when I was in boot camp I met an interesting guy from S.Carolina. he was a motorhead from the sticks. him and I were discussing low budget mods,when the subject of frame stiffening came up. this is interesting:

use "carrage bolts" to attach thick threaded steel cable,two pieces,between the hard part of the unibody frame behind the front wheel well and the front of the rear wheel well.two pieces because a double sided opposite threaded adjuster nut is used to tighted it up until you start to hear the frame creak a little. do this on both sides. he claimed he did it to third gen with a big block and it greatly reduced flex and worked just as good as real frame connectors. would this work?? I'm kind of considering doing it just to stretch cash flow until I get real frame connectors

 

Hm, not sure. Seems like it would put a lot of stress on those carriage bolts, and the metal they went through. I also can't help but imagine there would still be frame twist... the cables aren't attaching anywhere mid-way. Hell who knows tho, if the guy really tried it and it really worked...

Plus, adjusting it until the frame creaks sounds scary.


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards
---Think your car could be pic of the week? Visit http://www.f-body.net for details!

 

I dont think you would accomplish anything beneficial. Even if it did work, i think the sheet metal that the carriage bolts attach to woud stretch. The biggest prob with these cars IMHO is the torsional strength (lack there of).

 

the purpose of making the fream creak a little is just to make sure you've tightened up all the slack in the steel bars,he didn't mean to keep twisting after the first "creak" and flex the frame like a bow & arrow or somthing like that,just that sure feeling you get when you know the bolts are as tight as they need to be. the parts of the unibody he described are pretty strong!! it's where service stations put the lift to rotate tires and stuff like that.he said the carrage bolts had to be real thick like 5/8",3/4" thick I can't remember exactly,but, what he described didn't sound like something that would just break. if any one has ever seen the wire "X" on the side of heavy shipping crates. thats the kind of hardware he was talking about. I'm not familliar with it but I do know it's quite strong.the purpose of keeping tension between those two points on the car is to keep them from spreading apart.I would imagine that as the body flexes from driveline torque, the two frame points where the carrage bolts were would spread apart,maybe just millimeters. strong enough steel wire would keep that from happening.they would be limited to their original distance from eachother,I don't see why that wouldn't greatly reduce flex.
I just need to field test this theory.

his story goes as follows: he picked up a thirdgen and built it up with a 6.6,when he took it on the highway,the interior lights would flicker from all the twisting making the doors rattle,after his ghetto rig the flickering went away,and it handled a little better during hard acceleration.
if it really works cool,but,I don't know if I have the heart to treat my car to performance add ons from............the Home Depot!

P.S. what are the codes for those faces??they make this message board so much more fun.

 

I say, get the platform in shape before throwing, unibody twisting mods at it. I don't want to spend money on an engine until the car is ready for it (not the other way around)

my $0.02

thanks
alex m

 

Yeah, but service stations just lift the car up by those spots. They don't pull those spots toward each other.

And I don't think the frame spreading apart bumper-to-bumper is the problem. It's the twist involved when the floor & roof of the unibody car twists. Subframe connectors weld to the bottom of the floor. The wire you're talking about won't.

Imagine this- take two small pieces of wood, 5 inches long. Drill a hole in each end. Put some wire to connect the wood together, to basically construct a rectangle, with wood on the sides and wire on the front/back. This simulates that guy's idea in action. Now pull the pieces of wood apart as hard as you can- this simulates the tightening of the wire. Now twist one piece of wood... you can.

Subframe connectors- replace the wire with wood, glued on or screwed on or something. Now try twisting... much harder.


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards
---Think your car could be pic of the week? Visit http://www.f-body.net for details!

 

yea, I know it does seem pretty wierd,I might just go with the Jegster frame connector kit,under $200 too,then edelbrock strut tower brace. things I know actually work!!