to manufacture the ideal strut bar????
 

i have access to a fairly extensive machine shop and i figured it would be cheaper for me to make my own strut bars than to buy them. To make the "perfect" strut bar, what features would be ideal.

I of course would make it out of aluminum, i have the option of using carbon fiber to reinforce the stiffness in select places, and the ends will be adjustable (im good but not perfect)

i dont have any casting equipment, so all will be done with benders, mills and lathes, welders too, what grade aluminum shoudl i use??

how should i shape the reinforcements?? what is a good stiff shape??? (other than the basic triangle) any other things that anyone would like to see in a strut bar??

thanks
Justin

I'm not a metalurgist, but let me know if you need someone to do prototype fitting or something!;)

lol... i bet i could find a BUNCH of volunteers for that one...

new thread "who wants to test out this PB 13B for me to see if it has as much power as its supposed to??

justin

6061 is pretty standard for making aluminum parts that are stressed. It can be welded and machines very nice. I'm not a metalurgist, but I have made some nice parts out of T-6, 6061. 7075 is stronger, but hard to weld.

Tie the bar to both shock towers and the firewall (triangulate :) ). It would be nice to have a provision for a torque brace built in.

Definately check out Mazdatrix. They have a triangulated front bar with a torque brace.

only strut brace that will do anything more than look good needs to be able to add just a bit of load to the shock towers forcing the towers apart or drawing them towards each other. best would be a welded reinforcing plate on the strut tower with two heim joints one left and one right to add some pre load to the towers(allows easy adjustment). this keeps the towers joined together. mounting on the strut bolts leaves room for brace to move and tower needs to move to take up the slop. these are not hard to build as most pieces can be bought from racing supply houses only need to fabricate plates and weld to strut towers.

CP Racing manufactures some great quality strut bars and tri-bars for all gen rx7's and they are very resonably priced. :)
If you want to inquire, you can PM guru, hes one of the owners of CP Racing.
Lates

did you read the part about "making my own" i am sure that some wire for the welder+ raw amterials is cheaper than any bar out there.....

if not ill be impressed

jsutin

Im curious about your suggestion of heim joints. Is there any specific reason you chose those? Why not do something more like traditional adjustable strut bars? Heim joints are usually used where there will be regular movement in more than just one dimension.

Adam, if he doesnt test fit the prototype on his car, mine is the next choice.

BTW, Justin made me a pair of kick ass rear camber links for my 2 FC's. He did a damn good job too. :bigthumb:

you are correct that a simple adjusting bolt would work fine, but the heims and threaded tubing are premade and available. this setup would just be easier to make and install. setup could be built for about $40 not including welding(which he said he could do himself). I made one of these for a friends Porsche 944 turbo racecar, we didn't notice any changes to the car. So I have been a little slow in making one for my RX7. I may just improve my roll cage and stiffen the front suspension area instead.