Hey Manntis, thanks for the great idea!, in your new web page catalouge, the little write up on strut tower braces mentioned that the hood provides no front end flex reinforcement, so if nobody has tried this already, how about some sort of removable pins in the hood to pin it to the chassis- can?

 

It could be done I guess, but the strut tower brace is alot easier way to go IMHO.

 

I am wanting to weld up ALL of the seams of my 80, when I go all out on it...That would help get the chassis flex out, as I have been told!


But I heard that it is not leagal in some race classes... oh well, I am going for a bad *** street car...


Peace....

 

Now your talkin! Thats part of the plan for my streetcar. Fully seam welded baby! And I'll gets lotsa welding experience while I'm at it too

 

im acualy working on my 80 GS right now, what do you meen welding the chassis, or just in the front ? im prety new to cars this is my first project

 

BEcause the hood is barely able to keep itself from flexing, I doubt pinning it to the strut towers would prevent much chassis flex...

 

Unless you epoxied sheetmetal plate to the undersides of the hood, the pins, even with the silly chrome surrounds, is going to want to bend the hood or round out the holes. The hood sheetmetal is just too damn thin...

 

Yes it would take a serious reinforcement of the hood. And I wanst talkingabout using hood pins. They wont do ****. Like I said, buy a brace. Manntis has a very reasonable price IMHO.

 

If you look at the car you' ll notice its held together with spot welds. If you run good weld beads on all the seams, 'specially the ones around high stress areas, i.e. suspension mount points, frame rails etc... it'll stiffen up the chassis prolly better than an 8pt roll cage.

 

You guys are so funny LOL

LOL at welding the whole car, and using the hood for flex support

 

I agree with Mike-P-28 that this is an exercise in futility. Trying to bind your car up with seam welds is going to give you more headaches down the road that going with proven suspension components that will stiffen the suspension (endlinks, stabilizer bars, rod links, etc.) and improve handling, rather than trying to accomplish this by making your frame stronger.

Welding the frame up is going to increase your torsional stress, possibly cause fractures in suspension components which rely on frame flex to prevent them from taking the 'heat', and make it very difficult to work on your car if you have a fender bender. You'll think this was a bad idea if you have to replace a front fender because somebody whacked into you in the parking lot after you try to plasma cut through your weld seams.

While this seems like a cheap alternative to better handling, I'd spend the time working a second job and buying good components that won't stress your frame.

Anytime you strenghten one component, you increase stress on the next weakest part in the system. Worst case, you weld up your frame/body/whatever, and find out that you just broke a lower control arm going 75 down the freeway...

Roll cages would contribute more and add a safety element, at that. Hell, getting a Sparco seat and 5-point harness would likely improve your handling better (at least your handling of the controls)!

Not to be a naysayer, but the frame of the SA/FB is not the first place to invest energy to improve handling.

 

I think you misunderstood me. Welding key areas will lower the frequency of the chassis and allow for the suspension to be more precise/linear. Welding a front fender would be futile as it is not a structural component. I'm not talking about going weld crazy lol.

Oh and it would be part of an overall handling upgrade package/system, certainly not a first mod ROFL. Jeez, gimme a LITTLE credit would ya?

 

Hey, hey, now. My RX3 is completely seam welded and the sucker is muy rigido. It was a former SCCA pro rally car, so your assertions about suspension parts breaking while going down the freeway sound pretty ridiculous to me. Have you owned a car that has been seam-welded? Ridden in one? Know someone with one? Talked to someone who owns one? I'm just trying to get a handle on what you're basing your opinion on.
Welding up at least the front strut towers works great, why would a bolted-on strut bar that tries to accomplish essentially the same purpose be any easier on the suspension components? And if that truly were the case why on Earth would anyone, least of all people who race in SCCA classes that allow seam-welding, make the major investment of time required to hand-weld all the seams?
I agree that a good seat and harness will lower your times at the autocross, though. -Mike

 

A strut bar transfers lateral loads from one-point vertical to two-point semitriangulated and carries the bulk of cornering loads on the tower across the engine bay, dispersing the load by half. Seam welding the tower strengthens the ability of the tower itself to take the load and lessens flex somewhat, but does not offer the same dispursion.