MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

http://www.jsracing.co.jp/js3/index....111&xSHASHU=26






$290 shipped

Only one set on hand thats why its here not in the sponsor forum. We can do a GB on these and any other J's parts if interested!

Marcus

Audioserf

I'm considering buying this just because a) I'm addicted to modding b) it's so cool and JDM. However, I'd imagine the install could be quite nightmarish... you'd have to remove the doors (and fenders) if I understand correctly, and then you're faced with the daunting task of properly re-aligning and hanging them afterwards.

Has anyone on here done this install themselves? Maybe I'll leave this to CCColts to do a DIY, I'm sure he'll buy this first. :-p

Audioserf

I knew these seemed familiar. Check out this thread from last year:

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...t=fender+brace

Tempting...

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

You don't need to remove the doors but you do need to take off the fenders. The doors actually kind of stick to the body with the bolt off. If it were me I'd try to support the door to hold it up while installing.

Marcus

vthree

iTrader: (1)

i've never heard of doing this.... soo the major benefit is just a heavier feel?

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Heavier feel? It tightens up the chassis. Go drive a BMW and see how a chassis is supposed to feel. Then get all the Carbing, Cusco, and these braces to make the TSX feel like a 3-series.

Marcus

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Bump, anyone want these?

jeffbatt

I have these and installed them myself. You DO NOT need to take off the fenders.

They're a good mod.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Wow! That's really good to know...


Socal peeps, I'll install for free if this is the case.

godfather2

care to offer detailed opinion/experience?

enkay

agreed =P
more opinions the better
then it mite go on my todo list =P

jeffbatt

You have to take off the front wheels, remove the plastic inner fender liner, and also the plastic liners that run at the rear of the fender, covering the door hinges.

After that, you have to remove both bolts on the bottom door hinge, and only one bolt from the top hinge. Then, you basically just bolt on the fender braces.

After you bolt on the fender braces, put the front wheel back on and lower the car to the ground, letting the wheels support the car's weight. This is important to do BEFORE re-aligning the doors and re-installing the plastic fender liners. Anyway, I've done doors before by myself, but it is 1000x easier with someone to help you.

Re-align the doors, jack the car back up, take the wheels off, re-install the various plastic liners, put the wheels back on, lower the car, and then you're done. It really is pretty easy.

Unlike most chassis-stiffeners, you actually should feel a little difference with these. I also have a comptech front shock tower brace, kunimitsu trunk brace, and kunimitsu front subframe brace and the J's fender braces are easier the best. Plus, they're basically invisible once installed which I think is nice.





The worst part of the install is re-aligning

godfather2

thanks jeff.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Dude, you have to get the Carbing trunk and sill braces. They are not inexpensive for sure....but they make a HUGE difference. Although it sounds like you got a different trunk brace already. I noticed the sill brace difference by just letting the car roll out of my driveway.

Marcus

enkay

damit if i had money id buy all of the carbing but since i dont, i think ill set my eyeson the j's fender brace.. hehe now just gotta save up some money

MMsTSX

Oh, I do, it'll be a while for me though.

I plan on getting these and the full Carbing setup, just probably in the
summer or fall of this year.

Marcus, could you better describe the sill braces?
Is that the floor support braces?
Your site doesn't offer too much by way of pictures and/or description
for a bunch of the bracing. Kinda hard to get a good feel for it from
what you have up there.

jeffbatt

The team kunimistu trunk brace is the same as the Carbing 4-pt trunk brace, but it is made of aluminum (is the carbing? I don't know). Same thing for the Kunimitsu 4-pt front subframe brace, although I had to modify it to work with the USDM cat. I did this by basically cutting off the front cross member so it is shaped like this: |_| instead of a complete box. I had the whole thing painted black so it wouldn't stand out too much.

I'm sort of interested in the Carbing side-sill braces. Do you know if they are compatible with the Carbing 4-pt front subframe brace? What's the price for the aluminum version?

Here is my trunk brace, looks like the Carbing to me:


And a pic of an installed J's Fender brace (not much to see, really):

jeffbatt

Also with the trunk brace, had the same problem with the nuts not being the correct thread pitch for the rear mounting points. Got some really nice flange nuts at McMaster-Carr online www.mcmaster.com part number 91005A037 (the correct was M10x1.5m right? It's been a while)

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

The trunk brace must be made by Carbing since we had the same issue with it.

http://heeltoeauto.com/httech/YaBB.pl?num=1188234125

Are you sure it was aluminum?


