Hello, im just researching at the moment ,
Im sure someone have done braces and bars to make chassis more stiff. Can someone share their experience ?
Where is the best places to add bars? (seen on front subframe)

Where is it worth doing it ?(to improve handling)

How thick steel should be ? 1.2mm? 1.5?

Tube diameter ?
25mm? 30mm?

Cheers

Strut brace first - Sparco braces are readily available secondhand - circa £100 - £125 (I should have one for sale after this weekend)

Subframe brace next - when I designed my version, I used 20mm solid stainless bar, with a threaded adjuster. Turns out it was over-engineered, as the first person to hit it on something really solid bent their subframe instead. They come up for sale very occasionally - £75 - £100

Subframe braces can be purchased of eBay, although I'm not sure on the quality but they are around the £100 mark. As said above the sparco brace off the plus and LE can be had for £70-150 odd, sometimes worth asking for them if you know somebody breaking a coupe, although in my experience it's one off the first things to go!

http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=2474&type=picture

These from Alfa are good aswell.

Modded and mounted:

http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=2518&type=picture

http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=2520&type=picture

http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=2521&type=picture

http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=2522&type=picture

Lower brace was a modded OMP for Alfa.
Mine became solid as a rock upfront.
Also had the Sparco strutbrace of course.

What alfa did those brackets came off? Is it stright fit ?

Il thinking to make the subframe struts.
What is sparco steut brace diameter ?

Thanks guys

These came off the Alfa GTV/Spider 1995-2002! Which have the same floor/subframe, but the holes are missing on the Fiat. Drill!

Did you put nuts inside under carpet ?

You'd use flush nutserts from underneath. You don't want to have to drill through 2 skins in the floorpan.

Hehe, exactly. The holes are in the beams, not the floor. I drilled oversized holes, put in nuts, spotwelded them from underneath.

Similar beams from Alfa 147/156 GTA are even longer/better.

Allright , i just dont want to damage chassis as coupe is rust free and I want it to stay that way.
Now what is the benefit from those arms?

I would imagine these really stiffen up the front end. However, it would be good to find a way to stiffen up the coupe's chassis length-wise..along the sill perhaps.

Really bugs me when the door can't be opened or closed with the car jacked up!

Rollcage

Kelv27 - that's what the Alfa beams do.
Laurysr - Yeah these generally stiffens up the whole front end of the car. I could feel a certain difference, the bodyshell felt more solid.
My Coupe was very rust-free underneath too, btw!

Ill use nutserts aswell to prevent rust.
Any other Suggestions?
Is it worth stiffen the back of the coupe ?

Something less extreme perhaps



You mean those subframe beam extensions actually allows the doors to be opened/closed now?
Tried looking for them before..not easy to come by

Plenty on ebay. 40a pair . Bought them for 30 two days ago

Any chance of a link please?

Here you go mate, 4 sets avalable .

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=321342930080&alt=web

Thanks for that.

Based on feedback from several longstanding owners that are well into their handling mods, I have no doubt that these floor braces must make a difference - I'm just struggling to see how

What movement / flex could there possibly be between the subframe and the floorpan? The subframe is very solidly mounted to the leading edge of the floorpan - surely it can't be moving.

I remember reading years ago a couple of brace points someone had welded in to the coupe.
The first was from the front strut tower to the bottom of the A-pillar giving some triangulation bracing behind the wing.
The second was from the rear wheel arch lower to mid way up the B-pillar, again this will give some triangulation bracing to stop flex, it is also hidden away behind the standard trim.

I guess these are acting like a roll cage but without the roll protection over the roof.

You could follow this up with a diagonal and horizontal brace behind the rear seats to try and prevent chassis twisting but keep it all hidden away.

I like the idea of hiding good stuff

I struggle to see how one can not see the point of the Alfa braces, the std subframe seem bound to slightly rotate in sideview, to me. And however you see this, it's clear somebody (Alfa/Fiat) saw the need to design these, despite the huge extra cost, and despite no-one would hardly ever even see them. Not even bling potential, and STILL they made them..

I understand though, that every new mod has a hard time justify itself.

But, how to make this?

Lower brace was a modded OMP for Alfa.

I guess it does work , probably not huge difference but will improve drive .
By the looks ot extends the subframe and bonds it to the chassis more that just subframe . Hence holding whole structure more together.

Im not a engineer bu i thing it should improve cornering at higher speed when whole car starts twisting. That should reduce that.
Anyway im sure everyone know it cant be compared to the difference strut brace does.

True, the difference was small but significant.
Similar to strutbrace I think.

Ill let u know how it will be when im done. Planning to make some more modifications for them.

Ill let u know how it will be when im done. Planning to make some more modifications for them.

What size nutserts has anyone used for these? I've got a pair on order so would like to get all the gear ready to fit them.

M 8 will be what you want. However I've not fitted these braces myself, yet.