh decision was easy.

to be honest, even if the thing wrecked my whole car it would be worth it. I can never drive my FD withuot it again. I woudl think it to be of paricluar interest to those with modded cars. the second gen cars had them, although not with 330 rwhp, but still can't be that bad I woudl think

If someone is an engineer they coudl figure out the energy needed to warp stuff , and stress on UIM with a few calculations. I think fender wall is a large step, but definately UIM. however, I don't drag my car either, so the strain is minimal.

 

go drive the 1993 Cadilaac allante, the year with the most powerful northstar. It has FWD and 300hp. My father had one, adn it had the worst torque steer imaginable. when you slammed on the gas, you had to hold on to the wheel for dear life to keep iot from going in a ditch. what a poorly designed car.

I had an Alfa Romeo 164S, it had FWD but a whole system of torque rods to elimate Torque steer, worked great, but the engien was really low in that car too, which helps. you didn;t even notice it was FWD.

 

You want to know torque steer? Try driving a 10sec. Honda Civic with 450whp....it's the true definition of torque steer! It is a blast to drive though

 

Unobotanium differential bushings?

 

Definitely makes a huge difference.

I also got help from Chris.

I am not using anything to dampen the vibration but I don't really notice it. The driveline is super tight, and as stated makes the car feel much more responsive.

thesaint

 

I'm in the planning process of mine. Seems like a simple enough mod. What parts gave you trouble?

 

Where did you get your materials? If you dont mind me asking.

 

well locating most of the parts was easy enough. A guy I deal with here at work actually gave me the aluminum 1"x1.25" stock for the fender bracket. I had to use a sawsall to cut it. I strtaed with a cube and basically cut away the **** I didn't need. If I were to make it out of 1/8" woudl be no problem as they have 90 deg **** at home depot, etc. but not 1/4". tapping the alum' rod just took getting used to. drilling freehand is not the greatest idead when working with 1mm of play on each side. I had to buy a left hand tap for 25$, luckily I already had the right-hand one in my tool box. Just a lot of time consuming work, which woudl take 10 minutes if you had right tools.

I wouldn't do this yourself unless you have a drill press, RHD and LHD 3/8" 24 taps, lathe, dremmel with right accesories or sharp hacksaw. Prey to God if you try to make it out of stainless.


This is what I spent:
RH & LH rod ends ... 20$ for both
LH tap... 25$ ******* rip off I know. RH was only 8$
bolts washer, etc... 5$
1x1.25 slum' stock...free, wohoo
1/4" alum' sheet 10$
36" of 1/2" rod 10$
new 13/16 drill bit 9$

everythign I got at Ace Hardware, so some of it very expesnive, homedepot doesn;t have very much of this stuff. aluminum stock 1/4" sheet I got from local fab shop.

 

Cool, sounds easy enough. I have access to verticle mill and more tools than I can count.

Just a suggestion to you guys that are thinking about doing this but do not want to plunk down $25 for a LH tap. There is another solution, instead of using a LH and a RH rod end you can use two RH rod ends, but you just have to make sure that they have slightly different sizes with different pitched threads. This will still give you the adjustability of having both LH and RH ends. And the adjustablility will be much finer. (Nifty little trick I picked up at a vehicle dynamics seminar that I was at last weekend )

 

The Tripod site you are trying to reach has been temporarily suspended due to excessive bandwidth consumption.

Pic doesn't work, can you repost somewhere that doesn't suck ***?

 

well I'm sure there are plenty of ways to go about it.

 

My question is still....WTF are unobotanium diff bushings?

 

Jimlabs urethane home-grown bushings. At this point, I don't know of anyone else, including energy that produces FD bushings. I think that Jim stopped making them but has allowed someone else to take over. Not positive though. If anyone else knows where to get bushings I would love to know.

 

Damn thats cool. I saw one of these at Mads last fall.And wanted one since. But have been busy with other mods but now I think I have a new project. Money-metal

 

Give it about 3 months of use, the torque brace that is, and if everything's still good then you can celebrate. One of my friends made a homemade torque brace and mounted it to the rear engine lift bracket and straight across from that on the inner fender. In a couple weeks it had pulled the inner fender skin apart. It's all about where the brace is secured on the fender side of the car. What about a torque brace that tied into the shock towers? Perhaps sharing with the strut bar?

 

mine is not mounted straight across, but uses the existing holes on the fender wall. reminds me of question, which way does the engine torque. From that I woudl say it torques and loads the drivers side mount. is that true? if so, I will adjust the rod to load up the driver's side mount, then it won't be pulling on it at all. Chris uses his only on the track, and hasn't had any problems, hopefully he will chime in. but that is good to know, I will see in 3 months The japanese do it, so it is porbably all about the mounting and the setting of it.

 

If I had to do it again,I woudl get the stock ones, and I think mazdaspeed sells stiffer ones as well. the solid diff mounts are overkill, and I didn't notice any better thottle response except. Only thing it did was give me back massages on the highway

 

If I'm not mistaken on the bushing kits.....aren't SP Engineering making the bushing kits now also? They are supposed to be exactly the same as the "other" bushing kits but alot cheaper and they don't have a 4 month waiting list because of "moody" people making them

 

I Was just posting my personal experience with them. I'd really like to get one too, but after seeing that, it disuaded me since I haven't had any other experiences with them. The idea is awesome, just want one that won't tear up my car. Do you have any pictures of the one you fabbed up?

 

Wow...I had no idea my little creation would generate so much interest

Lemme see, what can I say.
Fd3BOOST: The car you saw at MADS last year was mine.

I've been using the torque rod on my car for well over a year now. And I've gotten too lazy to take it off after every track weekend so its been on consistently for quite a while. Now my car is no power monster but I do have in excess of 300RWHP and I spend *A LOT* of time on the track. I'm pleased to report no fenderwall flexing, no fender wall sheet metal delamination, no UIM cracking splitting etc etc. Everything looks the same way it did when I first installed it. Note that this is not a cure for excessive engine movement. If you have bad motor mounts then bad things might happen. The idea was to preserve and augment a good set of motor mounts...nothing more. Now if it also results in a more responsive drivetrain and tighter shifter feel then great.I experienced the same thing and was all the more happy because of it.

Oh yeah and I just noticed that Pega$u$ Racing now sells that left hand tap for $10.

And since you guys seems to have killed my Tripod site I'm attaching a pic of my torque rod.
Regards
Crispy

 

Well, with that said... bring on the group buy!