Did you have any troubles with yours clearing the intake? Mine rests on top of the intake and holds the strut tower brackes about 1/3 off the strut tower....

Hmm, it looked like his fit pretty much perfectly... According to the pics, clearance was minimal @ the plenum (maybe an issue depending on how much the motor moves when revved?), but it was not touching. Wait for him to confirm though. I hope this is not a design issue with the EP brace (your's is an EP right, not an original KB?).

Just to clarify, by 1/3, you mean 1/3rd of an inch, right? I wonder if the condition of motor mounts could cause this much of a difference in intake height in relation to strut towers...? Maybe you guys can compare measurements of your braces at certain points to check if they are the same dimensions...

Mine doesn't do that......but as you can see by the picture it is super close.....

The welds should be in small circular patterns goin in one direction,with no bumps or clumps of slag or anything.

My grandfather was a welder,my dad does welding, I have a couple years under my belt.I come from a long line of welders.

Hey, sorry i meant 1/4 inch. My motor mounts are brand new, I was wondering if that was what was making the difference... I'm thinking about trying to make some spacers out of some flat iron, but I'm afraid if I do that its going to hit the underside of the hood. I don't know how much clearance is there.

Space it up with some cardboard or flat washers first. Much easier than making spacers and finding out it doesn't fit.

I had to adjust up where the back part of the brace hit the firewall when I was doing my trial fitting.

Thanks for the idea, thats what I did. I used washers to figure out thickness and test fit, and I started making a couple spacers out of some flat 1/4" steel. Not gonna look the prettiest...but thats about the only thing I can come up with aside from buying a different brace. If you have any other bright ideas I'm all ears!

Goto you local hardware store like a True Value or something and pick up a piece of sheet aluminum. They have it in various thicknesses and u can cut it with a sabre saw. Will make a much neater job I think than the flat steel.....just my .02.

I'm not a genuis, but I have a good idea occasionally!

Here are the pics as promised! I had to make some spacers out of 3/8" steel plate. It now clears the intake, just barely, but it does. It seems to be a very well made brace, the welds look great, nice crinkle finish, and best of all it seems to help!

Thats looks great......what do you notice as far as stiffness? Any particular examples like train tracks, potholes, etc?

That does look good now I can't for mine to get here, plus I got umi subframe connectors coming. cmon ups!

Doesn't look bad at all. Mine should be here on Monday...

This brace does look great! Unfortunately mine is for sale. I got a custom umi brace on the way that requires no drilling. I would let mine go for $100 shipped it has all the instructions and hardware etc

Thanks for all of the compliments everyone! Rumblin, it really seems to help, no word on train tracks or pot holes as I tend to avoid those. Haha. but where i really noticed it was on those darn clover leaf on ramps. Speeds that seemed kind of sketchy/scary before are now done with ease. Fast corners almost feel like you are taking them slower. I think it was a pretty good deal all around. Any more questions just let me know!

$100 shipped, that's what I paid for mine (I offered a bit less than the "buy it now" price to make it an even $100). A great deal for this setup in my opinion.

Just out of curiosity, what has been changed on your UMI brace to make it "custom?"

Thats awesome guy! How bout rattles? Did it fix any of those? Hopefully my UMI piece will be here tonight so I can make a decision.

I'll have pics soon

Cool, I like pics...

I have NO dash/interior rattles! its pretty exciting. Another thing it helped with was...My header collector rubs on the passenger side and when turning left would vibrate and make a lot of noise, and it does that MUCH less now. I need to do something to actually correct that problem.. I almost went with the UMI one until I saw this deal. Good luck!

dont think this would clear a 14inch round carb air cleaner .

Definitely not, sorry.

Got my UMI brace in on Friday and installed today! I like it! Stiffened up the front and I didn't need to drill any holes! I'm happy!

Awesome man! Mine was a night and day difference! No holes to drill, thats a bonus for you!

Mine stiffened things, but not as much as I would like. I was probably expecting it to turn the car into a Lexus or something............

Quality piece, just like the KB part. The only gripe I have is it rubs the hood insulator on the drivers side, which will cause issues with the powder coating eventually. I put a piece of foam over it for now, until I figure out a solution. The passenger side is fine.

