the aluminum bar is tied directly into each frame rail. on a frontal impact, the bar will help to evenly distribute the forces/loads into the frame rails/crumple zones. it also provides a much larger surface area for which to direct the impact into the frame rails/crumple zones. without the bar, an impact could easily miss the designated absorption zones.....which translates into less of the impact being absorbed by the vehicle frame. That's a bad thing. you want as much of the energy of the impact to be dissapated by the frame of the vehicle by forcing the impact energy into the frame's crumple zones.

 

This is what I thought as well. It was my understanding that removing it will allow for possible damage to the frame rails in the case of a front impact crash.

 

well......you actually want to achieve damage/crumpling/energy absorption in the frame rails! without the bar, you'd need to have a direct impact on the front of the frame rail to transfer the energy into the rail/crumple zones. what the aluminum bumper brace does is to transfer the frontal impact energy into both frame rails.

for example, without the bar in place ..........you crash directly into a tree. the impact of the tree is right in the middle of the bumper! without the bar, there is nothing there to transfer the impact energy into the frame rails in order to preserve life. you want the frame of the car to absorb the energy so that you don't end up absorbing it!

on a greddy kit, nothing ties the frame rails together.
at least on the GTM kit, they have the intercooler bolted to thick brackets which are then bolted to the frame rails. It is better than nothing, but isn't as thick as the stock bar or designed/tested to be an integral part of a frontal impact safety system. additionally, the convex shape of the stock bar aids in the transfer of energy into the frame.

if you look at the NHTSA crash videos, they are crashing the vehicles directly into a wall. In such a case, the stock bar doesn't make a huge difference if it is there ir not. (I'd still rather have it!) It is only in such a case where you have focused impact between the frame rails, that you'd wish you still had the bar there.

 

i made a nice steel tube brace that fits over the greddy intercooler i will post pics shortly

 

why dont you sell that intercooler and have SFR make you a custom one?

 

This is it here...

https://my350z.com/forum/shop-builds...5-edition.html

Awesome job if you ask me!

 

Yup. that's the one. It actually hides behind the intercooler, so even if you have a minor fender bender with the front end, most likely the intercooler will eat it. Oh well.
Good Luck.

 

The bumper brace that went arround the Intercooler maintained the factory mounting location incase you need to use the tow hook. There are several times I wisk I had that but I did find out that there are alternate mounting locations when you have a flat bed tow truck. So Im good on that end.

Defintately like the IC protection aspect of the Ktaylor tubular brace. I may look into a local fab shop to see what they can do.

 

Thanks guys, i was away for the weekend and just got to see everything. And as a couple posts mentioned, ultimately its about the safety, let the frame absorb an impact. We all know of some of the horror stories of accidents with boosted z's, and it could happen to me even if its not my fault.

I do agree though though that my insurance might not qualify the car, but ultimately its my safety at stake.

Thanks for all the help and support guys.

 

i recently wrecked my F/I z.... and the crash bar did NOTHING.... my insurance covered everything.... they didn't even take a really close look at the car after they saw all the blood etc.... ( I doubt if the insurance company will even notice it being there or not since it is hidden by the bumper... also even if the person that comes out to look at your car knows a little bit about vehicles ( I hope they do since thats what they get paid for ) then they will question the huge intercooler in the front of your car first haha

EDIT:

I just saw what Quadcam said and although it is correct from a design standpoint that is not entirely what happened in my case ...... the crash bar just cut in half and i knocked the engine off the motor mounts when I hit the tree.... and the c/f composite drive shaft we have i think is design to shatter.... or some how blow apart when to much force is driven straight into it... instead of coming up through the floor board. As that is what happened when the engine and tranny got shoved backwords...

 

wow dude, thanks for sharing that, sorry to hear about your car. Were you ok.

 

^^This is exactly what Nissan designed the car to do (in a front collision). I know that the newer Chevy's are the same way and I would think most other manufactures are as well.

 

real world crash testing! Sorry to hear what you went through!