Also, on the lower frame brace I'd suggest Cusco. It will fit with the OEM cat, although you probably want to remove the lower heat shield.


We have install pics of all the Carbing braces but one. I am trying to get them all organized and written up like the link above.

Here's a link to th aluminum sill braces:
http://www.heeltoeauto.com/Carbing-F...0-pr-1800.html


They install really easily (even comes with the correct hardware). They will work with the cusco or carbing front brace as well. They make a HUGE difference.

Marcus

jeffbatt

Yes, I'm sure the Kunimitsu trunk brace is aluminum.

I prefer to leave my heat-shield on, but also generatlly like the straight bars on the Kunimitsu/Carbing subframe brace vs. the bent bars on the cusco.

Anyway, looks like 2nd-from-front mounting points of the the carbing sill braces are the same as the rear points on the subframe brace. Would probably be OK together, but I might want to get longer bolts there if I did it.

enkay

haha wow cool cant wait to see all the carbing stuff =P
yer i think the kunimitsu one is a copy version of the carbing so has the same design and same problems i guess haha cos i think ive seen the a few braces the same as the carbing braces

jeffbatt

Don't know what you mean by "copy" version. They're probably both made by Carbing. The Kunimitsu brace is actually more expensive and made of aluminum. The Kunimitsu front subframe brace is also aluminum.

They don't really have "problems," per say, the trunk braces are just shipped with 2 M10x1.25 nuts instead of M10X1.5.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Ok Jeff, but removing the heat shield will have zero impact on anything and chopping a section out of the brace severely weakens it. Any minute strength difference there is (I might be inclined to think the bent bar is stronger) doesn't madder after you cut the brace you have. I don't understand your logic.

The front of the sill braces share mounting location with the rear of the frame brace. Longer bolts are a good idea. THEY DO WORK TOGETHER. I personally installed them.

Marcus

jeffbatt

Think about what you're saying here from an Engineering standpoint. The only significant strength gained from any brace comes from added triangulation between the strong areas of the car, not bracing that runs parallel to existing parts of the frame. And not from how stiff the brace is when it isn't mounted to anything. Trying to build strength to the chassis without triangulation is not efficient.

Triangulated braces like the J's Fender braces and Kunimitsu/Carbing trunk braces are good. Perpendicular cross-braces are less effective. Parallel bracing, like the Do-Luck sill braces I used to have on my RSX, are far and away the least effective.

I cut off only the front cross-bar of the brace that runs parallel to the rear member of the front subframe. So, in effect, this part of the brace was bracing one of the most solid parts of the car...the front subframe cross-member dwarfs either the Cusco or the carbing in this area. I also have a Cusco Type-I, and that installed alone made no noticable difference to me. This is basically what I removed from the Kunimitsu.

My customized brace still triangulates the rear subframe mounts with the frame rails, and provides a cross-brace between the frame rails behind the cat. I would wager that it is 99%+ as effective as the brace without the front member removed.

The kunimistu/carbing front subframe brace does not fit with the USDM cat even with the heat shield removed...I tried it...and I think the design of the Kunimitsu/carbing is superior to the Cusco Type-II even with the front member removed. The Cusco brace's tubing is much smaller, and is bent between mounting points, which causes it to be significantly less stiff that a design with straight bars. More like a spring and less like a direct connection.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

But the section of the brace you removed was a lateral member, not a longitudinal one. A U shape does not triangulate anything as the open arms allow for torsional movements. Think 3 dimensionally. The lower brace that mounts at 4 points will box in a braced area and provide fewer degrees of freedom since twisting at the rear of the brace is countered by stability at the front (and etc for all 4 sides of the brace). I took statics too, and triangles are strong across a linear plane for sure, but we are trying to resist torsional moments through the splaying of an open member (the U of the stock subframe).

The trunk brace benefits from a triangular shape because the flex it is aiming to reduce is a folding effect across the rear floor, not a twisting motion.



The problem with where you cut the brace is this...the chassis where it runs parallel to is an "upside-down U". The brace while parallel is meant to close that U and box it in. This pic shows what I mean even though clearance to the cat is not evidenced since a Random is being used.



The carbing and cusco 1 or 2 are not redundant braces. The type 1 represents the minimal effective bracing addition to this part of the car, with more benefit noticed by extending the bracing forward. As you have noticed a 4 point brace is more effective than a 2 point one here. But with all due respect to you, the type 1 probably helped despite your lack of feeling it.

