Making my own strut brace

[ChrisD]

First of all I'm not a professional fabricator - I just bought a welder about a year ago and watched some youtube tutorials, so don't be expecting anything amazing. Having said that, at the start of the year I made exhaust manifolds for my twin turbo 350Z build and a load of intercooler piping etc and nothing has broken yet

But anyway yeah, I decided to try make my own strut bar for my Supra. It will be fairly similar to the Cusco one but all one piece rather than 3 separate pieces.

This is what I got done today. Will get the other side and cross beam done next week, then get it all powder coated.

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[R0ME0]

Looks good I kinda like the burnt look maybe some polish just to finish it off. Great work!

 

[ChrisD]

Looks good I kinda like the burnt look maybe some polish just to finish it off. Great work!

Its mild steel not stainless, so I'm going to get it powder coated so it doesn't rust not sure what colour to go for though

 

[ChrisD]

Made the other side today. Now just waiting for more material to turn up to make the cross beam and then get it powder coated

 

[Meraki Autoworks]

Looking great so far! Excited to see the final result.

-Adam

 

[s219]

Nice work!

 

[Haros]

Let me know if you notice a change with the front brace on. How it feels etc etc.

Apparently it was omitted on purpose, but the Z4 has it from factory.

 

[LS3Twins]

Made the other side today. Now just waiting for more material to turn up to make the cross beam and then get it powder coated

Looks awesome man! Nice work.

 

[Huckleberry]

Just a note - if you did want to keep the original look, tempering color, etc., you could just clean it up nicely and spray a high quality clearcoat on it. Looks cool, and no rust issues. Custom bike guys do it all the time for a "raw industrial" look, but without the rusting.

Nice job!

 

[ST-AUTOSPORT]

looks nice, toyota originally had it installed too in the development stage but tossed it in the bin as it induced to much understeer on stock suspension and tires.

 

[CarGuy11]

looks nice, toyota originally had it installed too in the development stage but tossed it in the bin as it induced to much understeer on stock suspension and tires.

Do you have a source for this? Curious as to why.

 

[ChrisD]

I know someone on here installed the Cusco brace (which is very similar) and said it felt better afterwards, but personally I'm not expecting to feel much difference really. I'll be doing another track day in a couple of weeks and will have the brace finished by then, so will see if I notice any difference compared to the track day I did with no brace.

Just a note - if you did want to keep the original look, tempering color, etc., you could just clean it up nicely and spray a high quality clearcoat on it. Looks cool, and no rust issues. Custom bike guys do it all the time for a "raw industrial" look, but without the rusting.

Nice job!

Yeah good point, will bear that in mind in the future. For this I think I'd rather get it powder coated anyway though, especially as there's a place literally next door to my workshop that does it for not a lot of money

 

[Q8_TwinTurbo]

Its mild steel not stainless, so I'm going to get it powder coated so it doesn't rust not sure what colour to go for though

Hello ChrisD,

regarding the color to go with for powdercoating, i would suggest either flat black to be stealthy or Tungsten if thats the correct exterior color of your car.

 

[ST-AUTOSPORT]

Do you have a source for this? Curious as to why.

yeah there was a video on youtube before the actual launch featuring tetsuya tada explaining some stuff and features on the car, he mentioned this himself.

 

[NitroA90]

The only reason they didn't put the braces in the Supra is dollars. Plane and simple. Trying to keep the car below a certain price point and cutting costs wherever they could. It seemed like Tetsuya Tada tried to explain away a lot of things that I'm going to say were untrue. ie. making the fake vents functional or in this case saying the braces were unnecessary but left a clear spot to easily install for the aftermarket. If he were honest he would have said that this is how it is in the Z4 and we are just not going to change it because it would cost too much. We will just take things away.

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