what effect does strut-tower brace have on '88 80 Quattro? (and other stuff)

[Larry C Leung]

Stiffen the chassis first (i.e. do the strut tower bar). Once the chassis
is stiff enough, the suspension can actually do it's job right. A flexy
body means the body flex is the spring, and it's hard to design the
correct flex into the body (Colin Chapman need not be mentioned here). 
Most VAG products could really use a stress bar. Unless, of course, it is
disallowed for by rules.

LL - NY

On Sun, 15 Jul 2001 11:18:59 -0700 "Tessie McMillan" <tessmc at drizzle.com>
writes:
>Hi listers!
>
>All these problems I've had with street (and now competition) tires on 
>my
>Quattro at SIR -- where I chunk JUST one tire: the right front -- 
>have
>started me thinking about any more things I can do to stiffen the 
>front of
>my car to even out tire wear. I have to admit I learned to drive on a
>friend's '87 911 Carrera that was totally bulletproof. So these 
>problems I'm
>having with the Audi are ... challenging. And sometimes frustrating. 
>No, it
>really BUGS the HECK out of me that I ruin specifically one tire and 
>one
>tire only in half a day when I run at the track -- elevation change or 
>not.
>
>A friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer claims that adding a
>strut-tower brace to my car would not help tie the two sides together. 
>His
>opinion is that the firewall already provides this stiffening, and 
>since the
>strut towers are so close to the firewall, adding a strut-tower brace 
>would
>not be increasing the stiffness beyond what the firewall actually 
>does.
>
>Does anyone have any comments on this? I DO have Blaufergnugen's 22mm
>anti-sway bar in the rear (which is AWESOME, I HIGHLY recommend it). 
>If I
>added a strut tower brace, would this undermine the improvement I've
>achieved in the rear? I've also lowered the car all around, but I have 
>not
>stiffened it. Should I try stiffer front struts? Or do I need to go 
>with all
>four stiffer struts?
>
>Take care -
>
>Tess
>in Seattle, WA, USA
>