Strut Tower Braces worth it?

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: Scott_Tucker
It depends on the car whether the front strut tower brace will do anything.



BINGO!!

It is generally accepted that the STB does NOTHING but add weight, look cool, and act as a hand rest/brace when changing spark plugs on MY car. (This is from the people who know how to make this car handle, and ROAD RACE/Autocross them every weekend, even with BIG, WIDE, GUMBALL Hoosier A/R6 DOT slicks on them!!!).
IF they have a full cage in the car, then they probably will run a cross brace between the two front 'down bars' that run into the shock tower from the firewall, just to strengthen and triangulate the front of the cage in a severe crash scenario.

In the OP's case, yes, I would guess that it would help, especially since most ragtops suffer from the dreaded "cowl shake".

 

[bigmike]

All I know is it was easier and cheaper for me to add a $40 front brace to a car than it was to change out the struts. The car was old and I didn't want to spend much money. It made a difference in that application.

 

[ZZman]

My point of the post was to see if people who had them could tell for sure that the car handled better. This whether taking bumps, turning etc....

Also since this is a convertible and bumps tend to shake the body quite a bit if the strut brace would help minimize that.

 

[ZZman]

Got my strut brace and installed it.

Does appear to tighten the vehicle up and take most of the wobble out when going over bumps. Also the squaeks and rattles have been reduced.

http://www.sebringclub.net/board/gallery2.php?g2_itemId=42851

 

[ffhdriver]

I added braces on my '03 Z4 and '01 Miata. On I-65 on a curve where the road changed to a bridge, hitting the expansion joint caused a feeling that the front end moved sideways a little. After adding the braces the feeling was gone. My non-convertible cars didn't experience this.