Strut braces and camber

[Adam Gratz]

 Robby-

Firstly, I'm glad to read one of your post that doesn't talk about the SHO.
Thanks. I miss my old 2002, but it's sort of like when a stranger starts
bragging about how smart her grandson is. No one gives a rats arse......

Second, I put a strut tower brace on my avant 4 years ago. As you know, this
design has been around for 50 years and helps to stiffen the frame. I felt
the difference immediately. Car flexed less going out of the driveway.
It felt more stable in hard quick corners and on pot hole infested roads. I
have never tried the Bernie brace, but the pysics of it never quite sat
right with me. For the $, it certainly seems a good project.

Last year I installed the 2Bennet coil over kit with adjustable camber
plates. The difference was astounding. Levels above any of the many
spring/insert combos I'd tried. V8 springs, Eibach, H&R, koni, bilstien,kyb.
Simply levels above. End of story. The kit was a bit overpriced, and a bit
cheesy, (in the typical 2Bennet style), but I am more than impressed with
the ends. The strut insert damping is adjustable from the top of the
assembly, so dial in is fun and easy. NOT CHEAP, but hey, sometimes you get
what you pay for.

My second best handling mod was to put polyurethane front sway bar bushings
in. Not sure if anyone makes one that fits the stock bracket, but mine were
universal, bought for about $45 from suspension techniques in California.

Lastly, I wouldn't recommend a larger front sway bar, as the stock bar
already gives a little under steer.

Glad to have a new lister so excited about his ride. You have motivated me
to dust off a few upgrade plans for the old avant.

Aloha,

Dr. Gratz
1991 200 20v tq Avant - Jungleracer



Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 10:13:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: robert weinberg <centaurus3200 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: slotting the strut towers
> To: 200q20V mailing list <200q20v at audifans.com>
> Message-ID: <534121.26990.qm at web53709.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> hi all,
>
> UPS finally found the koni/H&R combo i bought from chris at force5. what an
> ordeal - lost in indiana.
>
> anyway, i'm going to drop the car off at my friend's shop this sunday. does
> anybody have a decent write-up on the procedure to slot the strut towers?
>
> from my research, it seems if i did nothing, the H&R combo would run about
> -1.5 degree camber even with the struts adjusted to the max. not god awful,
> but -1 or less would be better.
>
> the 200q is not my daily driver, so when i do hop in the driver's seat, it
> will be for something fun, like carving up highway 1 ;-)
>
> see ya,
> Robby
>
>
>