Sleeper_08

I was thinking about the debate over whether or not the front STB brace is worth it and then was wondering if anyone has actually instrumented one?

It has been a long time since I played with strain gauges at university but could they be used to determine once and for all if the STB actually does anything other than look good and add weight in a bad place?

chrumck

That would be an interesting project.

My company uses strain gauges. I'll look into it

RoadRacer78

Would a strain gauge work in compression? That is what you would be looking for between the strut towers wouldn’t it?

It could always be set up with a linear potentiometer that ran between the strut towers. It would measure deflection in both directions (compression and “stretch”). And it would also measure “twist”. But it wouldn’t be easy to verify how much is stretch, how much is twist.

chrumck

Glue-on resistive ones will measure both tension and compression. You can put them on in multiple directions to measure twist too.

Sleeper_08

Can they handle the underhood temps without it affecting the results?

chrumck

That might be a tricky part. I'd need to look up the specs. I know for sure they're very sensitive to humidity.

RoadRacer78

Cool! What sort of system is needed to collect/read the data? What kind of price range?

Shouldn't be a problem. It's not like the S197's have underhood temps near "Lava" or anything.

chrumck

I'm not sure about the price. It's an industrial equipment.

I work in a company building specialized foundations and we usually use it here for estimating drilled piles performance. I could 'sneak out' with it for a weekend.

That really depends on sensor specs and compensation algorithms. I'd need to dig to know.

Sleeper_08

An article on strain gauges and how they are used

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_gauge

nemosgt

Would any information gathered really have any relationship with the car's performance? Maybe the handling would be better with a little twist or movement of the towers at opportune times. (i.e. with no STB). Seems to me, if I remember correctly, the general consensus with the 4th gen Camaros, was that there was a performance improvement when the towers were allowed to flex a bit. Of course this could have been due to less weight over the front end also. Probably the best way is to run at the track with both configurations and all your fancy computors and see which produces the better lap times. Unless one is only interested in finding out about rigidity and not about whether the STB produces better performance.

Anyway I'm no engineer, so I'll stand aside and listen to the experts. I have championed the notion of no STB performance gain from my limited research before and been shot down. Maybe I'll get some ammunition this time or be proven wrong. Again.

Cheers.