strut-tower brace? or no?

[JShadzi at aol.com]

Tess,

I run the OEM bar in my 80tq on the track, this in a car with 35 series tires and a full race suspension, and about 300hp. [www.80tq.com]

Lets put it this way, if the OEM bar is not up for track use, then either is the rest of your chassis including frame rails and the rest of the unibody.

All a strut bar is attempting to do is keep your strut towers from deflecting, this is, realistically, a very small amount of movement, in the range of .5" max.  Any reasonable sized, rigid piece of metal between the strut towers will do.  

You MAY notice a slight increase in turn in response, and slightly less steering input at the limit, but the higher the sidewalls are on your street tires, the less of a noticeable difference it will make.  Don't know if you are running lower profile tires or not, but frankly, on a relatively stock car[ie: not a race car with a roll cage and slicks] with anything in a 15" tire or less, the difference will be marginal.

HTH, not to discourage you, but just want to put into perspective what a strut tie bar can really do.  The Spearco bar is a good one too, and should fit your car no trouble, and will be easier to install than an OEM bar that will likely require welding.  Keep us posted on what you end up doing.

Javad

In a message dated Thu, 19 Jul 2001  2:40:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Tessie McMillan <tessmc at drizzle.com> writes:

> but when I look at this OEM brace, it looks under-engineered for track use
> on an 80Q. Am I wrong? I was also hoping to find an aftermarket bar that
> had more engine bay  clearance. I've called Blau, GPR, and TAP, and they
> don't have a source any more. 2Bennett says they have a Sparco bar, but
> they don't know if it fits my car. I've called them every day this week
> and they say they'll get to me when they can, but they just don't call me
>