Strut tower Brace opinions

Do they make a noticeable difference when ( depending on if the car has the power to get out of shape like ) fitted ? . Or are they a bit of a gimmick and not worth fitting .

Yes, but not really on the street. Race/rally car can work well. There is a lot of force on the strut towers, but newer cars are quite strong there now. It cannot hurt to have one.

depends a lot on your vehicle from factory and how well supported the front strut towers are, and where the suspension loads are focused.

Many strut braces have bends and are made from light material, these wiill not be as effective as flex will occur. The best setups are the likes of what toyota put on some and mitsubishi put on the later evos, where it attaches also to a strong point on the firewall. this is to prevent lateral flex in the strut towers and prevent camber change under suspension loading.

A really good place to check is your lower control arm pickup points, and if there is potential for flex there. I made a lightweight subframe on the race car to replace the factory heavy pressed steel one. The frame on the body that it attaches to is substantial, and I didn't expect any flex. But I had a big crack appear on the subframe right at a flex point after a couple of events and it demonstrated exactly how much it could flex! The inboard suspension point would have been flexing a good 5mm and taking the body with it. I removed the subframe, put doublers in the high load points and made a lower control arm brace to tie the two sides together and its been good as gold ever since.

IMO its like fitting a new set of front shock innards on a motorcycle -If you drive hard enough then a strut brace is worth having.

Yet funnily enuff ya'll see plenty of eckys in the standard cornering hard pose with the inside wheel up off the deck and no strut braces.
Yeah pic is not the old world famous escort rally car but .

http://thumbsnap.com/n3Zu9ZWd

something to consider is you generally want the flex in a car to be consistent along the length of it. On a good roll cage setup you will brace the car to eliminate flex in the suspension mounts and therefore focus it all to the shocks and springs - something which you can predictably tune.

In many cars adding stiffer springs can just transfer the flex into the body shell instead. Some cars are bad too, I know of a n14 pulsar rally car which has several times popped the spot welds on the strut towers from flex. It desperately needs the front struts tied into the cage as the stiff shell, combined with heavy loads is focusing a lot of stress between the front strut and the firewall. Another n14 that I've worked with a lot cracked a windscreen for the same reason but its used on tarmac events only.

I know what your saying . Fitted 1 to my 350gt during the week and got home yesterday from a quick Christchurch trip . I didn't have to drive far to notice a difference, and all for the better . I did try to go slightly easier through the twisty's on the way home as i a had a Gen 2 Aprilia 1060 engine in the boot . Looked like the engine never moved so i needed have bothered .

very stiff anti roll bar and suspension droop limiter