ASTAR

Ok, I know there have been plenty of threads about people wanting to remove the strut bar brace and I know it is a bad idea for the structural integrity of the car. What I am thinking about doing is cutting out the HUGE boxed bracing and replacing it with a piece of 1¾" DOM tube. This is the stuff that high end off-road roll cages are built with. Basically I would cut the boxed section out and then weld steel plates to the body at the section it used to be attached to. Once the plates are secured I would bend up a piece of tube that comes off the plate almost vertically so it hugs the glass of the rear hatch. That way, in reality the rear storage area would be completely open minus about 2" from the glass at the bar.
Please resist the "sell the Z and get something with a trunk," and the likes of that. I LOVE my Z so I'm keeping it. The reason why I am looking at this mod is because my wife is in a wheelchair and it would fit MUCH better with this mod. When I bought the car, that was a requirement, the wheelchair must fit and it does. I'll attach a pic so you can see, the wheels come off and the frame is pretty small but even with that, there isn't much room for anything else. At first this wasn't much of an issue but as the love for the car grows, we want to take it more places instead of her car or my truck. This mod would allow for that.
I do want to keep the awesome handling of the car and obviously I don't want the body to twist. I am even thinking of adding a "B" roll bar hoop (just behind the seats) and tying it in to the new rear bar.
Thoughts on the whole thing?

New strut bar brace


Wheelchair (As you can see, it's pretty compact. Not like the big push around hospital type.)

KingBaby

iTrader: (3)

cut it out asap....many flame because it does a job but you can make an inverted one...

So take your picture and turn it upside down to brace against the wall and the trunk florr instead of on top of it...

more space and no sacrifice "performance" !

props

terrasmak

iTrader: (8)

Have you tried just removing some of the trunk plastic for now, with it gone you gain a lot of room.

bender

iTrader: (3)

This. There's plenty of room to gain by stripping some pieces from the rear.

Are you willing to drive without the spare tire? Pull it out and along with all the surrounding Styrofoam. Pull the lower strut trimming that curves inwards and you've opened up tons of room. If the wheel chair already fits, this would be my solution.

You can check out this thread here.

ryanmackk

iTrader: (1)

I don't know, this may be a stretch but an outside the box idea is to copy the skier that made popular mountain going sports cars: http://www.celebritycarsblog.com/wp-...on-Audi-R8.jpg

Install a similar pod on your 350.... I think it would look okay as well as be functional and you wouldn't have to do the interior work