08-21-2020, 06:07 PM | #23 |
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The thin steel brace is laughable when you pull it out the car.
The front corner braces when taken off are flimsy in all directions apart from the one that you think it works in. So it's strong edge on and otherwise you could fold it in half while drinking a beer.. So that's what I mean by a joke. Try that with the aluminium or CF brace. Orders of magnitude stronger. |
08-21-2020, 08:41 PM | #24 | |
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08-21-2020, 09:34 PM | #25 |
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Several vendors have replacement corner braces that they state greatly improves handling. Not sure they add anything more than the strut brace adds. But the corner brace replacement are much more expensive than a strut brace.
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08-22-2020, 02:31 AM | #26 | |
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Last edited by M Fifty; 09-26-2020 at 05:58 PM.. Reason: Spelling |
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08-23-2020, 03:47 PM | #27 |
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Finally got a chance to drive my M2. Unexpectedly it has a nice improvement in steering feel. Much more positive. Corners great also. Great cheap upgrade.
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08-24-2020, 01:50 PM | #28 | |
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I’m running bilstein b16 coils on my m2. For me chassis and steering “feel” trump outright power. I had the ultra racing brace on previously which is similar design to yours. I now have the aluminium m4 brace and did have the CF brace too. My personal opinion is that if you consider the aluminium/CF strut brace the “gold standard” The m4 aluminium strut brace alone achieves ~70% of this. The ultra racing struts et al probably 40-50%. |
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09-05-2020, 08:23 PM | #29 |
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Seems like this is a lot cheaper mode than using the M2C carbon brace. A lot easier to install also.
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09-05-2020, 09:21 PM | #30 |
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Did you remove the oem strut brace before putting this in?
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09-05-2020, 10:12 PM | #31 |
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09-05-2020, 10:23 PM | #32 |
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Right on. Was curious if it just bolted over the existing one. Thanks.
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09-05-2020, 10:56 PM | #33 |
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09-06-2020, 04:11 AM | #34 | |
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Glad the additional parts helped. |
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09-06-2020, 11:49 AM | #35 |
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09-06-2020, 02:40 PM | #36 | |
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Unrelated, but is "hinge" on some of the designs a desirable feature? I imagine this allows the bar to rotate slightly while still bracing the left and right struts against each other. However, the non-hinge designs would seem to do an even better job at bracing? Is there some undesirable stress that the hinge solves? |
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09-06-2020, 07:33 PM | #37 | |
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09-07-2020, 04:43 PM | #38 |
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I believe these types of brace transfer force to the other side as a primary mode of action, it's not static bracing like reinforcing a building.
That's why it's hinged. |
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09-07-2020, 07:01 PM | #39 | |
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Seems that the bar will almost always be under tension, thus the hinge wouldn't affect the performance. Also, since a strut bar is essentially a long lever arm, a non-hinge design actually wouldn't help brace the vertical movement much at all. So you're right - I was just curious if there was any advantage to either design, and it seems like the answer is "not really". |
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09-26-2020, 03:10 PM | #40 |
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Have had the Racing Dynamics strut bar for about two years now. Only one I could find at the time.
It does seem to make the front end of the car more rigid. Subjectively, rolling over small sharp bumps on one side of the car feels slightly harsher. Objectively (I think) this means that the shock wave traveling through the sheet metal propagates across the front of the car much faster, because now there is a direct path for the shock to follow - straight across the strut tower bar instead of around the front through the corner braces and around the structure under the bottom edge of the window. I think of it as improving road feel. You feel what's going on with the tires better, because the vibrations take less time to propagate and stop. There's less "overlap" between vibrations caused by the road surface, so you feel all of them better. As for the harshness, it's more or less like when you overinflate your tires by 2 psi. Small but definite increase in harshness. I've also installed the Turner FCA Monoballs, which feel like another 2 psi of tire overinflation (and helped turn-in crispness much more than the strut tower bar). But that's another story. YMMV as always. And yes, I've read several times that the strut towers are pushed apart under heavy cornering loads.
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03-29-2021, 12:49 AM | #41 |
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Anyone that installed coil overs have to unbolt the stock strut bar near the struts and leave it unbolted? I recently had a set of Ohlins R&T installed with Ground Control camber plates and when the install was completed, I noticed the stock strut was left unbolted nearest to the upper strut. When asked why it was unbolted, they said the new camber plates and upper mounts didn’t have a place to bolt them down. Am I missing something??
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03-29-2021, 01:58 AM | #42 | |
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03-29-2021, 04:43 AM | #43 | |
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thisischoi see attached 1st post from another thread on here - https://f87.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...27&postcount=1 Reads like your top mounts are like purple KW versions which have only 3 bolt mounts for alloy M2C/M3/M4 oem alloy brace. You need either specific OG M2 camber plates (for single bolt oem brace) or multiple purpose top mounts like the black ones shown in the linked post which have 4th bolt hole to suit single bolt oem brace in addition to the 3 bolt req'd for the alloy brace. HTH, BP
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03-29-2021, 01:32 PM | #44 |
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I thought something wasn’t right. Ugh, gotta make time to go back to the shop again. Thanks for the info guys!
Last edited by thisischoi; 03-29-2021 at 01:34 PM.. Reason: Photos won’t show |
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