MX-3.com

bc93mx3 wrote:i think in order to twist the strut tower in that way you would have to twist the whole frame of th car. the strut towers are tied in to the front and the back of the car fine that is not a weak point in the system. the week point is the individual side to side movement of the strut towers. the out side strut tower is going to flex more then the inside around a corner do to the extra pressure putting on it, causing the suspension travel to be diferent on either side of the car. all a strut bar does is tie the two together so they move equally together, which causes overall less movenent in the whole system. mind you all this movement is side to side not frot to back.

This is the weakest point in the frame of the car...that's why there is a need for a strut brace in the first place. You're right, the strut bar constrains the two towers to move together, but when the force of the strut bar is being applied off center like your design does, it causes rotational deflection. First year physics. That torque or "Moment" about the centroid of the bolt circle of the strut mount actually has a mechanical advantage over the straight force which would be applied by a strut bar which acts on the centroid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(physics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) ...for some reason the hyperlinklink will not include the close bracket on my reference link.

The fact that the force applied by the strut bar is off center amplifies it's affect on the strut mount. And what's more, the force is no longer pushing or pulling the strut tower in or out, it is twisting it. I doubt that any of us could even tell this is happening on the street, but I think a highly tuned suspension would suffer badly from this design. For most of us this is an appearance mod at best...and as I said I think it looks great.