Okay, I have seen several people here that have put....SOMETHING.... on their cars, whatever it is it goes from the UIM to the passenger side fender.
Looks to be a brace of some kind?

 

It is an engine tourque brace - there is a group buy thread on right now i think.

 

it is an engine torque brace, pretty much a crotch rocket steering damper made with brackets to fit the fd engine bay. it is supposed to kinda kinda like a third engine mount.

 

Gotta luv my spelling - gotta start paying attention

The torque brace has been known to help with the missed shift into 3rd gear that some have experienced.

 

give me a freakin break
how would this help in not missing 3d? keeping the engine and transmission steady?
just shift into 3d it's not that hard
no offense to anyone but seriously if you can't shift into 3d every time perfect than there is some problem
go out and drive your car and practice
you don't have to be going fast to practice shifting fast into 3d.
Or you can do what I do just don't use 5th until you get on the highway. That way you don't know what it feels like to shift into 5th and you won't **** up!

 

i've always experienced it easy to shirt into third, but it's harder to shift into 2nd. Anyone else agrees on this?

 

Torque braces are for engines that make huge torque (e.g. 400ft/lbs+). With engines that powerful, you risk twisting the chassis and breaking the mounts. An FD doesn't need to worry about this problem because it doesn't generate very much torque, it's light, and built to handle plenty of power. The only functional reason that I could see for an FD torque brace would be if you were running drag slicks, lots of power, and launching @ high revs.

 

so where was that group buy thread?

 

You guys can bash all you want but after you drive a car with one of these braces you will know why so many are putting them on their cars.

Night and day difference in overall driveability. Now that I am accustomed to zero side to side movement in the shifter, I want zero fore and aft movement. Time to design another torque arm ...

 

from my understanding, a torque brace is good for any engine.
instead of allowing the engine to turn with the output shaft, you hold it in place.
wouldnt this equal a higher or same torque # a little faster, because the engine doesnt have any give, it just puts out..... faster acceleration maybe?
it just sounds like commen sense to me.

 

A torque brace also helps prevent the left motor mount breaking.
Bajaman- see how you (as I do also) have an AUTO TRANS I think a Torque brace would be overkill for your car.

 

Yeah I have a torque brace on my 2nd gen and I'm going to make one for my 3rd as well. The nice thing about it is that it tightens up the engine/trans movement which gives you a little bit crisper throttle response. Not like a HUGE difference, but you can make one yourself pretty cheaply so why not?

Brian

 

I have been told that they make the entire car shake a bit more and also add a good amount of noise, which I can definitely do w/o. Can anyone please confirm or deny this.

 

I have been told that they make the entire car shake a bit more and also add a good amount of noise, which I can definitely do w/o. Can anyone please confirm or deny this.

 

I've never had problems shifting into 3rd UNTIL I was racing someone. Funny how it just creeps up on you. Once that happened, I have been practising more. Been driving standards for 30 years before this little surprise.

 

how much shaking can a rotary make? the design is made to be smooth. i could understand if you were to put one on a v8 or something, but the rotary isnt gonna shake THAT much.

it also stiffens up the shifting. i know that in a racing sense the brace helps as it keeps the engine from "torquing" to one side. when the clutch is engaged and the pedal is on the floor the transmission/stick is gonna rotate closer to you (aspec). then when you shift/push in the clutch pedal the transmission is gonna jerk around a little. the pressure is relieved from the drivetrain at that moment and the transmission will try to move to its normal position. you will be ramming the stick into 3rd (quite a bit of stick travel). there is no way for you to tell where the gear is. . . as you cannot see it, duh.

by stiffening up the drivetrain (as many, if not all serious racers do) the engine (as little torque as it may seem to have) not move as much as it did before the brace was installed (as little torque as it may seem to have). has anybody ever tried to pull the tranny out of an fd? remember trying to break the torque on the ppf? im sure the torque of the rotary engine is more than that of the ppf mounting nuts. think about how much movement it took for you to break that torque and think about that movement in relation to your engine. its gonna move. not like you did, but its gonna move. soooooooooooo, the thing to do is brace it. keep it from moving so that the transmission is stabilized for proper shifting and more power is FOCUSED towards the rear diff.

paul

 

so.......once again, where to get?

 

I got one from a group buy a while ago. The driveability is unreal. SOOOO tight. But I couldn't stand the vibration at EL idle. So I removed it with the intentions of reinstalling when I get new motor mounts.
~Tom

 

I guess you don't make enough horsepower to USE an engine torque brace then. I've gone thru one tranny because of not having one. Put it on and now the 2nd to 3rd shift is precise. Shifting at 4000 rpms is VERY different than shifting at 8000 rpms.

Everyone on the forum who has an engine torque brace has made the statement that it stops the 2nd to 3rd gear mis shift.

You can also take out reverse mis shifting, NOT just 5th gear since the synchro that shatters is the 5th/reverse one.

 

Not really...

It's more for high horsepower, high rpm shifts. It does NOTHING for launching.

 

That's Fd3BOOST engine bay!

 

Exactly!! I never missed a shift in any car i drove until i got my FD, now i probably miss 1/3 of shifts to third while racing or dragging, but not a single shift in normal driving, only becomes a problem when producing a lot of torque.

 

LOL, if you mis-shift cruising along, then you have issues. Sometimes a mis-shift is understandable i.e. your nervous, your new to racing or you sneeze....but with the FD at high rpms and you push the clutch in and push the shifter out of 2nd and into 3rd, the transmission torques and you will mis-shift.

Before I made my torque brace, I used to granny shift 2nd to 3rd so that the transmission would settle before I put it into gear.

 

www.jt-imports.com will give you the one by FEED as a great price. Probably cheaper then any group-buy...

DiNgLe

 

heres the exact one in the picture. . . you can buy it there.

http://66.216.67.51/product.asp?0=209&1=339&3=613