Well they are pretty awesome, but they can't do MAGIC! Yeah..mine has the same problem, rubs on the drivers side only...strange how these things work..

Do either of you have SFC's? Like FireChicken2.8 said, an STB can't do everything. SFC's would complement it nicely I would think, as far a chassis stiffening goes anyway. Well, actually I would probably say that a STB would be a nice complement to SFC's, as I would assume that SFC's do more for chassis rigidity than an STB...

EDIT:
Hey, Justin did you ever get you custom UMI brace?

No, I don't have SFCs, however that is the next thing I am going to get, I can't wait!

My next move is subframe connectors.....possibly two sets. One on the inside and one on the outside to really stiffen things up. The STB was just easier to install amist all the other things I am doing.

It's shipping either tomorrow or Monday.

Finally got this thing where I like it. I didn't like it rubbing on the hood liner, so I put a piece of foam over it for a little while until I could figure out what to do. I ended up cutting a small section out of the foam hood liner on the drivers side. No more rubbing. Might do the same thing on the pass side too to even things out. Here's some pics....

dude, that looks hot! could you snap a pic of the insulation by chance? Just wanna see what it looks like with a piece cut out. I might end up doing that to mine.

Thanks!

Here ya go.....looks worse in the picture than it is. All I did was outline what I wanted to do in tape and cut it out. The liner is very easy to cut with a sharpe utility knife. Once I took out the piece, I just sprayed a little krylon semi flat black in the opening. Looks like its always been there.

Yeah, that does actually look damn good. Gloss black brace in a white car, I like it.

Do you know if that brace is designed to provide preload via the adjustable ends, or are those intended more to account for possible variations in chassis dimensions? I would think (not being a chassis/suspension engineer) that a little preload on an STB wouldn't be a bad thing... But, I could be wrong...

EDIT:
I may have just answered my own question. I couldn't see in your pics, but I looked on the UMI site and I see that the mounting holes are slotted laterally (parallel with the bar) so those would account for any differences in chassis dimensions that would be present from car to car. So, I would presume then, that the adjustable end are intended for applying preload if desired...

Thanks for the compliments, I appreciate it!

As far as preload, I would assume the bar would need double adjustable ends so I could screw them out while the bar is installed, thus preloading the bar.

The only way I could think to add the 'preload' now would be to pull the eye rod mounting bolts, jack the car up and install the ends while letting the front end hang. Dropping the car down would then give me the 'preload'.

I also didn't see anything in the install instructions about preload on the bar.

Hope this helps.

Ahh, I see, so they are not able to be adjusted while installed. I wonder why they went with slotted mounting holes and "single adjustable" ends. Seems like they would accomplish the same thing with either one. Although, I suppose given the bending of the bar, that adjusting those ends would also move the bar up/down vertically a little bit, to allow clearance for the intake...

I was told its going to be up to another 2 weeks

I would assume the slots are for some alignment adjustments.....could be wrong though. It would be nice if the threaded ends could raise/lower the bar for different intake combos. I'll have to experiment and see if that works.

man i need to get a hold of a tpi car i could make a 2 point thats stronger then that 3 point will ever be haha if i get around to my car(im currently out of state) then ill post the 2point i made for my carb 305

I'd like to see the pics.

Also, when you talk about making one that is significantly stronger, what exactly would you change about it? Do you mean stronger materially, i.e. chrome-moly? Or, do you mean stronger mounting points, and if that's the case, please describe. If you don't mind sharing your ideas.

I'm pretty interested in the different designs of chassis braces... I hope it's not totally unacceptable that this thread has turned into more of a comparison discussion now that the originally posted eBay auction is over...

I dunno, I don't think it would move it that much, like probably less than 1/4". It depends on the angle of the bend in the tube. I think: If the bend is like 9 degrees then extending the adjustable ends by 1" would only raise the bar by .1" (I definitely just made up some BS math in my head to figure that out, sounded good in my head, but I don't know if it's right.) @ 90 degrees any additional length would be 100% vertical, so @ 9 degrees any additional length would be 10% vertical & 90% horizontal, right...? That's my math... I did take calculus I promise... I just don't remember anything

Anyone know how much taller a big mouth style intake/runners is than stock? If I do anything, I'll be going that route as I like the stock look. And that math sounds right......LOL!