strut brace.

[BradGTV]

planning for the school holidays to take out the engine and tidy up/ repaint the engine bay on my 79 GTV,
whilst doing this is was just thinking fabricating a strut brace.
is it a good idea to fabricate a strut brace?
have others done it?
does it really make a diffrece for front end stiffness/handling?
keep in mind this car is intended for future track work.
cheers, brad

[Bone356]

There is a discussion on this topic either here or one of the other Alfa sites, but from memory adding a strut brace would have no effect due the front end being torsion arms and not the traditional suspension towers where the normal flex would happen. Sorry about not being very technical I know, but I am sure there are others who can add the correct tech information.

[Colin Byrne]

Having torsion springs rather than coil springs defiantly reduces the load taken by the front end bulkhead that a strut brace is designed to increase the strength off.  However this is not the only load applied to the bulk head during cornering, a large horizontal (depending on angle of top arm) force is also applied through the top a-arm, and a strut brace will reduce the deflection caused by this force.  So saying a strut brace will have "no effect" is probably not true

That said "how effective" a strut brace will be is another question.  I believe that most of the deficiencies in torsional rigidity come from the door openings, which are particular large in coupes.  This is why a 6 point cage with side intrusions is so good at increasing this rigidity. 

I'm not saying don't put one on, but there may be other area's that you could spend equal time on and get greater benefit.