Try it with the brace first. You can adjust the bar height while it is mounted. I did this with the same spacer you are considering and after about ten minutes of fine tuning the height it works fine.

When I first put it on I did not have to do anything to get the bolts to line up properly. I then bolted it all down and tightened everything and took her for a spin. I could hear and feel the bar being rubbed by the engine tilting from the torque so I drove home, popped the hood, fine tuned the height and I have had zero issues since.

Then and only then should you consider options as it will save you time and money if you can adjust your current bar like I did.

Good luck.

 

I drove mine for about 5-6 days after doing my wire tuck and didn't notice a difference. Mind you this was just street driving, no track.

The engine bay looks a lot nicer without it

I haven't decided if it will go back on in the spring or not.

 

Did you use spacers under the strut brace mounts? If so, 1/2 inch or how much? I haven't really looked at the brace in detail, but I will take a look and see how it adjusts.

thanks. This is encouraging.

 

turbo guys get rid of their bumper brace. That would have a much bigger impact on front end stiffness compared to a strut tower brace. The FI guys dont complain, so dont worry about the strut brace.

 

I'm not using any spacers at all. If you look at the left side of the bar (while it is attached) you'll see three adjustment nuts. Break loose the two on the outside left and outside right and spin them toward the middle nut. Then use the middle nut to adjust the height of the bar. I think when you turn the nut toward the back of the engine it raises and toward the front of the engine it lowers but it could be the opposite. You'll figure it out. Once you dial it in to the height you like you reverse the two outer nuts to where they started and tighten them. Done and done. There is no guarantee that this will work for you. The shop that I bought my spacer from said that about 30% of their customers with the 1/2 inch Motordyne spacer can keep the stock strut bar. I just happen to be in that 30%.

 

It would be interesting to see how the frontal crash performance changes with the brace removed.

 

i took this route as well and i used spacers underneath the bolts. between the bar and plenum the clearance is paper thin.

 

I did this as well for my Kinetix plenum. The spacer used are just flat washer. Very cheap, just get the right thickness. You can play with different thicknesses to see what works. The spacer just barely touches the bar and the bar just barely touches the hood. All good under the hood.

 

The G35 doesn't have one from the factory, it hasn't gone spinning wildly into a wall on me yet!

 

a strut brace has no bearing on crash performance

 

Based on what information? It's hard to imagine that removing a rather hefty brace between two major structural components of a car would have no effect on crash performance.

The Nissan salesman who was pointing out features of the Z told me the brace had a two-fold purpose: Stiffening the front suspension mounting points is one. The other is to force the engine down and under the car in a hard frontal crash, and give the car more crumple distance to reduce G-loads on the occupants.

I know car salesmen sometimes spout BS, but that's a lot more believable than your statement.

 

The factory front strut brace is substantial? It's a small brace, that is hollow and filled with foam. Between what two major structural components does it lie? The strut towers? Have you been under a Z to even see how its put together? Strut towers are not substantial on most cars and a Z is no exception. Instead they are relatively thin (single layer unlike other parts of the Z chassis, such as the floor or front firewall, which are major structural compoents. Now, they can get away with this because you're typical strut brace is a box design. If you ever get a chance, Remove your stock power steering fluid resevoir and take a small flashlight, and tell me how thick of a mounting mount it is there (it bolts to the passenger side strut tower). Or, take a drill, just a small bit will be fine....it will go through it like butter, because there is nothing there to go through. The subframes are the substantial components on these cars, front and rear.

Your salesman friend was partially correct, but either got his facts wrong, or it was misheard. Part of the reason the Z uses a carbon driveshaft is because in a severe impact it will shatter, and essentially disconnect itself, and drop. This allows the engine and trans to move down and backwards, under the tunnel.

 

If some of those are considering washers... i would not recommend it. What i would do though is trace the bracket onto a piece of thick sheet metal and create a "riser" for the bar in the same shape of the FSTB bracket. Using washers is going to change the displacement of force when the front end sways. I just so happen to have an APS bar, so i never ran into the problem personally, but a friend of mine had this issue and we constructed the "riser" from aluminum. This person does have a carbon fiber hood that is not the OEM style, so hood clearance was not an issue

Hope this might shed some light


-NissanTracker

 

The strut towers are substantial enough to serve as attachment points for the inner ends of the upper control arms. The metal may be thin (looks like about 0.06" or so), but the stamped shape and liberal use of doublers increases the strength dramatically.

Most of the driving loads on the upper structure are tension, and thin sections are appropriate. The foam filler in the strut brace tube is probably to keep it quiet, but it could also provide some resistance to buckling.

The lower suspension structure is subjected to higher compression loads, so the structure needs to be heavier to resist buckling.

Once again, I'll put my trust in the Nissan engineers and the Nissan bean counters knowing what they're doing. If they determined the front end structure WITH the strut brace was the most cost effective way to meet performance and crash safety goals, I'm not going to ignore them.

 

The upper control arms merely pivot up and down, so there is not a tremendous stress being placed on those mounting points.
Nissan made lots of choices to the car - many of which can be improved upon, many of which are fine as they are, and many of which are useless. Some people are willing to compromise one aspect for another, some like a purely stock car. Neither method is more right than the other

 

I've heard a strut brace bar is highly recommended for lowered cars on coilovers/springs to release tension from the chassis. Can anyone confirm this?

 

You could just go this rout.....

 

I must admit I would like to think that the Nissan engineers took a co-ordinated approach when designing the structural components of the car. This bit supports that bit and vice versa etc.

I very much doubt they went to the trouble and expense of fitting the strut brace for aesthetics alone. It must add a decent ammount of rigidity. In the short term probably not really a safety concern but in the long term if removing it allows more flexing which could lead to metal fatigue (cracks) in that area....

If you look at where the front strut brace attaches either side you will see that Nissan went to the expense of reinforcing (quite grunty by the looks of it) the two areas where it bolts down, I expect to spread the load. It's not like the 350z needs any extra unnecessary weight added to the front. By removing the brace it is quite conceivable that what is left of the front suspension housing is now actually under engineered.

I think a race car is an entirely different beast considering the roll cage may well project forward and tie into the front suspension area on both sides.

I'm definately leaving mine on.

 

I totally agree.

 

I will be leaving mine on as well and if were to ever come off would be because I am working on my car or upgrading the SB.

When I took my FSB off to change my manifold out You can actually see the top tower points move inward. The only reason I noticed it was because I used an impact to take it off and didnt loosen the SB nuts when I took it off. I know it is not the right way to do it but I was out of town and in a hurry.I drove 4 hours round trip to save about $500, well worth my time IMO.