corvetteronw

Someone here asked if I had ever tried jacking up the car from one corner to demonstrate how the Vette2vette frame braces worked. I did so today when installing my new to me C5 wheels.
This shows how the entire side of the car comes up when just jacking at the right front corner.


As I have said in the past; I am really impressed on how rigid these Gordon Killebrew designed frame braces work. Check out the www.vette2vette.com website for more info.
I think he is asking $500 for the complete setup. Since this was the prototype model of their latest design I got them for a lot less.

corvetteronw

The targa top is off the car in this pic.

LT4POWR

Interesting... still looks to be seriously overpriced ($525) for the parts that you get

383vett

I wouldn't expect the frame to flex 5" and have 3 of the 4 wheels on the ground while one wheel is off the ground.

mrmtrtrnd

Nice set-up but you didn't include any pictures of your new wheels.

corvetteronw

The wheels are nothin to brag about. I sold my '03 champagne color wheels to another Forum member to buy a set of Fikses. Realized that having $4,000 wheels on a $5,000 car was not a good idea. If I ever curbed them or crashed the car then my insurance would not cover the cost to replace them. (I did not pay anywhere near what they were worth) Sold the Fikses to a real character in Detroit and bought a set of dirty, scuffed up '01 silver thin spokes off a local Craigslist for $350 (18" and 17"). Cleaned them up and with some advice from a C5 Forum member I found out the correct paint to use on them which exactly matched the wheels and was available at my local NAPA store. They look nice now and nicely set off the silverish color of the Steel Blue Metallic 91.
I hope to be at both Carlisle and Funfest this year if anyone wants to feel how the car drives. Won't be at Bloomington Gold as that is the weekend of my retirement party!
Man - my mind is going! I could not find where I put the lug nuts as the car has been on jack stands all winter. I ALWAYS put the locking lug key in the driver's storage compartment but I looked everywhere and thought I would have to go to the auto parts store to find more. I finally looked in my tool box in the same drawer where I keep my brake tools. Yup - they were there. Wasted a lot of time looking though Time to follow my own advice and use zip lock baggies and a sharpie to identify stuff.
For you naysayers - I have owned an 86 coupe, 87 vert with X brace, 96LT4 vert with X brace and this 91 coupe. I also owned a 300 hp 65 vert and an 81 with the convertible conversion and no X brace. This 91 handles the best of any Corvette I have owned. I drove a stock C5 Z06 last year and my butt meter says the 91 is almost as tight as the Z (not quite as powerful though).

RUU

Thanks for your reports on the frame braces, Ron. Thinking that will be my upgrade for next year. This year required the purchase of new tires for the CE & I'm having the rims refinished while they're off the car.

TorchTarga94

I plan on purchasing this frame kit in the near future!

corvetteronw

Here is the article I had published in Auto Enthusiast Magazine:
http://www.amosauto.com/Articles/Gen...e-tighten-up-1

SurfnSun

This kit will go on my next C4 for sure.

Motsiv2

I remember that article. Didn't realize that was you Ron. Good to know that someone can testify that it's worth buying.

anciano

I'm not mechanical engineer, but I did spend some time working as a steel fitter in a shipyard working with braces of various kinds intended to stiffen flexing parts, and I don't understand how this brace works.

It appears to only connect the frame on each side fore-and-aft -- but flexing in that plane would seem to be the least of concerns since the boxed frame members already run in that direction and it's hard to believe that there is much deflection there. The "cowl shake" that my car experiences is clearly of a torsional (i.e., twisting) nature as, for example, the right front wheel rises relative to left rear. I just don't see how these two unconnected fore-and-aft braces can do much to relieve this torsional distortion.

The X-frame on my convertible, while pretty flimsy, DOES address this to a degree, and was greatly aided when I installed the hardtop. I would also note that on may sports cars the frame bracing is lateral, often connecting the tops of the shock or strut towers across the top of the engine bay and/or in the "trunk." In some cars reinforcement is also built into the firewall. This makes more sense to me in terms of reducing torsional forces.

Again, this is just a layman's observation, but if I wanted to strengthen a rectangle against torsional forces I'd connect the corners diagonally rather than just reinforce the two long sides front-and-back.

92ragtop

You can always make your X-brace more rigid by boxing it in like this:
It makes a noticeable difference.

