I've bought a front strut brace from ebay, cheap one, only £25 delivered, said in the listing it needed to be drilled to fit. I knew why it needed drilling, It's to fit over the two braces that are there already, my question is, whate are those braces and are they absolutely necessary? The ones I'm on about are shown in the pic, just above the air intake pipe.
Craig those braces that are there as standard fit are strut braces mate.
They do the same sort of job that the brace you've bought does. IIRC they will need to be left in when the new brace is fitted as they stop the 'front-to-back' movement of the suspension. The main bar will stiffen up the front to as it stops the 'side-to-side' give that is present in all cars.
Once fitted you'll feel a difference in the twisties. B)
Craig those braces that are there as standard fit are strut braces mate.
They do the same sort of job that the brace you've bought does. IIRC they will need to be left in when the new brace is fitted as they stop the 'front-to-back' movement of the suspension. The main bar will stiffen up the front to as it stops the 'side-to-side' give that is present in all cars.
Once fitted you'll feel a difference in the twisties. B)
I thought it was a strut brace when I first opened the bonnet, but then noticed they only seemed to be connected to the bulhead, not right across. I'll do a bit of modding to the new brace and see if I can make it fit properly. I had front and rear braces in my escort, with the lowered suspension the handling was superb. I'm struggling to find a rear brace for the accord, well, reasonably priced anyway, only seen 1 at £95. Anybody fitted a lower rear brace? Where do they attach to?
The standard front braces only fit where they are as due to any normal circumstance you encounter whilst drivng you should need no more than what is fitted from the factory.
Once you fit the brace over the top of them, WITHOUT removing the ones that are there form the factory, then your handling will be improved 'X' amount. Do your best to NOT remove the ones that are there. Even thugh the bulk head is not 100% stable, it is much better to have the braces that are there from the factory than none at all.
With regard to the lower brace for the rear, i've ever only seen it fitted to an ATR. And on these IIRC they are fitted before the 'lock nut' at the base of the 6th gen suspension.
