CP Racing strut tower brace questions
 

Questions as regarding the triangulated brace.

- Is it normal for it to not meet anywhere near the firewall on the passenger side? I had to grind the crap out of the forward mounting holes to get the rear leg to meet firewall. (This in addition to the grinding needed because I relocated my strut tops inboard 1/4", but that was to be expected)

- Are there supposed to be spacers to go beneath the forward mounting plates, or are they supposed to sit on top of the nuts? I put it under the nuts and it mashed the hell out of the "ribs" on the strut tower, and bent the brace's mounting plates a fair bit.

Just curious.

The triangulated brace made a HUUUGE difference in how the car feels. I didn't think the car was particularly floppy before, not until the brace was installed. Then it was "Holy Cow this car feels a bunch stiffer." Definitely not the psychological effect here, it was immediately noticeable as soon as I went down a driveway at an angle. And then there's how the car moves (or rather, doesn't) when flying down "imperfect" roads.

FWIW, my car has somewhat stiffer than usual springing under it (200lb-in springs front and rear) and no sway bars, so *all* of the front loading is through the strut tops.

yeah after seeing yours i want one now.. i just hope i dont have to grind mine as much as you did.. jeeezzzz

mine fit up good i just had to drill the holes.

yet another shot at their quality control.

mine fit like shit, and i can no longer acces my brake fluid without doin a ton of shit. CP made a real shitty strut tower bar if u ask me. Sure it does its purpose and im not planning on taking it off, but they could have made it lots better with very little thought proccesses required

I think the car they built the prototype was tweaked or something, 'cause Manntis' bar is the same way.

When I received the CP Racing tri-bar and it was distorted, I called Chris. He insisted that they're carefully welded together on a jig, not a car, and if it's bent at all it's the fault of the shipping company.

The owner of the restoration shop that was painting Pamela at the time and was about to drill the fire wall holes for me said it seemed to have been made crooked, not bent that way after the fact.

who else makes strut tower braces?

Mine fit perfectly & despite the controversy surrounding CP Racing, I would say that next to tires, this has been the best performance addition I have made to the car. It was a pain to deal with last fall until I had the chance to replace a leaking brake caliper - there isn't enough clearance on one of the rear facing supports & this doesn't doesn't allow any access to the brake master reservoir without removing the strut tie bar. I highly recommend this if you want to improve the handling ( not the ride quality ) of your car. I haven't seen them being made but I would assume that, given the volume that they produce, a jig would be used to produce them. I also have one of their roll bars. I added a diagonal brace & it also fit perfectly. Maybe your car is bent?

I know SA's and early FB's don't have the strut tower ribs. Maybe the brake reservoir is lower too.

The brake thing doesn't worry me, I'll be going to remote reservoirs sooner or later. :)

You can lay the strut tower brace I have on the ground and have both tower plates and left rear mounting point on the ground, while the right rear mounting point is consistantly about 1.3" higher.

bump

anyone have pics? been looking for one of these for a few months without luck. guess it's time to make my own

It is probable that the car used to make the jig was either bent or was at one end of manufacturing tolerances.

As much as we may like to think otherwise, our cars were slapped together from an assembly of cheap stampings, and they are NOT all alike.

thanks for the pic! I have to agree with you though, the tri point RB brace we put on my buddy's se car and another one on my gf's 79 needed a little custom fab to get it to bolt up, but once it was on there man does it feel tighter!
Hopefully I can get some dom and scrap metal to build the top hats and plates out of and tig the rest together. much appreciated :)

Found another one while looking for something else.

Attachment 607113

pm'd!!!

I didn't find another brace, I found another picture of it :)

The one in my FD fit fine. Did yours include a backing plate for the cowl? Mine had a couple plates that went inside the cowl to bolt the bar to, making the cowl stronger/less likely to distort. Like a Jackson Racing one for a Miata.