oil pan brace lose clearance?
 

so ive upgraded to IRP motor mounts and been having an issue with bolting my strut bar down (greddy or cusco knock off).....it touches now but still managed to bolt it down.. it touches where the greddy elbow and ic piping meet, so ill keep an eye out to see if it wears off the coupler....

buttt having the motor sit higher and with the IRP motor mounts keeping it stock hieght i JUST realized the oil pan brace add high bc the motor mounts bolt on top of that...

(end rant)

SOO with that said, for those running the oil pan brace, are you running a front strut? if so which one and does it clear?:scratch:

I tacked on washers to the bottom of the mounts to add 1/4" clearence. VERY close to the intake and very close to the hood.

i run Garfinkle's excellent engine oilpan brace w stock motor mounts and elected to use Garfinkle's Engine Torque Brace to provide additional drivetrain stability instead of solid engine mounts.

i have no problem w my lateral strut bar. i assume the motor mounts are the item that is effecting your clearance.

the pan brace is 3/16 thick and does not, by itself, cause clearance issues.

howard

On a project car I did I had Garfinkle's pan brace and stock new motor mounts. I had a cheapie aftermarket strut bar on it but it hit it on acceleration. Stock strut bar fit and cleared fine.

Really, best way to tackle the problem is to lower the motor. Pull the motor mounts and cut them down, either machining down the arms or machining down the mounts.

Dale

My motor mounts sit the engine at the same height as stock. The problem is the oil pan brace raises the motor. If you purchase both from me or inform me that you will be running an oil pan brace, I can mill the mounts slightly shorter. The washers will work fine on the other hand.

Had a similar problem...... https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ighlight=brace
As Mahjik mentioned in the thread linked above, some strut bars have a bit more clearance. I've since changed from the stock swaybar to a MazdaSpeed brace and gained some.
I agree with DaleClark that the "best" way to solve the problem is to mill the steel motor mount arms down by 3/16"...the thickness of the oil pan brace. But my oil pan doesn't leak, and I was afraid of disturbing the seal by R & R'ing the arms to do that. So I just fabbed a spacer out of 1/4" thick sheet of ABS plastic to sit under the driver's side brace bracket. That got the rest of the needed clearance.

I mill the actual polyurethane pucks shorter when a customer plans to use an oil pan brace. This way you don't weaken the motor mount arms.

That's probably easiest, if possible. But you can't do that with stock or all aftermarket style mounts and I think there plenty of material on the steel arms.

i just want to confirm with ihors comment, it is not his motormounts that cause this problem as my friend has the same motor mounts, same struts bar and no oilpan brace.... his clears perfect... i guess ill use washers or see if i can make a spacer or something.... i just resealed my oil pan and its not leaking (knock on wood) and tehre is NO WAY in hell id gamble that by taking the motor mounts off and machining them down...... oil pan is WAY tooo big of a PITA.

I have the garfinkle brace on my car and I installed the IRP brace on a friends car, both have fitment issues with the strut bar But it surely stopped all oil pan leaks :)