Fitting strut brace/Torque settings

[Rick448]

I have just picked up my strut brace and am a little confused with regard to the torque settings. Di i firstly tighten the nuts to 25nm and then retighten to 40nm? Please see attached picture.

[splatt]

nuts on suspension turret 25....nuts on brace cross member 40....

[Rick448]

Thanks. Now i just need a torque wrench!

[racer]

Where are you?

[Rick448]

I'm in North Lincs. I bought a cheap (£15) wrench today and fitted the brace. I can't believe that about 1kg of ally can make such a difference. It ceratinly tightens the front end up lots and reduces torque steer by loads. I have in the past spent £100's on mods for other cars which have disappointed. This was £75 well spent!

[racer]

North Lincs eh? OK, I'll not be dropping in on the way home from work then. ;)

I was surprised at the difference myself. So much so, I took it off today (just the brace itself - left the brackets there) and drove around without it again just to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. Just put it back on!

[pzorb]

I found that the car actually had more grip through the corners without it, but it felt really wobbley. Defo makes it feel better, but I'm sure the car understeer-skids more.

[racer]

I can't quite put my finger on what the difference actually is. It feels different and I prefer the "with brace" feel to the "without brace" feel. Can't say I've noticed the understeer being any worse. Hmmm.... A/B comparison at a track somewhere called for I reckon!

[Engineer]

I can't quite put my finger on what the difference actually is. It feels different and I prefer the "with brace" feel to the "without brace" feel. Can't say I've noticed the understeer being any worse. Hmmm.... A/B comparison at a track somewhere called for I reckon!
For what its worth racer (as bars, spring and damper rates make a difference) with the strut brace fitted my S70R corners much flatter, with understeer coming a tad later balanced by a slight lift of the throttle. Lift off oversteer on a road car? Can be dodgy in the wet lol.

[racer]

Pondering now. You reckon it has anything to do with the camber angles? Just guessing here, but without the brace and in a corner, the loaded strut top must move relative to the unloaded one. Being McPherson at the front, then wouldn't this shift the camber as the load came on? Maybe it the reduction of this effect we're getting.

Guessing here, need to scribble on some paper! :)

Edit : I'm not now sure this would be big enough to be noticeable. Might do the old maker pen trick and unbolt one end of the brace at the weekend. Just to see how far it is moving.

[Engineer]

If you don't bin it or get nicked let me know what results you get lol.

On a more serious note I think you might find its more to do with centrifugal forces causing weight transfer through the centre of gravity via roll centres as opposed to centrifugal forces causing the body to roll about the roll centres.

[racer]

I'm not convinced by that argument either. From my quick scribbles, the car moves round the roll centre with or without a brace. I'm interested now. When I get some free time I'm going to do some runs with the brace off at one end and a datalogger in the car looking at the movement. Be interesting to know just how much flex is getting stopped by the brace. I can only do this on one axis, but it might show some interesting results.

[Rick448]

I am definately not getting more understeer. The whole car feels better. I will be interested to see some datalog results.

[racer]

I'll have a muck about at the weekend. I have a spare logger and sensor lying about, just need to bodge, err, I mean engineer, some sort of mounting bracket....