Installed Elephant Racing 935 Chassis Brace

[ChkbookMechanic]

I just got done installing Elephant Racing's 935 Chassis Brace and have to say it is a very good addition to the car. The instructions provided were nice although there were a few gotchas that you have to watch out for when installing it.

In case anyone was wanting some more details in installing it here is what I did:

(1) Get the front up on jack stands. I just used a jack pad, jacked the car up enough to slid the jack stands under the front a-arm mount point.

(2) Drop the front lower valence. I had to drop the lower valence by removing 2 screws, and a bolt on each side and then a bolt on the inside of the trunk on each side. This was a necessity because without dropping the front valence I couldn't snake my arm up into the driver side front fender to install the nut plate. Of course, the battery has to come out as well.

(3) Remove the front two bolts that hold the fender to the car. The gotcha here is to make sure you are actually removing the front two. At first I installed it on bolts 2 and 3 and finished up the install only to find out I installed it on the wrong bolts. The first bolt is underneath the front plastic lip in the trunk and I had to use a 10mm ratchet with an extension to remove the bolt on the passenger side. On the drive side, I did the same thing.

(4) Install the front brace and the nut plate. The passenger side is a one person job, the driver side requires a second person. On the passenger you might have to remove both of the horns to give yourself room to get the nut plate up to where the bolts come through the hole and quick nut. I found it easiest to start each bolt and get it to engage the quick nut (if it was there) and then try and get one bolt to engage the nut plate. I then would get the second bolt to engage the plate and next, alternate tightening each bolt. Then I used a torque wrench to set torque the bolts to 10ft-lbs.

The driver side is the reason you have to drop the front valence. With the stock front valence there is not enough room to snake your arm with the nut plate up between the bumper stop and all the hoses for the a/c and headlight washers. The space is really limited so it helps to have a second person turn the ratchet on the bolts in the trunk while you hold the nut plate trying to get one of the bolts to engage. Also, you will have to bend the metal tube that is hold the line that allows you to open the trunk from inside the car to get the trunk plate to fit correctly. I just wedged the tire iron and used it to bend the tube down a little.

(5) Now that the front plates are installed and tightened the rear plates are much easier to install. At this point I reinstalled the lower valence and took the car off of the jack stands. Installation is the reverse of removal and all that good stuff.

(6) At this point the car is on the ground, if not, take the car off of the jack stands. If you have the sound deadening material still on the plates and screws, you have to remove it. To remove it I just used a razor and scored the sound deadening material. Once I did that most of it just came off in my hand. I just removed it for the two bolts closest to the cabin on each side and didn't worry about the material around the bolt toward the front of the car.

(7) Once the sound deadening material is off you need a hex driver to remove the bolts. They should come off easily unless one of the nuts attached to the stock camber plates has decided to become un-welded. Which happened to me - to solve this I just reached between the tire and the fender to the nut and put a wrench on it to hold it still while i removed the bolts. Once the bolts are out you might have to pry the old plates off the top of the strut towers. I just used a screw driver to lift the old plates and break the sound deadening material still attached to them.

(8) Install the new plates, which is basically the same as installing the old plates. Just make sure you torque the bolts down correctly. At this point you can pretty much see the finish line. Make sure you have the battery reinstalled in the car before you go any further.

(9) Install the bars. The first bar is the bar running perpendicular to the strut tower that connects them together. I set one side first and installed its pin then moved the other one into place. Now, the nice thing is you don't have to be exactly lined up because you can turn the bar clockwise and counter-clockwise to line up the holes in the bar with the holes in the plate. Once they are lined up, install the pin into it.

The second bar to install is the long cross bar that goes from the passenger strut tower to the driver side front of the trunk. It is installed the same was as the previous bar.

The last bar is split into two pieces. The first part is to install the bar that goes from the driver side strut tower to the long cross bar. The threaded side needs to be fed through the hole in the long cross bar, so you can rotate the bar to allow the screw to go through the hole drilled in it. But before you run the threaded side through the bar, make sure the cross bar has no tension or droop in it when the hole is lined up. Once the threaded side is through the long bar, put the pin into it up at the driver side strut tower and screw on the second nut onto the threaded side on the other side of the long bar. The final bar should be fairly obvious as to how to install it at this point.

(10) At this point check and make sure the pins are not going to come out and that everything is installed correctly. Also recheck all torques on the bolts you installed and clean up. Then take the car for a drive.

I took the car down some of the bumpiest roads I know to see how it would handle the bumps. I found that it removed a lot of jitteriness that was prevalent in the car and it felt as if the tires were stuck to the ground much better than before. The steering also felt better as a result - fast, tight turns (e.g autox turns) that would normally cause my car to 'skip' up front felt much more planted. The smoother turns (race tracks) also felt much better as I didn't have a sensation of a floating front end.

If you don't already have a strut brace of some sort, I highly recommend the chassis brace.

[Brother]

What is the advantage of this brace setup compared to one that braces in a vertical plane between the struts?

[EarlySport]

Originally Posted by ChkbookMechanic

I took the car down some of the bumpiest roads I know to see how it would handle the bumps. I found that it removed a lot of jitteriness that was prevalent in the car and it felt as if the tires were stuck to the ground much better than before. The steering also felt better as a result - fast, tight turns (e.g autox turns) that would normally cause my car to 'skip' up front felt much more planted. The smoother turns (race tracks) also felt much better as I didn't have a sensation of a floating front end.

OK. That's a pretty amazing result from a strut brace.. It looks cool though.

[ChkbookMechanic]

Originally Posted by Brother

What is the advantage of this brace setup compared to one that braces in a vertical plane between the struts?

The biggest advantage of it was that it triangulates the entire front end of the car as opposed to just the strut towers.

Originally Posted by EarlySport

OK. That's a pretty amazing result from a strut brace.. It looks cool though.

At first I really didn't believe that it would do as much as it did. I figured it would at least give a more positive feedback for the steering and reinforce a chassis that is 24 years old. However when it stiffened up the rest of the front I was really amazed. Could I have gotten the same results from just a triangulated strut tower brace? That I really can't answer since I've only driven my 911, but I do feel the money spent on the 935 chassis brace was well worth it.

[hobieboy]

I have one as well - i had the old style triangulated one (not ER) before. One of the main reason for change is weight - steel vs. aluminum. As far as performance, I installed it over the winter so couldn't do a back-to-back comparison. I didn't jump & say "wow, that transformed the car". But then, the steering does feel very positive and the front end solid.

I do have 1 question - all my bars take quite a bit of brute to line up. And I need to use a mallet to get some of the pins in/out. Is that normal?

[ChkbookMechanic]

I didn't have to use that much brute force other than to initially get the plate between the connectors on the bar. After that I just pushed it to where it was close to the pin hole and then rotated the bar itself to extend or contract the connector on the bar until the holes were lined up. Then I just pressed the pin into place.

[hobieboy]

Thanks for the comments... maybe somehow I didn't line them up as well as I could.
Just in case it wasn't obvious - I'm very happy with it though