Tower brace

[Patrick Anderson]

Re: Tower braceI don't think that the UrS4 has the tower to metal webbing prone to cracking but I could be wrong on that one. Can anyone confirm? Perhaps they used the tower bar in lieu of the metal webbing as it provided better rigidity. I don't think the tower bar would in any way complicate camber adjustability as the collars don't get in the way anywhere. I might just prevent chassis flex over time so you don't lose the range of adjustability. 

I wonder if one might benefit from having both types of bars? 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bernie Benz 
  To: patrick.anderson1 at comcast.net 
  Cc: 200q20V mailing list 
  Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 1:05 PM
  Subject: Re: Tower brace




    From: patrick.anderson1 at comcast.net

    One might call it a strut tower brace. We all know what we were looking at in the pics.

  That would be descriptive. 


    I'm not sure I agree with your comment about my bar being serveral inches above the elevation and ahead of the applied force. True, my bar with the spacer block may not be 100% as good as the UrS4 setup. But, aside from those spacer blocks this is just like the factory UrS4 setup. I suspect that the Audi engineers knew a little something about what they were designing. Do you think they were wrong and designed an ineffective brace?

  Far less than maximum effectiveness, IMO.   Right now I don't recall the details of the S4 tower brace but I suspect that the S4 tower brace design was constrained in that they did not want to complicate the stock camber adjustment access and were not much concerned about minimumizing camber changes under cornering loads, but only about the cosmetics of the tower to fire wall cracking as occurs in the 200Q.

  Bernie  


    My brake fluid may look bad but I can assure you it has been bled far more frequently than needed. In fact, most recently a month ago after a track event. It is just the color of the plastic reservoir or bad pic. I thought I'd catch more flack for the ceramic coating in the engine bay as having a fat wallet than poor looking fluids. 




      -------------- Original message -------------- 
      From: Bernie Benz <b.benz at charter.net> 

      > Correction Pat, you picture a tower brace, not a strut brace. 
      > 
      > > From: "Patrick Anderson" 
      > > 
      > > Andy, 
      > > 
      > > I believe you will find that the dimension needed for the bar will vary 
      > > slightly from car to car. These cars have been on the road for 15 years so 
      > > each car probably has its own sag/flex that has worked it way into the body. 
      > > Evidenced by the varying experiences people have on camber adjustability. 
      > > The variation from car to car may be slight but enough that a mass produced 
      > > bar would not work. I believe that is the reason the 2B bar is designed 
      > > with slotted mounting holes. Although I don't think that th! e slotted hole 
      > > design is very good at all. The whole point of the bar is to prevent flex 
      > > from tower to tower and I just don't think that clamping a bolt down on a 
      > > slotted hole will have enough clamping to totally prevent the bar from 
      > > moving slightly. I think the fixed hole idea is more sound. Drilling the 
      > > holes in my "custom" bar, if you can really call it custom, was the toughest 
      > > part of the project. 
      > Another correction. The purpose of a tower brace is to divide a tower 
      > deflecting force on the outside tower between both towers. To acomplish 
      > this as an equal division, the brace assembly including fastnings to the 
      > towers must be an order of magnitude stiffer than are the towers. Yours is 
      > questionable, inasmuch as the bar is several inches above the elevation and 
      > several inches ahead of the applied force. Column stiffness is seriously 
      ! t; degraded by the introduction of any bending force. 
      > > An yway, when this topic came up and I replied with the BTDT somebody said 
      > > they'd believe it when they saw it. Well, I finally got off my lazy bum and 
      > > got to a digital camera. You'll see that the clearance between on the brake 
      > > reservoir is REALLY tight. Screwing on my pressure bleeder is more difficult 
      > > now but possible. And the bar just kisses the underside of the hood which I 
      > > am not worried about. Links below. 
      > > 
      > > http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/31998/stress_bar.jpg 
      > > http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/31998/stress_bar_cross_view.jpg 
      > > http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/31998/stress_bar_drivers_mount.jpg 
      > You should flush your brake fluid, looks like panther piss. 
      > > http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/31998/stress_bar_pass_mount.jpg 
      > 
      > Bernie 
      > > 
      > > ----- Original Message ----- 
      > > From: "Andys! chlueter" 
      > > To: <200q20v at audifans.com> 
      > > Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 6:09 PM 
      > > Subject: strut brace 
      > > 
      > > 
      > >> Does anyone have the dimensions on the strut brace for our cars? mounting 
      > >> location, distance between,ect. If not, I think I will model it up in 
      > >> solidworks and make one that fits without any modifcation. 
      > >> 
      > >> Andy Schlueter 
      > >> '91 200tq20v Avant