| Strut Tower Brace cont. |
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| Step #3 The third step is to set the steel plates on the strut towers in the placements where you would like them to be. I suggest checking the underside first to make sure you wont hit anything in different places. After getting them placed, you can now begin the time consuming art of cutting and grinding down the corners/end of the brace so that it is a good mating surface to the twoers. I spent a while on this. It does not have to be perfect but try to keep any gaps to a minimum. I would say that an 1/8" gap would be the biggest there should be. even then, you should probably go back and keep grinding to get it closer. After getting everythign ground down, you can go ahead and weld the plates onto the bar. |
| Step #4 Step 4 is probably going to be the easiest part of the whole project I thought it was hard to think of drilling a hole in a car, but I finally did it. Anyway, just pick a bit that is made for drilling through metal and drill the holes through the steel plates welded to the ends of the brace. After you have made the hole, go ahead and test fit the bolts through them. i would suggest drilling a pilot hole first and making holes a size larger until you get to the final size. If you are not accustomed to drilling through metal, read the instructions I guess. |
| Once the holes have been drilled to the proper size through the brace, you can now transfer the holes to the strut towers. I did this by just bending a wire and scratching the circles into the paint. Once the hole placements have been transfered to the right locations on the tower, you can now start drilling through the strut tower. Be sure the holes line up correctly.. I don't think anyone wants any mis-aligned holes in the car that will cause further damages. I drilled the inner holes first and bolted the brace down, then drilled the outter holes just to make sure that the last two holes would line up correctly then. Once the holes are drilled and the brace it bolted down, it's onto step 5! |
| Step #5 Test Drive!! Take a quick spin around the block and feel the difference in the steering. I really noticed that when you jerk the wheel back side to side, the car is a lot more responsive and seems to handle better. I'm not saying this is safer, I just think it handles nicer. |
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| Some finished pictures of the brace. I think it turned out really well. A quick coat of primer and another coat of red spray paint. Who knew that would match so well. Almost looks like the bar came with the car from the factory. |