Best Strut Tower Brace?
 

The front strut tower brace on my 88 GXL na sits right on top of my coolant fill cap with less than 1/8 in clearance. Is there one made that sits forward or rearward of this or do I just have to live with it. Also who makes the best brace front and rear?

Cusco bar sits in front of the coolant cap.

the Efini bar clears nicely.

as for the best bar, in the rear the Mazdaspeed is the best one, no cutting.

in the front i don't think it matters too much as long as the bar clears stuff. to be "better" it would have to triangulate to the firewall.

Will ck into the Cusco bar and will be ordering a rear bar soon. Mazdatrix bar looks good and has been one of my choices for the rear. Have seen a triangulated bar for the rear on ebay and heard of one through Mazdatrix for the front that connected to the firewall but cannot find one now. Does anyone sell such a front brace and would the same type set-up for the rear even be worth it? Looking for handeling more than straight line power for this car. Also, would a lower a-frame type brace help in the handeling in hi-speed corners as 65 through a 25 corner is ok but would like a little more stability.

What are you doing with this car?
Before getting all exotic with add on bracing, I'd make sure the suspension was in perfect condition and upgrade the wheels/tires.
Until that's been done you can't even tell what the chassis is doing and you're probably not stressing it anyway.

I'd think you'd be adding bracing after the car has been caged (because any car going that consistently fast is being raced, right?) to handle stresses resulting from that operation.

As of now the car is not being raced, just driven hard on the twistie roads of sw misery. As per the previous post I am setting the car up for handeling especially hard fast cornering, so I am adressing all factors of the suspension to achieve this and looking into all areas of improvments, and since I cannot seem to find a specific thread area covering this, a simple question on a strut rod brace has gone beyond where it started, point me in a direction I can do better research on this

Probably this section would be your best start point.

Unfortunately, absent the track time to get some consistent/repeatable data, you are going to be the primary data source and most drivers are not very reliable informants.

I know I am old and forgetfull but I know how my car feels so that is the data I have to work with for now, hope to have alot of my set-up figured out and done for auto x next year as the time is not available to me this year as my business is taking all my time so even my drive time is limited for now. Will be looking through the link sent and thanks.

Just a note if you're planning to autocross competitively, the triangulated strut tower bar will bump you up a class compared to a plain strut bar.

Isn't there a whole bunch of anecdotal evidence of strut tower bracing giving a much better feel of the road? I thought that there was alot of flex the unibody, especially on older cars like ours and reducing it helps overall even if the suspension isn't sorted.

And your best bet might be to avoid commercial bars. The Cusco unit is hinged and made from Ahloomineeum, right? Two big problems with that judging from some mild google-fu on the subject. Ahloomineeum is, by weight, as strong as steel. But this means that an ahloomineeum bar that is lighter than a steel piece isn't as strong, and not as effective as a steel piece. Also the hinges destroy any rigidity the bar would have, the strut towers can still parallelogram under cornering.

Your best bet may be to borrow/rent a welder and a pipe bender and make your own strut tower brace. Fitment won't be an issue then.

just putting around on the street, i don't notice a difference with the bar vs without. with sticky tires, and some faster driving, you might notice it. the SAE paper on the FD body shell indicates the strut bar is like a 3% improvement, so its small potatoes.

so does it help? yes. does buying some fancy pants non triangulated bar over a $9 ebay bar make any difference? no.

the mazdatrix bar that attached to the firewall WILL make a difference.

Asked earlier in this thread about triangulated Mazdatrix bar, can't find on thier site unless i am looking in the wrong place. And with my driving style (very agrisive) yes i did notice a difference with the strut bar in place. And brought up the triangulated ebay bar as a refrence only to ask if it would be more effective than a straight bar between the rear towers without a cage in the car. Eventually will be going to a four point roll bar set-up as the wife says if she can't get in over the cage she wont go. No fun as I cant freak her out if she not there. Does anyone have a link to the mazdatrix triangulated bar or another manufactuar for one, looking at all options here

You probably don't wanna hear this, but it's quite likely that a front strut tower brace will simply make your car more prone to understeer. Taking mine off helped turn-in tremendously.

The mazdatrix triangulated front bar has been discontinued. Look for a used example in the classified section. That bar is the one I was talking about that changes your autocross classing vs a plain ebay bar.

The rear cusco triangulated bar doesn't seem to add much over a simple rear bar.

I don't know of anyone that replicates either of them.

I noticed a significant difference with my cheapo front bar..

My project car is getting the Mazdatrix 2-pt with engine brace, it seems like a worthwhile idea.

Probably the best looking bar I've seen is the racing beat, single piece of metal [cast? forged?]
Though I rather doubt I'd notice any difference between that and the cheapo bar.

get a 3 point rear brace =]

i like my JIC brace, but not easy to come by. very similar to Cusco however.

Going with an 8 point roll bar instead of the 4 point. So connecting the rear braces to the strut towers should negate the need for a 3 point rear brace and streangthen the whole chassis as well, still feel the need for a rear strut tower brace or crossbar at the rear braces of the roll bar though. Trying to achieve as close to nuetral steer as possible to balance the front and rear of the car