Calling all C4 owners, under carriage brace thread, step in...
05-23-2009, 04:51 AM
#1
Melting Slicks
Thread Starter
Calling all C4 owners, under carriage brace thread, step in...
c4 owners, and enthsiasts, please step into my thread on the "performance/ tech" section for C4's...
True under carriage brace! Stiffen up the handling of the C4!!!
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...of-the-c4.html
I would love to hear the opinion of autocrossers, drag-racers, etc! Thanks!
True under carriage brace! Stiffen up the handling of the C4!!!
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c4-t...of-the-c4.html
I would love to hear the opinion of autocrossers, drag-racers, etc! Thanks!
05-23-2009, 12:58 PM
#2
Team Owner
Member Since: Mar 2001
Location: Boston, Dallas, Detroit, SoCal, back to Boston MA
Posts: 30,596
Received 238 Likes
on
166 Posts
interesting
Here are some pictures (courtesy of www.flyinmiata.com) that I wanted to share with the corvette community and get your thoughts on the development of a brace like this! I believe there would be a trumendous demand for something like this (over say a roll bar/ roll cage). It has proven to significantly stiffen the "feel" of the miata...
why is the miata "at all comparable" to the corvette you ask? Well, much like the corvette, the miata shares the SAME engineering design to "link" the transmission tail housing to the front of the differential. In fact, the differential is mounted almost exactly like the corvette's (at two points of a "batwing".
why is the miata "at all comparable" to the corvette you ask? Well, much like the corvette, the miata shares the SAME engineering design to "link" the transmission tail housing to the front of the differential. In fact, the differential is mounted almost exactly like the corvette's (at two points of a "batwing".
05-24-2009, 09:05 AM
#3
Melting Slicks
why is the miata "at all comparable" to the corvette you ask? Well, much like the corvette, the miata shares the SAME engineering design to "link" the transmission tail housing to the front of the differential. In fact, the differential is mounted almost exactly like the corvette's (at two points of a "batwing".
Well, yes the mounting of the engine, transmission and diff are similar in that they are a unit, but the no part here is that chassis stiffness doesn't have anything to do with that.
What they are doing with the Miata is stiffening the chassis by closing the fourth side of the box, essentially boxing in the transmission tunnel, so that the chassis becomes a tube from the firewall to the back of the passenger compartment. Much like the tunnel plate does on the C5 this boxes the chassis and increases the stiffness. The C4 Corvette doesn't have anything structural to "box" so this kind of a structure isn't going to help the fabled lack of chassis stiffness. If you want to stiffen the chassis you have to get "out of plane" of the basic chassis tubes, this kind of thing, unless it is made of tubing that has torsional stiffness in itself, it isn't going to help much.
Last edited by Solofast; 05-24-2009 at 09:14 AM.
05-26-2009, 03:23 AM
#4
Melting Slicks
Thread Starter
The answer to this is one of those "Well, yes and no" kind of things...
Well, yes the mounting of the engine, transmission and diff are similar in that they are a unit, but the no part here is that chassis stiffness doesn't have anything to do with that.
What they are doing with the Miata is stiffening the chassis by closing the fourth side of the box, essentially boxing in the transmission tunnel, so that the chassis becomes a tube from the firewall to the back of the passenger compartment. Much like the tunnel plate does on the C5 this boxes the chassis and increases the stiffness. The C4 Corvette doesn't have anything structural to "box" so this kind of a structure isn't going to help the fabled lack of chassis stiffness. If you want to stiffen the chassis you have to get "out of plane" of the basic chassis tubes, this kind of thing, unless it is made of tubing that has torsional stiffness in itself, it isn't going to help much.
Well, yes the mounting of the engine, transmission and diff are similar in that they are a unit, but the no part here is that chassis stiffness doesn't have anything to do with that.
What they are doing with the Miata is stiffening the chassis by closing the fourth side of the box, essentially boxing in the transmission tunnel, so that the chassis becomes a tube from the firewall to the back of the passenger compartment. Much like the tunnel plate does on the C5 this boxes the chassis and increases the stiffness. The C4 Corvette doesn't have anything structural to "box" so this kind of a structure isn't going to help the fabled lack of chassis stiffness. If you want to stiffen the chassis you have to get "out of plane" of the basic chassis tubes, this kind of thing, unless it is made of tubing that has torsional stiffness in itself, it isn't going to help much.
Thanks for the response. In the link to my thread on the technical c4 forum, i did mention that this item goes along the "theory" of boxing i the tunnel. Just as you mentioned, the current c5/c6 community has embraced this idea with the tunnel braces that they offer. I do believe that even a minimal difference would be beneficial. The c4 "might" even run a little "smoother-less shimmy" with the roof panel off with a brace like this? I don't know, thus the reason why I wanted to raise awareness and see if any vendor would be willing to "step up to the plate", and put a product like this into development. At least test it to see if it's "worth while".
