IL or Beatrush

[Chris Thompson]

Those RED braces look cool. Too bad almost no one gets to see them.

[NobleK]

brace 3c.jpg (93.61 KiB) Viewed 8680 times

The braces match the RB sways. Again no one sees them. Further the braces and sways match the car color.

[Brian]

Looking good!

Here are some other customer installs

[Chris Thompson]

Looking good!

+1 The car is True Red? I almost bought one of those. Tough choice for me between True Red and Galaxy Grey. Have a photo of the whole car?

EDIT: Just scrolled up and looked at the photos from inside Rocky's. I see what appears to be red overspray now that I'm not looking on my phone screen.

[NobleK]

Actually I am Black over Velocity Red. 2012 SE.

[njaremka]

driving impressions from those braces?

[NobleK]

I've only got about 200 freeway miles so far. This weekend I will test them on one of my favorite canyons. The best test will come in two weeks when I can directly compare my daughter's stock NC 2009 with my modded NC.

The preliminary review is that the whole car is stiffer. There is a significantly more feeling of road events being transmitted to the driver (me). Sometimes that is good and sometimes if makes for a harsher ride. The good is a better sense of what the car is doing when road stress is encountered. Obviously harsher makes for a less comfortable ride. How uncomfortable? The benefits outweigh the negatives at this point.

The second thing is that the combination of braces, springs and sways definitely mitigates weight shift of the vehicle. The balance of the vehicle has improved. The entire suspension now supports segments of the vehicle so it seems the geometry of vertical wheel axis relative to the road is more consistently perpendicular. More consistent tire connection to the road for tracking, turns and power. The braces have definitely added to this new balancing of weight and geometry. Sways did some but braces add to the benefit. This seems to make for easier and smoother turns with better tracking. Further, I don't know if it's the rear performance bar, the cooler weather or my subjective desire but the car seems more responsive when applying power. It makes sense that better geometry for the wheel to road would transfer more power but I just don't know.

I am trying to divide the the evaluation into two broad areas:

1. What do I feel coming into the car due to the braces and suspension mods? Input from the road through the car. So far some positive and some negative.

2. Are there handling improvements due to the suspension mods? Ability to positively effect the output through the car to the road. Tracking, steering, road stress distribution/absorption and less weight shift all seem positively impacted at this point. I think, but I am not sure, that power to the wheels is positively impacted by the braces. More to come when I directly compare the modded version to the stock version.

[Brian]

Thanks for the great report.

Be a little cautious on your first canyon runs with the new setup because that IL big butterfly rear brace has the effect of tying the rear together well enough to improve the effectiveness of the rear sway bar (almost like having a bigger rear sway). Thus, you will get a little more oversteer than you had before, or a little less understeer.

[NobleK]

Brian

Thanks for the caution. I will be a little less spirited this weekend.

From a pure fun feeling I can already tell on freeway cloverleafs that the braces have added significantly to the handling of the car. Of course I will never forget the feeling of licking the pavement when you took me for a ride in your wife's project car.

[dmicah]

Hey there Brian, Happy New Year!

I just installed the Rear Lower Performance Bar. I notice on the Beatrush version of the same bar, you indicate that one needs to manage aftermarket/roadstersport midpipe interference. I assume this is true of the IL version as well? I'm pretty dead set on getting the mid pipe eventually.

See install note on this page.: http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda-Pe ... -0033.html