I have completed and installed my STB. I made it out of 1/2" (7/8" outside dia./.090 wall)water pipe, bending it with an electrical conduit bender. I welded the ends to peices of 3/16" thick steel that I fabricated to fit next to the strut mount. Painted it red and clear-coated it. I then bolted it down with two 3/8" titanium aircraft bolts/self-locking nuts on each side.
I have sufficiently beefed up the front-end for "spirited" street driving and best of all the total investment was $6.

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'84Z28/'92 305TPI
'92 complete rear suspension/PBR disc/Posi/3:42
Light weight 34.5mm stabilizer bar in front ($10 from wrecking yard)/
"wonder Bar" ($5 from wrecking yard)
23mm sta. bar in rear
Rear RS Springs (slightly softer than my Z28)
comp cam, flowmaster
TB coolantbypass/shutoff valve to heater core
powersteering cooler lines (liberated from another wrecked car of course)
MAT relocated
Ram-Air(home-made) gutted air-box
IROC ground effects/wheels GY245/50's
700R4 superior shift kit/ corvette servo(excellent shift kit btw)
home-made strut tower brace (cost $6)

Rebuilt engine and transplanted it myself.

Love this engine!

freshly painted OCT. 2000 Teal with two white stripes on the hood and deck lid

LOW performance people should drive low performance vehicles!

 

i've never had a STB, but it would be easy to make. i made my SFCs and lot of other little things on my car and others.

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ICON Motorsports

1st & 3rd

 

I'm all for homemade suspention parts, but if I were you I'd rethink that piece. I seriously doubt 1/2" water pipe has near enough rigidity to do any good there. Won't hurt anything..but won;t do any good either. I mean, the fact that you could bend it with an electrical conduit bender says it all. Just MHO

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"American made baby. 100% American iron. The muscle among the masses. My hero. Yep, you can take your ergonomically designed, space age, computer controlled, 4 door, cup holding map lighted split double wishbone split fold down retractable cargo covered moon roof piece of transportation and keep it. For I have felt the thunder. And I know the difference!"
JSP Motorsports
ICON Motorsports

 

Agreed jester. Not to knock your Idea or Approach 84, Home made is something to be proud of.

What You might try, Instead of that 1/2 Galvanized Pipe ( dont tell me you used Copper! ) is some 3/4 or 1/2 Steel stock.

Even an old swaybar, Might be Coaxed into something resembling a struc tower brace

I admire your ingenuity, and I also admire that you have a Goddamn welder! GRRRR




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60 Ranchero - Project ( Money Hole )
85 Sport Coupe LG4 - Daily Driver

Livin' the Stereotype

 

his pipe is fine. I have seen after market braces that you could bend with you bare hands. And by the way the conduit bender can bend solid bars.

 

If you check the differences between the various types of hollow pipe available (such as chrome-moly or DOM tubing) you will find that there is very little difference in each type in their resistance to bending/stiffness. The stiffness really goes up when you introduce solid bar stock into the equation, but who uses solid bars for STB's, at least for the street?

I just wanted to add a little strength to my towers for street driving, as I am not trying to duplicate a serious aftermarket effort I just wanted to make my own brace that would be functional on a small scale. The brace actually turned out better than I had hoped and seems to perform quite well.

I hate to get to technical in this forum but if you like I can post a few numbers to compare some popular tubing strengths.

[This message has been edited by 84IROC (edited January 21, 2001).]

 

I made my own strut tower brace out of 1.25 inch chromemoly tubing a year ago at school. Used a tubing bender and 1/8 steel plates for pads. Was a very strong and nice looking piece that bolted on with only 4 bolts. Got bent when a chick in a corolla ran a red light and smashed the front of my car.




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1987 Trans Am GTA WS6
-5.7L SuperRam
-TFS Twisted Wedge Heads
-LT4 HOTCAM
-LT1 PM Rods
-4L60-E Transmission
-LS1 Aluminum Driveshaft
-4.10 SRD

1988 Pontiac Grand Am
-3800 SFI V6
-125-C Trans
-Stock 2.5L converter (stalls at about 3000)
-Stock emissions equipment
Domestic Terrors Car Club Online

 

84Iroc, glad to hear it worked out well! I'm going to do something along those lines this summer. I'll probably use a straight "Home Depot" pipe across the top of the engine. I'll thread each end, and screw rod-ends into the pipe at each side. Then I'll weld up a bracket to bolt down to the strut tower that will take the rod end.

How close did you come to the strut mount on top of the tower? I don't want to affect the possibility of my car getting aligned in the future... I had a circuit breaker mounted on a block of wood near the strut mount once; the tire shop had to crack it free to do an alignment (oops)!

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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!

[This message has been edited by TomP (edited January 22, 2001).]

 

Tom,
I left 1/4"-3/8" between the steel plate and the Strut tower, should be plenty of room for adjustments.
Since my AC comp is on the passenger side I was forced to go over the AC hose, it made for a little tighter fit and a slightly sharper bend down to the strut tower. If yours is a serpintine set-up it should be alot easier. I like your Idea about rod ends I wish I would have thought of that.
Several years ago I was racing ATV's on a flat oval and I made upper "A" arms and a front Sway-Bar for my Yamaha Banshee Quad and I used rod-ends for both and they looked really trick!
I used black water pipe (because the finish is slightly smoother than galvanized) from Home Depot. 1/2" pipe is apprx. 7/8" outer dia. with .090-.110 wall, fairly decent stuff I think.
Next project will be Home-made SFC's!!!!

 

Heh, actually, I like your way better! That custom-bent brace must look really slick. My bar will have more of a "universal fit" look to it. Thanks for the clearance spec between the strut tower & plate. Did you have a way to measure hood clearance? All I can imagine is trying to place different sized blocks of wood between the top of my V6 and the hood, and seeing which size lets me close the hood, and then not raising the STB bar higher than that.


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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!

 

Right on 84 Iroc! I made my own out of similer size tubing. STB's Aint Rocket Science and ya don't need, chromoly, titanium and gold alloy to keep those SHEET METAL towers in line. At worse, your brace weighs a little than the store bought variety.


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Nor Cal Mike
Red 84 Z28 HO, stock L82 350, L69 carb, intake, and air cleaner.
5 Spd, 3:73 Posi, 1 5/8" SLP headers, 3"cat connected to
stock L69 exhaust, KYB's, homemade SFC's,STB and wonderbar
Some are faster but mine's fast enough.

 

Tom,
I made an initial mock-up of the brace out of electrical conduit and temporarily installed it. I then shimed it up and down until I got the clearance I needed......

 

My car has a carb with dual snorkel air cleaner. I loosely taped a 1"wooden dowel across the snorkels to test for clearence.

I bought a hydraualic pipe bender at one of those cheap tool sales, a couple of years ago.

The brace is bent to go around the front of the air cleaner and tapers slightly downward (1%) until it gets past the snorkels. After the snorkels the taper increases down to the mounting point. At the highest point, when it passes the air cleaner, the top of the tube is at the same height as the top of the air cleaner, or slightly higher. My brace clears everything under the hood, including the hoses, AC compressor(drivers side), and cold air ducts.My brother and I spent about 4 hours and a 12 pack on it.

Mike

[This message has been edited by Nor Cal Mike (edited January 25, 2001).]