Might have been answered before, but do you need a new strut bar with the 1/4 inch spacer?

 

From what I have heard your stock strut bar will clear the 1/4 inch spacer. You would only have to change your strut bar if you go with the 1/2 inch spacer.

 

Does the AAM have spacers for the centre bolts in the middle of the plenum?

Im just concerned there is no foundation for torqueing the centre bolts on the plenum, which may cause the plenum to cave in in the centre under pressure and exhibit leaking at the sides

Its for this reason alone im steering towards the motordyne

 

There's no reason why the plenum should cave in, it's very solid. I'm going to remove the 6 posts. All they do is take up valuable space inside the plenum.

 

The elongated replacement bolts come with it, no worries. The plenum won't cave either, its very easy, don't tighten them too much. Start it up, if you have a leak, you'll hear it clear as day, adjust that bolt a little tighter and you'll be fine.

 

I basically made this thread to put to rest all of the rumors about the AAM spacer. Tony (Hydrazine) from Motordyne has been more than helpful when I was inquiring about the Motordyne spacer earlier. I went with the AAM for a few reasons, it met all of my goals.

I wanted to keep the stock strut bar
I wanted better than the 1/4" spacer gains
I didn't want a hood spacer to get the 1/2" spacer gains

The AAM angled spacer is literally the perfect medium between the 1/4" and 1/2" spacers from Motordyne.

 

Just a note for those considering either, I have installed both and had clearance issues with the AAM b/c the 1/2" section is right under the STB. Some people do not, I did. I posted a full review of my experience a month or so back. Hope it helps.

 

thats a great review, i see you've mentioned the lack of centre bolt spacers as well

i think ill get in on the upcoming MD group buy

 

Seriously though...I'm a 300+# guy and I can stand on the top of the plenum and jump up and down (without support in the center). We felt it was to risky to put a "loose" component into the intake tract. If it drops into the lower plenum with or without your knowledge it could be disasterous.

 

GASP !!! What a thought.

So what do you do if you drop something down there or even think you might have?

Yippes

 

dont start your engine
try to get it out

if you think you dropped something same as above but hope thier actually is something cause if thier isn't your gonna kick yourself in the ***.

 

Yep...that part was a bit nerve racking. Luckily the lower plenum tracts point outward and the bolt posts are on the interior. It would have to take a funky bounce, but you're right, it could happen!

 

I got it installed. The spacer itself was the easy part. I used a torque wench to tighen the bolts set to 60 in-lbs. I recommend using a torque wench because it was hard to resist tighting them up a little more.

No leaks. Runs good. No CEL. (yet) I took it out for an 1/2 hour. I plan on going out again later today.

BUT, the damn strut bar was a problem until I figured out what to do. The directions say to add two washers under all the bolts for the strut bar and you may need to tweak the length. Also, they say that you may need three on the drivers side to clear the plenum.

At least for my car three washers will not work without longer bolts. I thought it was good enough with two washers on both sides because when I reved up in the garage it didn't seem to make any noise. When I accelerated on the road it made a terible noise that sounded like gears grinding.

So, I limped home and tried three washers on the drivers side again. No gots. I almost gave up and removed the spacer. Then I tried using two washers on the inboard bolts and one washer on the outboard bolts. This bends up the strut bar a little when they are tightened up. Now it clears the plenum by about 1/8". It's hard to tell now much the hood clears but when the hood is closed it didn't make a dent.

I'm going to take it out for a couple of hours to see if there are any problems. I'll let you know.

 

Well after driving it for a while it does seem to be an improvement in general. Not night and day but good enough to stay installed.

I noticed that when accelerating from a stop the plenum still hits the strut bar. I can feel it in the gas pedal and hear it. I'll try again tomorrow to lift it a little more.

DomZ, did you have this problem?

Anybody know if the strut bar effects the front end alignment?

 

Just a note: The Motordyne internal plenum supports now come with flat nuts that screw onto the bolt behind the internal support posts. So now the internal supports are safely threaded in.

 

The strut bar should have nothing to do with the front alignment, but I haven't put mine back on yet so I couldn't tell you. My friends have reccomended not to put it back on when I go to the drag strip, so I'm going to hold off on that one. I can tell you I saw results though, between that and the high flows, I took down an E46 M3 from a roll with all the topend power I picked up (see Street Racing forum )

 

just to give you a heads up i started a group buy for motordyne spacer over on g35driver.

here the link if any1 is interested....we just got the prices today so first come first serve.....


http://g35driver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58921

 

Is there a group buy for the MD spacer here? I am just tired of putting my info on all of these different forums.

 

Well, I played with the strut bar for the last few hours and can not get it away from the plenum far without hitting the hood.

I took the hood latch off so that I could feel it close and used different thickness spacers on the strut bar to see how much gap there was.

Even if I go as high as I can without touching the hood it touches the plenum when accelerating from a stop. It's too much of a press fit on those rubber strips and causes the drivers side to not close all the way.

I'm sure it's just the production tolerances conspiring against me and not a design flaw with the spacer. A lot of people here use the stock strut bar with this spacer without a problem.

Maybe my engine moves more than it should with torque and the plenum comes up to hit the bar. I don't know and I have no idea if there is a way to tell. I suppose it could be something like the way it's sitting on the engine mounts.

I had to take the spacer out to send back to AAM.

I would NOT consider this a bad review of the AAM spacer. It is obviously well made I know that it works on other cars.

 

Talked to AAM today. They gave me a RMA# to return it.

Nice guys, very professional. I'd buy from them again, no problem.