Brace Installed on Sunsay
 

Installed mine on Sunday, and took a spirited ride on some twisty Northern CA Mountain roads (they are very empty this time of year) that I am very familiar with. I did not drive the way I drive at an AutoX or on the track but I was able to tell the difference on some fast turns. On my spirited runs I usually push the car enough to get a little “rear end hop” as I accelerate out of a tight turn, driving the same way Sunday the car did not hop and definitely felt more planted. Of course there are many other variables at work (temps in the low 50s…) but I expect that track and AutoX experience will improve. Looking at the rear tires afterwards I could tell that they did not get as far over onto the edges as usual so I expect that I will be able to lower the tire pressure 1 or 2 lbs on the track and AutoX to get a little more grip (I will need to get the chalk out). I run PS2s on 19s” with 36psi in back and 34psi in front.

I have a 987S (the brace is 3mm shorter than the 986 version, so make sure you get the right one) the install is very simple (just follow the instructions), I did not need to remove or loosen anything other than the bolts that hold it in place, the longest part of the process was jacking up the car and putting it up on jack stands! The brace was well made and fitted perfectly – Thanks Pedro

I noticed over at PPBB that Pedro is now selling a fixed, solid bar for $70 plus shipping, which is what MartinJ is referring to. The original $130 Mantis bar was adjustable though to allow easy fitment on any car. The Pedro bars do vary by 3 mm depending on whether they're for a 986 or 987, but otherwise are just a solid aluminum bar with holes drilled in the ends.

I think it’s great that Pedro is willing to give a lower cost option to those people who don’t have the skills or time to fabricate their own bars. But it’s precisely those people who need an adjustable bar that’s easier to install and will fit any model. Plus I personally think that $70 for something that’s less than $10 in materials is a bit of a stretch.

Given this situation I would be willing to consider setting up a group buy for the adjustable lower stress bar I’m working on now. The main bar, as I described previously, is 3/4" steel tube, zinc plated yellow, with very heavy duty rod ends. It’s adjustable to fit a 986 or 987 (probably Cayman too) and more than strong enough for the application.

I’ve ordered one of these bars for my own car (third iteration) and was just on the phone with the company yesterday. There is some delay because the main bar is custom made to the right length for me and the rod ends are a special order item (larger shank than normal), but I should have the parts and then photos up before Christmas.

If I put in an order to have 20 bars made I can get the price down to $65 plus $10 fixed shipping cost (continental U.S. only) for the main lower stress bar. I’m willing to do this if I can get at least 10 people interested, assuming I can get rid of the other 10 bars on eBay or the likes. Let me know by PM or e-mail at kbristol@lycos.com if interested. If I get enough responses I’ll follow up in January with a formal group buy in the classifieds section of this website.

I’d also be willing to put together something on the aluminum side bars. Again, same specs as I recently posted – a larger diameter bar with heavier duty aluminum rod ends (not the red ones in my photos) and fully adjustable. These are nice, racing rod ends though and thus are a bit pricey. Plus you’ve got two bars and four rod ends to do the side bars. You’d be looking at $95 for both, shipping included with the main bar.

Kirk

TechnoBrace
 

Kirk:
First of all my Technobrace is not just a bar with holes in the end.
The Brace is carefully machined to fit perfectly on the lower suspension supports.
They are also machined so that the hex bolt's head is secured and therefore tightened without the need of a wrench for the top portion.
It may be $10 in materials (solid 22.2 mm aluminum rod plus two automotive-grade hex bolts) but there's a lot of labor involved as each Brace is handcrafted to assure perfect dimensions and perfect fit.
It is this precisely that makes it much simpler to install than an adjustable brace. There are only two bolts to tighten and that's it.
There's nothing wrong with an adjustable brace, I just decided to simplify my version and make it more affordable to manufacture.
You also talk about a group buy being more affordable. If the group purchases 20 TechnoBraces from me I'll bill them at $59 each.
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

Technobrace
 

Pedro,

You are correct. Your Technobrace is not just a bar with two holes on the end. There are also two flats. :rolleyes:

I don't question that it will work. Until recently I had a 1" diameter solid aluminum bar with two holes on the ends and flats on my car since August. I measured perfectly. I drilled perfectly. It didn't fit the first time. I measured again, I drilled again, still had trouble fitting. After quite a bit of screwing around I eventually got it to fit. That's just the way this kind of thing goes.

