2 replies to this topic

[mestizo]

This is another post taken from my build thread, it shows the bar that Jon the owner of Stealth Fab made for my car. The reason why I call it the mestizo version is this will probablly be the only one of these made. The production bars will be made a bit more simple. This is only due to the fact that this bar took quite a while to fab and also used a lot more material than we had previously thought. However the production bars should be just as strong as this bar is. Not to mention they will not be a "Hinged" type of bar, unlike 99% of all the other strut/tie bars out there.


6/16/2007
I went over to Jon's house today and fabbed up a rear strut brace from an idea that I had, then he took the basic concept and added his own dopeness to it! So now I have the 1st Stealth Fab S13 rear strut bar. Man this bar is so fucking stiff! lol I'm sure i am going to have to relearn the car again tho, o well small sacrafice to the drift gods. Thanks again Jon!

Jon took some measurements from his S13 coupe and started by coping/notching the 1" tubing.


Rear bar mocked up.


Now that we got all the measurments on his car I backed mine up into the drive way to get tack welded together. In these pics he is tacking the forward bar.






Now time to tack the rear bar.






All taked up and ready to come out to be finish welded.


Jon's home made welding table.


Did I mention that Jon can weld really good?!?!?


Finished bar installed and getting a 2 thumbs up from Andrew in the back seat. I am going to leave the bar this way for now, later I plan to get it powder coated a titanium color. *EDIT 6/19/2007* We are going to add a plate to the bar with a lil stealth fab bling, pics to come later.

[mestizo]

Ok I completly forgot to mention my driving impressions of the car after the bar.

1) Right off the bat just backing out of Jon's driveway you could feel the car was way more firm.

2) For grip driving the car stays firmly planted to ground now, where as before you could feel the car twist as you put it into a corner. Pretty much feels like a different car in this area. It has a tad bit more understeer but the trade off is I was taking the corner much faster than before.

3) The car brakes better... yes I said brakes better. When the brakes are used in a panic stop, aggressive driving or just normal driving they feel much more solid than before. Plus when using the brakes for weight shifting the car you get a lot more response/feeling of what the car is doing.

4) Drifting... lol altho I have only about 2 mins of driting on this bar I can say it helps so much!!! First thing I noticed is the car feels way more stable at the limit. Second was my tires have more traction now, probablly due to the fact that rear suspension no longer flexes inward during a drift. Third the uneven feathering of my tires has been minimized. Fourth understeer is has been increased slightly, i think this is mainly due to my car being unbalanced before since I had several bars inthe front and none in the back. This was easliy fixed by going up on my shock settings in the front.

[Jonnie Fraz]

Sweet write up as always...I am glad it is working out for you. I have been checking out some new possable additions to the fab shop.

Take care
Jon