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    #76
    Originally posted by oneoffaccord
    ?? Are you after a comment on that brace? I'll assume so.

    IMO it will be next to useless. It completely lacks triangulation, so any stiffening affect must come purely from the 'beam' strength of the members comprising the brace, which won't be great enough. For the brace to do anything worthwhile for stiffening the chassis it would require an 'X' member in the centre of the 'square', or at least a single tube dividing the square into two triangles.

    Even though the tubing is quite wide, it's beam strength won't be adequate since each member is effectively a longish lever, and any forces fed into one end will be multiplied at the other end (as will any movement at the first end), causing the brace to flex and become 'trapezoidal' under significant lateral loading.

    The effect will be more or less the same in principle as a live rear axle laterally located by leaf springs, i.e. while the members may (or may not) be strong, they won't be stiff, being why leaf sprung live rear axles require additional lateral location (i.e. panhard rod or Watts linkage etc) for any serious improvement in lateral location for racing or 'performance' driving.

    The tubing itself won't be very strong in compression (but will be in tension, but then even a decent cable / wire would be), because while the tubing is quite wide it lacks depth, i.e. it will be relatively stiff in one direction but relatively flexible in the other direction, like a ski. Any substantial compressive force will cause the tubing to 'bow' to some degree.

    I note on the blurb accompanying the photos that it says; "for serious racer who don't want any roll cage", which I'd suggest means that the said racer cannot really be serious, a contradiction in terms!
    Last edited by johnl; 02-07-2008, 03:06 AM.
    Regards from Oz,
    John.

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