strut bar.

[sonic24740]

found this on ebay.. wonder if it really does any good..
wierd mounting place

Front Strut Bar Fits Chevrolet Sonic Sedan Hatchback T 300 1 4 2011 Tower 2 PT | eBay

 

[$ub$onic]

Well beings it does not actually mounted on the struts probably just for show

 

[sx sonic]

Nope.

The premise of these bars is to triangulate the shock towers with another stout part of the car, like the firewall or less ideally the other shock tower. This braces a high stress part of the chassis and feeds the loads into a lower stressed part of the chassis. Making the car more responsive because the chassis flexes less.

If you look at well designed race cars the space frame (roll cage) always has bars coming from the shock/strut/spring perches to the roof, firewall or rollbar. It spreads the suspension loads out so It's not focused on one small section of the car. You'll also notice alot of the bars form triangles, the strongest shape known to man.


That bar on the othethand is neither connected to a shock tower nor tied into any structural part of the chassis. All it does in tie the fenders together.


TL;dr that thing is as effective for the car as a racing harness in the passenger seat is for the driver.

 

[sonic24740]

Nope.

The premise of these bars is to triangulate the shock towers with another stout part of the car, like the firewall or less ideally the other shock tower. This braces a high stress part of the chassis and feeds the loads into a lower stressed part of the chassis. Making the car more responsive because the chassis flexes less.

If you look at well designed race cars the space frame (roll cage) always has bars coming from the shock/strut/spring perches to the roof, firewall or rollbar. It spreads the suspension loads out so It's not focused on one small section of the car. You'll also notice alot of the bars form triangles, the strongest shape known to man.


That bar on the othethand is neither connected to a shock tower nor tied into any structural part of the chassis. All it does in tie the fenders together.


TL;dr that thing is as effective for the car as a racing harness in the passenger seat is for the driver.

yea... i thought it was crazy.. very weird

 

[laborsmith]

UltraRacing possesses an excellent reputation, so I am not rejecting their idea out of hand. I do know what a strut bar does and have used them in the past for just that effect.

Now the problem: none of us know if this unique design will work and at the moment my preoccupation with the Stingray precludes me trying them. Steve at Insane Speed Motorsports - Home may have answers as his company at one time if not currently was a UltraRacing marketer and this company was one of the first to join the SOF as a supporting vendor. They left because of their interest in a different platform but may have some knowledge to share on this particular product.


Laborsmith

 

[sonic24740]

UltraRacing possesses an excellent reputation, so I am not rejecting their idea out of hand. I do know what a strut bar does and have used them in the past for just that effect.

Now the problem: none of us know if this unique design will work and at the moment my preoccupation with the Stingray precludes me trying them. Steve at Insane Speed Motorsports - Home may have answers as his company at one time if not currently was a UltraERcing marketer and this company was one of the first to join the SOF as a supporting vendor. They left because of their interest in a different platform but may have some knowledge to share on this particular product.


Laborsmith

well after some looking around i did find there website.. and they deal with some high end stuff I couldn't imagine there stuff being junk..

they have a front lower brace a lower rear brace

http://www.ultraracing.my/home/home/

 

[AxelRipper]

This is one thing I had considered making up when I first got my Sonic. Strut tower stiffeners are good right? Then I realized that the struts are mounted in probably the most laterally stiff place of the chassis, under the windshield/dash.

 

[rdss]

This is a huge debate in the WRX world as well. Ours actually mount on top of the struts but like the Sonic the strut towers are built into the firewall adding natural reinforcement. I honestly can't see much other than added weight and looks for this stiffener added where it is. I can't argue that the bar is probably of "high quality" but I think the only thing it will add too is a lightened wallet.

 

[sonic24740]

This is a huge debate in the WRX world as well. Ours actually mount on top of the struts but like the Sonic the strut towers are built into the firewall adding natural reinforcement. I honestly can't see much other than added weight and looks for this stiffener added where it is. I can't argue that the bar is probably of "high quality" but I think the only thing it will add too is a lightened wallet.

true for that bar but i am wondering about the others..

they have a front and rear lower member brace ???? opcorn:

 

[xsonicLTZx]

Here is my issue with this...looking at their photos of the bars, too me it all looks photo shopped, and why is the upper front "strut bar" listed for a 1.4, photo shopped onto a 1.8.

I would rather see this products actually installed on a car and not photo shopped.

 

[sonic24740]

Here is my issue with this...looking at their photos of the bars, too me it all looks photo shopped, and why is the upper front "strut bar" listed for a 1.4, photo shopped onto a 1.8.

I would rather see this products actually installed on a car and not photo shopped.

yea the photos do look rather crazy..

 

[Zurn]

I’m guessing they just put up pictures of their concept drawings from CAD to show what it would look like. Maybe they didn’t have any produced and just wanted to get it on the website to gauge interest? I can’t see the front upper bar helping much either. They do show a rear sway bar, same concept as the DDM Rear Bar, but it seems to run the full length of the Torsion Bar. Not sure if that would really be better or worse. I’ll probably end up with the DDM bar because of the price and such great reviews from everybody on the forum.

Now the lower front and rear brace look interesting. The reason for those is to stiffen the chassis of a unibody car and to improve the stiffness of the frame. It ties the front and rear of the car together, since the frame doesn’t really run the whole length of the car if you have unibody, it’s bolted together. The F-Body Mustang guys have been using those for years to improve handling as well as making the frame ridged for the ¼ mile to allow better weight transfer on launch, with the sub frame connecters the chassis doesn’t twist and more weight is shifted to the rear tires to get better grip. On our car it would mean better handling in the corners. I went with the RS because it already handles pretty dang good. I just want a little less body roll, so I’m going to go with the DDM bar.

So which one of you weekend racing guys is going to be the first to try the lower braces? opcorn:

 

[ecohauler]

None of this stuff is necessary on our cars. The rear sway bar would help, but the DDM brace is a better design for our application. The Sonic's chassis is already so rigid that I get a wheel off the ground leaving some parking lots (driving gently), and that's on stock suspension + DDM rear brace. The short wheelbase is part of that, but it's also a rigid design in general, probably the hatchback more than the sedan.

Additionally, as someone mentioned earlier, there's no triangulation in any of the designs. The front and rear braces rely entirely on the strength of the perpendicular welds and the torsional rigidity of some relatively small tubes for strength.

I'm sure Ultra Racing builds its products well, but these parts are just for show. They might be good mounting points if anyone wanted to put skid plates or a full belly pan on their car for an aero or rally build, but otherwise if you're not worried about what the bottom of your car looks like, I wouldn't bother with these.