The problem is that no matter how perfectly you measure it and drill it for your car there is no assurance that it will be perfect for my car. I can't imagine there's a huge amount of difference between cars here, but it wouldn't take much to make fit a real issue. Just 3 mm difference between the 986 and 987 means you offer two different size bars. Is that really a difference in the structure between those models or a difference between the individual cars you measured? How many cars did you measure to get your perfect numbers? What about the S? What about the Cayman? I'm not trying to be nasty, just making a point.

That's why I moved to an adjustable bar with adjustable heim joints. It'll fit any car and is more of a universal solution. I also feel a bit better about having something that's made for racing and rated for 7,000+ lbs tensile (aluminum heavy duty heim joints) and 9,000+ lbs tensile (steel heavy duty heim joints).

Ultimately people will chose what "fits" best for them. :D And either way at least folks now have MUCH lower cost options to the Mantis bar.

Anyone have photos of Pedro's solid brace? (installed?)

Pedro, do you have a photo you could post?

He's got photos over on PPBB plus on his website. There are some photos of the bar itself and of it installed. It basically looks the same as the bar that Franco made. If you search back to Post #29 of this thread Franco posted a photo of his bar back in May. Above that are photos of the same kind of bar that I made with my first iteration - can't miss it just look for the bikini babe. :p But that's a 1" diameter bar and the Pedro bar is a bit smaller like Franco's.

Kirk

I don't want to get into a big discussion about this.
It's not like I make a living out of it.
I'd have everyone make their own, but for those that don't, I offer my TechnoBrace.
Every Boxster that I've tested has used one of my two Braces (3 mm difference) and they fit perfectly without any re-drilling or pulling or pushing.
The bolts drop right through.
There are many reasons why a home-made Brace will have problems fitting perfectly.
Because the securing bolts have to go through the Brace, the Suspension Support, the Skid Plate and the Structural Brace everything has to align especially the drilled hole. The thicker the bar the harder it is to make it perfectly vertical unless it's done with special equipment such as a drill press and/or a lathe. It the hole is off vertical in any plane by 1/2 a degree or more you will have to fight with it to fit.
I'm a mechanical engineer by training, so I know what I'm doing.
Think about this: The skid plate is part of the support structure. Do you think that Porsche manufactures a different skid plate for every car or is it an adjustable skid plate? Come on, when mechanical things are manufactured properly with the proper equipment they simply fit.
The main reason why I decided to manufacture a dedicated Brace and not an adjustable Brace is for strength. A solid Bar is stronger than one with an adjustable end. The heim joint itself may be rated at 9,000 lbs, but because it is screwed into the brace, at the point of union with the brace it will loose strength as a whole. Go test it if you don't believe me (I'm sure someone can do some destructive tests for you to measure the exact strength of the brace).
A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link ;)
Now, all that being said, most of the Braces out there whether home made or professionally made are way stronger than they need to be because the Brace works against compression/deflection, and anything over 3/4" in diameter will have enough cross section to stand up to that force.

Now, some people wanted to see pictures of the Technobrace:

This is one of the ends where you can see the machining.
It has a flat part which goes over the suspension brace and a recess for the bolt's hex head so you don't need to told the bolt with a wrench (where there's very little room - making it simple for the installer).
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...PICT0028-1.jpg

This is the end installed on the suspension brace:
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...n/PICT0108.jpg

And here's a look a a TechnoBrace installed on a Boxster S. You can see the Brace right next to the anti-sway bar through the skid plate. It's the shinny one - oh yeah I also polish each TechnoBrace it after I manufacture it ;)
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...n/PICT0106.jpg

Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

I wanted to say what Pedro has said regarding materials and bar strength, but I waited for him to say it. Thanks.

The machined slot for the bolt head is a great idea since you can then drop the bolt in from the top like the original, rather than having the nut on top where you have trouble using tools. I wanted to tighten mine (home-made) with a torque wrench and had to torque it from the bolt head on the bottom rather than the nut at the top because of bolt length....that is not the preferred way to torque it, but it worked ok.

As Pedro says, it's one thing to measure and prick-punch the distance between the bolts (22.25" for the 986), but another thing to drill those holes dead on with no angles or drill "walking" without a drill press and table vise.

I have the time and some good tools, so I made my own using hex stock (which provided me with flats and a good drilling surface) but Pedro's price is reasonable for the labor involved if you want something that works as it should with mimimal installation labor. If I made one for anyone else, I'd want what he charges.

