Engine Compartment Brace

[cudabob496]

Anyone know anyone that makes an engine compartment brace for E bodies, to stiffin the body/chassi?

[dwc43]

Nope. Would not help if they did. You need to work on sub frame connectors and then the only other choice you have is to add a cage. There's very little if any force applied through the inner fender structure. You might see a little transfer around the shock area, but that is all. Only way to stiffen up the the front is by adding a full roll cage where the engine hoop and braces will mount the frame to add stiffness to the chassis.

[43 purestock]

Yea well thats not exactly right! The inner fenderd DO provide support for the frame rails, the whole structure when welded together is very strong. Adding subframe connectors is a good idea, and despite what dwc says, they DO make braces that tie the shock mount area into the cowl area. And as you know, the shock mount is part of the upper controll arm mount, and is spot welded to the frame rails so bracing in these areas is a good idea. The also make a bar that ties the front of the frame rails together, helps reduce torsional twist at the front. I dont know how to post links but US car tool builds them as well as XV Enginering. There is some good reading over on FABO.com on this very subject. Hope this helps!

[John Kunkel]

Here's the brace you're looking for:

http://www.xvmotorsports.com/product...ex.cfm?nPID=11

[43 purestock]

Thanks for the link John, more good tech instead of some dudes opinion.

[dwc43]

I've seen them and they are a waste of time and money. They don't tie the shock tower to anything, they just bolt to the inner fender. No opinion, just years of experience building race cars.

[43 purestock]

What race cars? What a joke!!!!! Everone is wrong except you, right dw? LOL

[turbododge]

The brace that John showed is nice, I wish they had them when I built the Chally. Nice to tie to the firewall. I made one that just goes from tower to tower and it made a huge difference in feel while cornering hard, and makes it so you don't have to get it aligned all the time.

The K-frames built back then were not very good in a lot of cars, and they would collapse to the point of binding the fenders on the hood. We always would either "fishplate" the K frame, add a cross brace, or both to fix them, or if we were putting in bigger, heavier engines.

DWC needs to actually talk to a an old time frame guy and get filled in. They had these on the racks all the time pulling them back to where they belonged, so the would align right. But then again, I suppose you don't have to align an imaginary race car very often.

[valiant64]

Engine compartment brace? On an E-body? Hey man, it ain't a Ford! lol. Unless you're using the car for roadracing or something similar, I doubt you'd really need it.

[dwc43]

Originally Posted by 43 purestock

What race cars? Everone is wrong except you, right dw? LOL

My race cars and all the ones that I have built for others over hte years. And I did not say anyone was wrong, the product just does not do what it was said to do. It's not hard to look at it's design and use common sense to see that all it really does is add front percentage weight to the car with no real bracing effect.

[dwc43]

Originally Posted by valiant64

Engine compartment brace? On an E-body? Hey man, it ain't a Ford! lol. Unless you're using the car for roadracing or something similar, I doubt you'd really need it.

That is so true. There's no sturt towers to brace up here. And that thing does not even bolt to the frame or shock towers in anyway so it wont brace much, just add weight. : up:

[ehostler]

How many MOPAR have you seen with a stress cracked windshield? I know that I've seen plenty of them. I even owned one of them. That stress crack is caused by the front end twisting.

Put your car in gear and try a power brake. Do you notice how the drivers side of the car raises with the engine? That is twisting the front end and the uni-body. Any twist will cause problems in the quarter mile and will also cause metal fatigue that will eventually lead to stress cracks.

Don't get me wrong, this one brace isn't THE fix. This brace is one part of a system of fixes. It will do wonders, in conjunction with sub-frame connectors. It will even better with the addition of a cage.