Tuning Anyone attempted making a Stilo strut brace?

[Whichmcqueen]

Like it says, anyone attempted to make one? They look pretty straightforward, and for £120 a set surely a pair could be made for cheaper-
The rear brace simply looks like it slots on, but how is the front brace connected to the suspension, looks like a horseshoe which gets screwed/bolted down?
It also has an adjustable section, which I presume is to lengthen on shorten the brace- how does it work, does it intend to push the top of the suspension away, or pull it together?

This is mainly an academic question for my own knowledge at the minute, but i have a couple of weeks off of work coming up, and access to a workshop- so if it's simple enough...

 

[fingers99]

I don't know the specifics of the Stilo.

But, given struts each end, the top ones are simply a brace between the 4 mounting bolts of the strut (or the strut towers). Can be weld on or bolt on. The adjusting nuts work both ways to take up manufacturing tolerances (in the car or in the strut). Mable they make removal easier, but if you use your car as a jig, you won't need them.

The bottom ones usually fit to the bottom one of the two bottom strut bolts.

Generally, the ones you see on road cars are removable (for access to bits and peices on the car, etc. Better practice is to weld to the chassis, too. In track cars it's good practice to tie them in to the roll cage.

Beware of ground clearance issues with the bottom ones -- catch something on those and you'll probably destroy the car.

 

[MarkThompson4]

You could make your own set but may end up somewhat crude in comparison to the aftermarket ones already available.

Strut braces don't actually bolt to the suspension, they link up two or more parts of the chassis to stiffen it up. The front brace is bolted to the strut mount tower, holes need to be drilled to screw the brace in. The rear brace slides over the threaded ends of the rear dampers that poke out the rear strut towers, the nut used to hold in the struts is used to hold it in I think either that or another nut over the top?

There are other braces available for the lower subframes from Ultra Racing do you could end up with a full upper/ lower front and rear chassis brace setup!

 

[gadge]

you could easily make one if you needed to and just like you said Whichmcqueen it is like a kind of horse shoe shape that bolts in place around the top of the suspension turret.

the idea behind them is to reduce - or even stop in some cases - the tops of the suspension turrets from flexing in and out as you go into corners hard by bridging the gap or "bracing"......oh and they look the nuts too and it must be said that the do work (certainly on the stilo anyway). like mark just said above you can get lower ones and rear upper and lowers too for the stilo from Ultrarace.com I have the front lower one and rear lower one as well as an OMP front upper one which is pictured below