Bob

insite,

How tall are your jack's base? I believe I have similar jacks, mine are craftsman. Problem is I can't fit them under the car. Did you have to temp. jack one of the ends using factor supplied jack or what?

Edit: Disregard this post

Latest Iteration of Lower Stress Bars
 

GREAT news!!! I finally got in the 3rd iteration of lower stress bars and the parts look really fantastic. I got them test fitted to the car and they go on just fine – very easy install.

Here are some pictures to compare the new parts to the old parts from the 2nd iteration I did. The main bar is 3/4" steel tubing with very heavy duty heim joints. The steel heim joint for the main bar is the one to the far left in the picture comparing the heim joints. This heim joint is rated to handle over 9,000 lbs in static load, more than enough for the application. The main bar in the photos is unfinished steel because this was a one-off prototype/sample I had made. The regular bars will still be custom made to my specs, but I will have them yellow zinc chromate plated for corrosion resistance. This is a very good, strong bar, much better than the aluminum main bar I had used for my 1st and 2nd iterations.

The biggest change is with the side bars. After some careful measurements I determined that I could use a spacer to step up to a much larger bar. As you can see in the pictures comparing the side bars from the 2nd to 3rd iterations that there is a significant change in the robustness of the bar and heim joint. The new side bar heim joint is the one in the middle of the comparison picture while the 2nd iteration (red) is on the far right. The new heim joint and bar for the side bars are still aluminum, but this more robust heim joint is rated for almost double the static tensile strength at almost 8,000 lbs – again more than sufficient for the application. You’ll notice that to achieve this, the shank (threaded portion) of the heim joint is larger than the red, 2nd iteration piece. The main bar heim joint has an even larger shank than the side bars. To get the side bars to fit I used a special conical spacer (pictured) that goes perfectly with this heim joint.

Again, I’m absolutely tickled with these parts. I made some home-made bars at first and then switched to some aluminum parts. These 2nd iteration aluminum parts were okay, but I wanted to get something still better and stronger. This latest iteration is pretty much spot on what I wanted to achieve. Robust, strong, and a cinch to install.

So, now that I’m satisfied that I’ve taken this as far as I can I’m officially moving ahead with the group buy. Details will be posted in the Classified section of this board.

Kirk

More Photos
 

Here are a few more photos of the lower stress bars.

Kirk

:) Hi Guys, Love The Passion :)

Take Care :cheers:

Good work Kirk........

They look pricy, but very well made. The "Porsche" of stress bars!!!! Will be interested to see the pricing when available.

You should sell they to Porsche!

Bob

Pricing is now up in the Classified section of this website:

http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14985

They may look pricey, but they're not. I don't believe that just because it's a "Porsche" that you should get raped on the cost! :p Quality and strength though are way overkill for the application, so they're not "cheap" even though low cost.

Kirk... That pricing is VERY fair for a well developed and adjustible product. Quite substantial compared to the original design.

I just wanted to chime in and give my feedback on this subject now that I've had my Technobrace (from Pedro) installed for about a week.

It solved both of the problems that I was hoping it would solve. Ever since I bought my 2003 Boxster S, I've loved the handling, but have been bothered by the feeling that it would suddenly oversteer when cornering over bumps. I mostly noticed this on concrete-slab-type off ramps. The other thing that my car used to do was shudder a lot when going over bumps. I'm happy to report that both of these problems are now solved.

One side effect is that it feels like there is more feedback coming through from everywhere. It feels like I added 5 lbs more pressure to the tires. The good news is that I've been running them a little high anyway, so now I'm planning to take the pressures down closer to the recommended pressures to see if it smoothes the ride out a little.

My background: I have a fairly sesitive seat of the pants reaction to things. I raced motorcycles for 5.5 years. I also have a degree in physics, for what that's worth.

Good to know roadracer311,

Snap oversteer during cornering on uneven road surfaces is a problem that has resulted in a few spins for me in the early laps at the track while still testing my limits. I had blamed this problem on old rear tires and driver error. Those reasons may still apply but it sounds like the lower stress bar should help a lot. I have put in my order for one.

Of all the performance mods available for this car this one offers proven results with no down side and no hocus-pocus. It will cost me 2 points in my class though.

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere, so I'll ask. How much does the stress bar weigh? Both Kirk's and Pedro's. Are these things small enough that the weight is insignificant?

Sounds great, thanks for the R&D, I put my order in for a full kit,

Ed

:cheers:

Hi, I'd say a cup of coffee :)