Haven't heard much since the picture posted of the first one installed. I received my strut tower brace Wednesday the 4th of Jan. 06, and was wondering how many others got theirs?
No one here is going to notice a lick of difference while driving on the street, with or without an STB. It's only for hard fast cornering, where side loads induce flex on the strut tower braces, affecting alignment. With the strut towers being in the center of an open top box, this is where maximum flex normally occurs. I'm sure the Sigma platform has addressed much of this in the engine bay/strut tower design. Try jacking up one wheel, and you'll see the whole car lifts up. It's a very stiff chassis. The STB is designed for track drivers, but for us, it simply looks cool. I'm sure GM assumes than anyone who orders the '06 Sport model is going to drive their cars hard, and as such, included the STB in the package.
Sway bars (or more correctly anti-sway bars) are made to function without affecting the suspension or normal ride much. They are designed to float if both wheels rise and fall together, as in going over a hump in the road. They are torsion bars that only provide stiffness when one wheel is going up and the opposite is going down, as in a turn when the body rolls. On four wheel drive offroad vehicles, this motion is required to allow traction on varied terrain, so disconnecting sway bars is a must for them (only when offroad, as it's detrimental to on-road performance), to not induce this stiffness.
Bigger sway bars will make the car corner faster by providing more stiffness in the roll axis. This in turn puts more force on the suspension, which transfers that load directly to the chassis via the strut towers. Putting a brace across the towers has been a racers trick to stiffen the chassis since the 60's.
If you order the huge hood insulator, remove your old one at home. Drive to the dealer and immediately install it there. It only takes a few minutes. And let them dispose of the packing material. I was worring about this and thought I would have to use my van. Such a simple solution!!
I received my 3.6VVT chrome letters and I mounted them on the center of the brace. It's a nice detail for the engine bay.
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