I'd hesitate to say you ruined the bracing effect by doing the mod you did. But I think you hampered its effectiveness more than you think, and I think it was a completely unnecessary thing to do relative to the impact of removing the heat shield. If indeed the brace interferes with the cat itself I see your dilemma, and would thus have to recommend others stick with a cusco bar.

The opinion that the carbing brace is superior is valid as long as a specific test is not performed. However I'd say that the cusco bar being a formed tubular aluminum is every bit strong enough to effectively brace this area. It is difficult to say if the bends have a detrimental effect on rigidity given the relative small motions at play. If the bends protruded up into the existing U shape of the sumbrame I'd have to agree with you. However since teh U shape of the cusco bar is opposing the direction of the U in the subframe I'd venture to say the resultant shape is rounder than the D section created with the carbing bar. I think you'd agree that a circle in this plane of forces is stronger than a semi-circle.

This post is from a complete engineering standpoint. You must resist viewing these parts at face value and consider how they interact with the existing framework of the car. This is the most common pitfall of modern tuners when viewing chassis brace effectiveness.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Incidently that pic shows the carbing sill braces in conjunction with the cusco type-2.

jeffbatt

Unless you do something like a finite element analysis of any car's chassis, there is no objective way to quantify the effectiveness of any brace. To do otherwise is like claiming horsepower gains with no dyno proof.

Short of that, all anyone can say is that certain general principles are likely more effective than others. Such as triangulation. Say what you'd like, but given the fact that the rear member of the front subframe runs parallel to the brace member I removed, any benefit I lost from removing it was likely very small. I don't argue that the brace would've been marginally stiffer with it in place, but the difference is probably quite small. The interference with the member in place was only slight and I did drive the car with it on, and noticed no difference than now, with it off.

Well, you've got your opinion and I've got mine. My brace adds triangulation, I don't understand how you can argue that point. It isn't a "U" shape, it is a /_\ shape. The open end is braced by the chassis and front subframe. I think I've had enough of this.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Don't give up so soon....

Isn't a /_\ not so dissimilar from a |_| when compared with a [ ] (thats supposed to be a square)?

You are claiming the open end of the brace is braced by the chassis, when indeed the brace itself is supposed to brace the chassis. This is contradictory to the point of installing the bar in the first place.

Honestly, I credit your opinion here. I enjoy engaging in debates. But your argument is not convincing enough for me to concede. We can agree to disagree if you like.

Marcus

jeffbatt

The point I'm trying to make is that because it ends up being a /_\ shape instead of a [] or "U" with 90 degree ends, it ends up bracing the rear mounting points of the subframe the same way as the removed cross-member does (and other ways, too). Any motion in this area that was resisted by the cross-bar will also be resisted by the traingulated arms of the brace even with the cross bar removed. For these points to flex, they have to move/stretch/shift the bars which are triangulated to the frame rails and also mounted directly to the very solid subframe.

It is perfectly valid for the chassis itself to help make the brace stronger. For example, the stock front shock tower brace is pretty weak when removed from the car, but is effective when installed because its only purpose is to better link the shock towers and firewall. Any brace needs to be stiff in the way that it resists loads and helps transfer loads once it is installed, it is not that important how stiff it is on its own. Things have to be viewed as a system, not in isolation.

It is like a convertible vs. a car with a roof. While the roof is pretty flimsy on its own, it adds huge stiffness to the car. I bet the roof of the TSX is far less stiff than any chassis brace offered for the TSX, but remove it, and the car would be horribly flexible. Drive a TSX with the rood sawed off, and we wouldn't be debating whether or not you could feel the difference. An extreme example, but you get the point.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Well, yes point taken. But at this point the assumption must be made that on its own the car is designed with a relative high amount of stiffness. We are trying to add the last bit of rigidity that was not built into the car because of cost considerations. In that light are are adding parts to an already rigid car and therefore we need to consider the parts as independent upgrades.

I think our points are both valid here. Without testing I can't say I agree with cutting that brace though.

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

Well, I sold this and installed it today. It went pretty well. Part of it was a pain but not too bad overall. You can do the install w/o removing the fenders. I'd recommend putting both front jack points on stands as well.

Marcus

montebello13

since you sold the one you had in stock, how long is the wait after placing an order? i just came into some extra money..

MrHeeltoe

iTrader: (1)

We sold the one we had but we can order more. Its about 60-90 days max. We use a really reliable company.


Marcus