I have the Maximum Motorsports Caster Camber Plates but I really want to put on a strut tower brace. The body shop guy at my local Ford dealer (where I'm getting some work done -f-n deer) says these cars really have weak towers and he has seen a lot of them messed up after minor wrecks. He says that everyone who owns an S197 should have a brace put in on day one. Are there any braces out there that I can use with the plates I have??

 

First, your dealership technician doesnt know what the heck is talking about. We have been involved with the S197 since 2004 and sat at round table meetings with Ford in Dearborn long before the car even came out. Once the car hit showrooms I am sure you noticed that the factory strut brace had been deleted. because it wasnt necessary. We have been racing (and crashing) our 2005 GT since sept 2004 without strut brace with no chassis fatigue at all. Even the updated Ford Racing 2010 Mustang GT Drift Race car doesn't run a brace. And trust me when I say we hammer these cars and put them through more aggressive side G's than any other form of racing.

recently, I took my Mustang to get the front bumper repainted so the car could get shot by MM&FF Magazine for cover, and the owner of the paint shop SMASHED the front passenger side into a pole - direct hit to the wheel and stut - and the tower moved less than 1/8" of 1 inch. Dont 'et anyone sell you on something as unecessary as a strut tower brace. But if you really want one, any brace out there can be modified by a decent fabricator to work with your existing MM plates. Just trust your fabricator. or call us and we can build you one.

Just my 2 cents.....

Eric

 

Thanks for the input, I don't plan on wrecking it anyway, but he just said that one might save a lot of headache in the future if I ever did (in the shop now from hitting a deer) lol

 

Do you have a plenum cover? If not go with the Edelbrock 3-pt brace. You can order it at autoanything.com and have it installed. Gotta take the wipers off to get the backing plate behind the firewall.

Worth it for the vert but can't tell you how it will change the coupe.

 

Thanks, I actually ordered one from AM since I found someone on another forum that had my Camber plates and the bar they sell and they worked together. I think the Edelbrock would actually work with my plates, too, from the looks of it. Some bars won't work with certain Caster/Camber plates.

I'll put mine on as soon as I get the car back from the body shop. That's the only kind of work I don't do myself. (hit a deer)

 

Gonna fab up my own. Will post pics.

 

If you're so competent with cars, why did you buy a strut tower brace?

It makes your car slower and makes it handle worse (due to the weight). The $110,000+Options Mustang which is the prize for the cannonball run doesn't have a strut tower brace even though it has a lower frame brace. I've talked to the builder and they did this on purpose to save weight. They spend 82% of their cost on that car in performance mods just so you know, so the car isn't just a flashy prize.

To give you a little background on this $110,000 Mustang it was designed to match the performance of a Bugatti Veyron because the owner of the Cannonball Run brand drives a Veyrone day to day. This Mustang is the fastest in existence around a track, and will out-handle and out accelerate almost anything on the street. No strut tower brace. ON PURPOSE.

An professional automotive engineer, Norm Peterson, has said that the strut tower brace on the Mustang would most likely only be able to reduce ambient noise (by adding mass) not improve your handling. Some one who's job it is to engineer handling components said that it would not improve your handling but the best thing it would do is reduce interior noise by being heavy. That professional oppinion has the makings of a joke.

One of the top aftermarket racing parts manufacturer for the Mustang has said ONLY make strut tower braces for profit. These guys win races day in and day out in the Mustang.

A racer on the forum called any results of strut tower brace a placebo effect. Everyone agreed.

I'm not just some crackpot who randomly supports this viewpoint either. I work for an Indycar team we're currently in the top 10 and I'm designing my OWN suspension braces using computer aided design because using my intimate knowledge of cars I've tuned my Mustang to pull 1.18 average G on the skid pad and almost 1.6 G max. This is an accurate measurement conducted on a race track with a $10,000 Racelogic data loggging system, the same brand they use to measure world records for top speed. My car ACTUALLY experiences so much chassis flex that I can FEEL it, a strut tower brace did NOTHING for me.

Impulse Cars is also a legitimate source of information, they've been to SEMA with a host of aftermarket parts they custom developed, and are the real deal when it comes to good information.

 

1. Which Indycar team? My money is on DCR. Top 10 out of 18 full time teams isn't some big accomplishment.

2. 1.18G - no big feat - what's your point?

3. Not to knock Impulse in any way, as I know nothing about them, but simply being at SEMA isn't a reason to be impressed. J.R. Granatelli is there every year too....

4. I'm screaming BS that you can feel your car flexing.

 

I put the brace on, as stated, mostly to prevent damage from accidents. I live in an area where people hit deer on a frequent basis and the bodyshop at the local dealership said they had seen many of these cars have bent towers secondary to minor accidents. It was suggested that the brace would help to support the towers and prevent damage to them if an accident occured. Thus, saving me problems with having bent towers and having to try to fix them after the fact. I didn't get the brace to stiffen my cornering. I drive the car hard on the street, but I'm putting it on a track anyway.

Legion, I've read several of your posts and agree that you know a lot about cars. I'm not saying I'm an expert race engineer. I just said I do my own work. Which I do. I did all my own work on my past 2 Mercedes and my BMW and saved myself a lot of money by not having to take them to dealerships to get stuff done I can do myself. Knowing how to do repairs and mods on cars does not mean that I'm a guru and should know everything about everything when it comes to cars. I don't build race cars.

I've even read where you say the weight of a TBS can adversely affect the performance of a car a .0% etc. If I were racing the car and was worried about weight that much it would be one thing.

If you can't feel the differnce of the effect of the stiffness, but you CAN tell the difference of the performance over a couple of pounds of weight difference from the brace, well, that just seems a little ridiculous.

I'm glad the 110k plus mustang has figured out every ounce of weight it can cut, but I'm not driving a 110k mustang. Hell, I still have stock shocks and struts and I feel that the difference from that is way way worse than the couple of pounds a brace adds.

I like the look of the brace and the potential ability to protect my towers in an accident. No where in my post does it say I'm buying the brace to make my car handle better.

And if you're such a forum expert you should have noticed that before you flamed me for buying one for a purpose I didn't buy it for.

 

These cars have five-star front and rear ratings along with a frame thats as stiff as a fox-body WITH rollcage and subframe connectors.

shock towers weak??? that would be very hard to believe, unless it's a 05/06. The 07's were upgraded with much stronger towers for the 5.4 and hp of the gt500.

oh and don't let legion scare you off. not everyone's an F1 intern. use his knowledge, ignore the rest ;-).

I rode in a 750whp mustang last week with basically stock body suspension and the guy swore it would do 200mph. I had to laugh...