So what is the age and background of the people disagreeing with me? Do you have ANY engineering training? Any hands on experience building or driving race cars, go-karts? Anything relevant...?

Or do you just like to say I'm wrong because you've driven your car for a entire year or two on freeways and you can't tell the difference? Ever seen the F body of a Mustang crack? Fatigue can and does happen. Maybe removing the brace only changes the stiffness of the front end significantly when cornering hard with R-compound tires. Maybe it only matters when you get in a front end collision.

Either way no one opposing my opinion has any VALID thoughts. No one has represented how strong STEEL is and how it is welded to the car. It is NOT pot metal, it can NOT be removed by prying it off, it is more significant that people "think".

Oh and I've brought this point up before, just not quite as loudly...

 

In case some of you don't know, Jeff has owned/rebuilt SEVERAL FDs...(over 15?). In other words, he knows his ****.....

Jeff, I agree with your statements. Just to be the devil's advocate, I will say that my mechanic (and the owner of rx7fashion) has had that FMIC installed for quite a while now and AFAIK, hasn't experienced any issues. As you say in your post above, removing that brace could only effect the car in certain situations.....but to reiterate your point, NO ONE knows what the exact effect on the structure of the car will be.

I have noticed people like to argue with others even when they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about (I haven't always been innocent of that either...). People need to word their responses to more of a fact-finding debate and not just trying to negate someone else's viewpoints.

 

Sorry to chime in so late, I didn't see this post till now. Thanks to TTT for putting the link to my site, I'm glad it helped someone.

To Jeff, I have followed your threads and Big List posts for a long time and have tremendous respect for you. I'm not an engineer, and I agree that it does weaken the rigidity of the frame to some extent. I don't think it's as bad as you think though.

I've had it installed for over 10,000 miles now and I would think if things were twisting my alignment would be effected, but it hasn't. I bought the IC used, the guy who had it before me tracked his car HARD and I know he never had any problems either. The IC has been out there for a while, and I think Rick and co at RX-7 Fashion know their ****, they race too.

One thing that can't be argued though is that in a crash the cars front end will definitely be weaker than if the bar was there. That's a risk that I'm willing to take though.

 

I think we all know the answer about rigidness by now. Now it's a question of risk that jr pointed out. I think the original poster, fastcarfreak, is probably satisfied /w the comments and I know he knows what's up. All about risk.

If you only drive your FD every now and then, it's a smaller risk than having it as your daily driver. The other possibility is that you don't know or don't think it is a risk. You understand the risk and that's why it's not driven all the time, right. Besides, sounds like fastcarfreak has it tuned more for performance/racing which exactly more risk!

If you're happy with what you got you're happy. If your not, you'll bitch and complain like no tomorrow.

If the thread has changed to whether that piece that holds the frame together matters...

 

It could actually cause damage that isn't noticed, for example the powerplant frame cracking over time. I'm not suggesting removal of the support causes that particular problem, just using it as an example of cumulative damage that nobody would notice until it finally breaks a long time down the road. The issues of alignment settings wouldn't really be noticed unless the suspension is fully loaded, meaning while in the middle of the corner etc. unless it happens to flex and not bend back. Remember bending a metal piece back and forth repeatedly until it finally breaks off. I would tend to defer to Jeff on a structural issue like this.

Kevin T. Wyum

 

That big chunk of metal across the front is the "bumper reinforcement" that people talk about removing for FMIC installs? I would never cut that thing off unless the car was going to be parked the rest of it's life!

 

"to be honest with you man, i dont see it being that bad for the front support because the fmic actaully acts as the brace. Im not sure, but i think an engine strut bar will also help stiffen things up. just a thought."

You gotta be ******* kidding me.

Some days I REALLY wish the FD3S was saved from this sort of ignorance. Way too many kids these days ******* up the remaining cars.

Listen to Jeff, he's reconstructed the front of a totaled FD, he KNOWS what the frame support looks like.

 

Another thing here is that we have a great chassis to work with. Increased chassis rigidity is something to KEEP and improve upon. You don't go and install an IC setup which requires modifying the chassis' stiffness but has only marginal gain over the standard configuration while at the same time sacrificing some portion of rigidity.

I'd go so far as to say that having a rigid chassis is more important than any gain (if any) a FMIC provides over a SMIC.

But then again I'm less interested in trying to impress Vinh and Joe TypeR at the local In 'n' Out and instead using my car for it's intended purpose: track driving.

 

is this the case for all FMIC's? does the rail have to go with say the Greddy 3row(the one im considering), or is the removal specific to this IC?

 

No, the RX-7 Fashion (and the hard to find Turbo Streetfighter) are the only 2 that require you to cut the metal rebar. The other FMIC's only require you to remove or cut the fiberglass bumper rebar.

 

so why then would someone use these intercoolers? if there are better options use them NO?

 

No, because the other FMIC's require you to move your radiator and can not be used with a cold air intake like the M2 box. That is the compromise.

 

However, FMIC with the FD's stock radiator configuration is a compromise in the first place.