Here's what I came up with as a spreader bar. It just ties the 2 shock towers together, no heims, no turning to adjust.


It's a pipe w/ 2 sections of pipe welded @ 90 degrees on the ends. These and the "standoffs" on the roll cage section have inserts welded into them, the insert (just a sort of disc w/ a stepped side so that the pipe slides partially over it) on the lower part is threaded. I don't have 2 allen heads that are short enough so I just mocked it up w/ those 2 awfully long bolts

 

Looks good.

I made my own standard style BTW: do you see my rear cmaber bracket now I redid it again and ground all the welds smooth and painted.

 

the spreader bar brackets look to be welded properly, can't see the camber bracket..the black paint disguises the details.

 

Looks good

 

Marck,
What is the best points to attach the bar to each tower? Do you fabricate a plate to go over the shock mount?
Bernie

 

I extended the stock towers, they are much taller for the upper mount of the coil over shocks. My bar attaches a little forward of them to a set of diagonal bars that tie into the downtubes and the shock towers themselves. This will not fit a stock frame in any way.

This will show it a bit better, see the blue coil springs? Just left of them you see the shock towers and the diagonal bars (short sections) directly in front of the turbochargers. That's where the whole deal bolts down onto.


Here's the front section without most of the stuff that's cluttering the view.



On a stock frame, the best point to attach is between the cross shafts with the bar located anywhere between the 2 cross shaft studs.

 

Wow...nice work! Your always in inspiration

 

Thanks Marck,
I want to stiffen two areas on my car. I believe a shock tower brace will help the front suspension. The rear rolls on hard cornering and I am trying to decide what type of anti roll bar to use. I don't necessarily want to stiffen the suspension, I like the ride, but I do want to minimize roll and maybe add just a little oversteer where I now have some understeer.
Bernie

 

Bernie you can not do it like Twin Turbo and yellow 73 ZI feel your brackets are too flimsy. They are not rigid enough to prevent deflection. There is no strength in on direction , the direction you would install them.
I too build a spreader bar but pretensioned it to push OUT on the towers. I can actually change the camber with it.
Looking good Marck

 

I too built my own spreader bar. The base is polished stainless steel as are the rod ends. Boy does this make a difference in the way the front end feels going down the road.

 

Norval,
Does this mean that I would have to stiffen the tower before a front spreader bar would work or does the towers have their strength on the outside and a spreader bar would stiffen the flex between the towers?
Bernie

 

Bernie you don't stiffen the towers, that is the job of the spreader bar. I am just looking at the brackets Yellow 73 made and feel they are too flimsy. If the brackets flex then they defeat the purpose of the bar.
Everything is to be extremely rigid, no flex allowed or the bar is useless.
I don't have good pictures of mine but it is more then twice as thick. It also has a poor design.

 

I Just copied vbandp's. I do want to move the mounting point though to behind the a-arm bolt so I don't have any clearence issues with the a-arm studs.

 

If you bolt that bracket on the A arm studs and it sticks past the studs your bending moment is strickly a flat 1/4 inch thick piece of steel say 1 inch wide.
It is like laying your floor joice flat , not standing up ;but laying flat. There is no rigidity in a flat piece of steel. It acts like a diving board. It flexes.
Rigidity comes in height NOT width.
If you have a 4 x 4 piece of wood it is 16 square inches of wood true and using it as a bridge between say a 8 foot span. If you walk across it it might hold, might bend, who knows.
Now take the same 16 square inches of wood but make it 2 x 8 and lay the board flat on across the span of 8 feet and then walk on it it will bend, it might break but one way or the other it will sage way down.
Now stand it on edge so the 8 inches is up. Now walk if you can and it will not bend, sag or have a problems with your weight.
The forumal for rigidity is 1/2 thickness times the height cubed.
So for a 4 by 4 rigidity is 2 x 4 x4 x 4 or 128
For the 2 x 8 standing on end 1 x 8 x 8 x8 or 512
So the 2 x 8 is what 4 times more rigid then the 4 x4

I know this is going in circles but laying a flat thin piece of steel over the two A arm studs and sticking the bar out past the front stud is defeating the purpose of a rigid bar. Sure it looks good but stick the bracket in a vise using the jaws over the holes but leaving the end sticking out you can bend it with a large wrench and that is exactly what the bar will do to the bracket under hard loading.
You are much better off with a heavy piece of angle iron.
Try this, take a piece of say 1/4 x 1 1/2 steel about 12 inches long and stick 6 inches in the vise, now put an adjustable over the end sticking out and try bending it back and forth. It will bend fairly easy.
Now try this with 1/4 inch by 1 1/2 inch angle iron. The exact same test and you will find the angle iron won't bend, Not without alot more force.
The one leg of the angle iron is what produces the increased stiffness.
No the bracket in the picture if mounted out front of the studs is for show only.
Sorry but being an engineer designs stick out like soar thumbs and some of them I just feel are for show only.

 

Norval,
I can fab up some angle brackets instead of the flat pieces that hold the brace. I will need to look to see what they are bolted to and decide what type of brace I can make to adjust it to make it rigid between the towers. Thanks for the advice.
Bernie

 

Bernie heavy angle iron is alot better then flat stock. You just need to slide it over the 2 A arm studs and have part projecting out the front past the Arms so the bar can clear the pulleys.
Since mine are powdercoated black pictures don't come out the best. It bounces light back.

 

Guys look at the picture and you will see 2 small flats right in the middle of the bar. Try adjusting this bar using those flats?? Good luck. The flats fall right in the area of the fan and it is almost impossible to use them and quaranteed they will be in the wrong spot for the wrench you are trying to use on them.
They really suck.
I installed a bump steer kit this weekend from VBP and once again cursed those two small 13/16 flats. They never offered enough flats to put a wrech on. I ended up cutting a wrench in 1/2 just to ajust the toe using those sleeves.
The car I was working on has everything VBP and other then those rediculous flats I like their products.
The undercarriage of Brian's/Vettr's car

 

what if you were to box-in that VB&P style bracket?
say, weld a strip along each side the length of the bottom bracket so each side looked like an "L" bracket or angle iron. This would not only be welded to the bottom piece but also to the two pieces supporting that actual spreader bar bushing. Do the same to the other side so by the end the outer sides looked like a " l_l " then you could even box the ends in as long as you still have access to the bolts. Maybe even fill in the base of the " l_l " with some weld to thicken the base. I don't see how else you can build a bracket to fit the stock a-arms location for a spreader bar that is stronger or a diff design. Anyone out there accomplish a bolt on without moding with a tub frame?

 

I know that a box section is stronger but for this application I believe we would have the strength needed with angle since the spread is not that great. If the box section will fit there is no reason not to use it and it would be much stronger. I will fab mine from angle and see if if I have roon to add more strength.
Bernie

 

Think thicker base brackets would help, those are kinda thin