93Rubie

Supposedly as the story goes....Gordon Killebrew found that the spot welding technique that is used on the C4 frame was the primary cause of this inherent flexing, not to mention the lack of a t-top bar. He designed this brace to help stop this flexing by putting tension on the frame. This was to be incorporated on the new Corvettes but this was not found until late in the C4 model run and judged too costly for production.

That is what I have heard the story is.

I'm a skeptic of this for sure and not willing to spend 525 dollars to find out. However, I might make (on the cheap) a knock off of my own similar design just to try it. I might spend 100 versus 525 for something I'm skeptical off.

I'm skeptical because all the info I have heard is second hand info. I've never heard or read that Gordon Killebrew actually designed this and it works with any 100% proof.

Honestly, I think the picture proves nothing. If you jack up my 93 the same way. Newsflash, the rear tire lifts too. I've done it tons of times. The front will be a bit (maybe a inch or two, at the most) higher than the rear. Now is this frame flex or just suspension design??

If you have one and think it works, great. If I go out and spend 525 dollars based upon SOTP feelings and I don't get the same result, I'm going to be PO'ed. So I'll remain a skeptic until I get more definitive proof other than opinion on the matter. If I heard it/read it from Gordon first hand, I'd believe other wise.

My 2 cents worth.

PLRX

Ive done that and I dont have that tube on mine.

Vette Daddy

The price is not that bad, if you conside all of the R&D, manufacturing and putting it all together in a package. Bringing anything to the public takes alot of pre-planning to make things happen.

If it was easy, everyone would make them themselves.

boonie c4

Right on brother, I agree %100

mcm95403

Looking at the picture I see the lower sill being parallel to the ground which isn't what you normally get when you remove the targa and jack one corner.

Someone needs to do this with "before and after" pics and measurements so that we have solid data instead of all this conjecture and opinion.

corvetteronw

93Rubie. I hope to be at Corvettes at Carlisle in August. Having eye surgery in July which I hope goes OK so cannot be 100% sure I will be there. You can drive my car and see how it feels if I can make it there.
Jason of Vette2Vette has become a friend of mine through me buying parts from him and from writing the magazine article. He says that Gordon treats him as the son he never had. He says Gordon offered this idea to the Corvette plant while he was working there but the engineers turned it down (don't remember the reason). Gordon gave him the plans for this technology as a gift and said he could use it.
Have you ever priced Heim joints? Not cheap and there are 4 of them. The cost of liability insurance almost brought this project to a halt. The factory that makes the kit is well respected in the Corvette resto rod business and has been featured in many magazines. I am not allowed to give out their name though.
Once again - I have no financial interest in the sales of this kit. Just trying to get the word out to those who hate the way their C4s flex and want a solution that still offers easy access to the undercarriage.
I'm not sure what kind of engineering test could be performed to prove they work. Maybe run a car on an autocross course with and without them installed. How could you make sure the driver was not prejudiced and was consistent with his or her runs?
I attended a C4 class put on by Chris Petris at a Chevy dealer in St Charles, IL. We had one of the attendee's C4s on a rack and the owner asked what Chris would recommend to help the car handle better on a road course. He showed us how a convertible X brace could easily be fitted to the car and felt this was the best way to go (think this was in 2005). But he warned that any time the owner wanted to do exhaust, tranny, driveline work or change out a starter or fuel filter that the brace would have to be removed or it would cause you to do a lot of contortionist tricks for some of those jobs.
Gordon Killebrew is a smart man with an uncanny memory and lots of horse savvy. He was an integral part of the factory team that built the ZR-1. If you attend one of his seminars this summer maybe you can ask him about this product.

anciano

I agree, but we have to keep in mind that a static test like that won't tell the actual real-world-on-the-road story, where harmonic distortions play a part. For every frame flex in one direction there is a rebound in the other.

Don't get me wrong -- this Killebrew brace certainly will help, as will any reinforcement. What I would really like to see is a 1" diameter bar that crosses over the top of the engine from the upper control arm mounts on each side. Stabilizing this part of the frame where the greatest mass -- the engine -- is located seems to me a good idea, and it is also at exactly the point where torsional forces are introduced to the frame from the suspension.

Hey, somebody, fab one up and prove me wrong...or right, in which case we will share the royalties. My lawyer and I are watching.