Lately there's been some discussion about torque braces for our fd's. A while back my friend Jay made one, and it got me thinking. Sick of missing shifts and seeing how much the motor moves on the shitty stock mounts, I decided to fabricate a torque strut to keep the engine from moving under load. At first I thought about jumping in on the group buy that is going on, but then decided to try and make my own. After looking around my garage, I found my old, shot toe links and an idea sparked in my head. The toe link seamed like it would made a good component for a brace. I just had to cut the metal rod inside to allow me to screw it together more to shorten the link. I had just eliminated my air pump, and that seamed like a good mounting point. I didn't really like how others attached to the intake manifold. Directly across from that are the fan relays, mounted by two 10mm bolts into some double walled sheetmetal. Seamed like a good mounting point. It took me a bit to figure out how to make some sort of bracket. I went to home depot and bought some thick galvanized steel right angle brackets. After come cutting and drilling holes, I was able to rig something up that seamed pretty sturdy. I kept the existing bracket that holds the relays, but reinforced it with a metal strim underneath. Also, the brace only has to withstand pulling force, so it should hold fine. Initial impressions are good. I noticed a tad more vibration at idle though the body, but it is minumal. In the future I might look into isolating the brace better with some more rubber washers. When reving the engine it does not move! Car feels more solid and shifting seams more direct. Here are some pics of the installed brace.

 

Here is another pic.

 

last one

 

Initially I wanted to bolt it to the front side of where the air pump mounted, but it interfered with my intercooler pipe. I also had to do some twisting and rerouting of the airbox hoses to snake the strut through.

 

BTW, total cost was around $10

 

Is that bracket strong enough? I can see that being torn apart.

Well I like the location, but I would fashion another bracket to mount it to.

thesaint

 

Yea its very strong. The brace only has to withstand pull type force and that brackt isn't gonna budge. Its hard to see from that pic but it is way stronger than it looks. The fan bracket isn't whats holding it. Underneath that there is a steel stip as the base. Bolted to that is the 90 degree piece that the strut mounts to. The strip going to the top of the fan bracket is just an additional support. I also used 2" bolts instead of the smaller stock ones. The metal there is double walled steel so it is strong enough.

 

Yeah, made mine out of a $5 piece of aluminum and some scrap metal laying around. Took my stock rear strut tower bar and did some cutting and welding to fit it, but never thought to make one that would connect to the air pump. Now you've got me thinking...

 

Been driving around alot today, no problems. Also, there is some give in the brace because both ends have pillow *****. I still have to isolate it better, but vibration is minimal.