TRD Member Braces are installed

[markiii]

All I can see is yeeheee!!

Grant came over this afternoon and we fitted my member braces.

Already having the front and rear strut braces and antiflex plate I was not expecting to find a huge difference.

Well I'm surprised at just how much of an improvement there was, it just sticks and sticks and sticks.

Grant took her for a blast as well and was equally impressed.

hopefuly sum sunny weather this weekend so I can go play  :-) :-) :-)

[GSB]

Grant took her for a blast as well and was equally impressed.

Had to take it back though, before my wallet got hit for a sportivo setup  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

The combo of Member, Strut, and antiflex braces, plus tweaked suspension and sticky tyres makes for a seriously adjustable chassis, thats dead easy to feel around on the the limit. Very impressive. I cant wait till my new tyres stop squirming around so I too can engage in such antics!

[markiii]

ok so I couldn't wait.

took her out and seriously spanked it.

mommy. the extra grip is amazing and you know exactly what all 4 tyres are doing, I thought it was communicative before.  :-) :-) :-)

I really pushed through a few local corners that I know well and I reckon at least another 10mph through the corners without even trying.

To those of you in teh GB who haven't fitted them yet, you are going to love these  :-) :-) :-)   :-) :-) :-)   :-) :-) :-)

[heathstimpson]

Sounds very impressive  s:shock: :shock: s:shock:

[Tem]

Well I'm surprised at just how much of an improvement there was, it just sticks and sticks and sticks.

Kinda makes you wanna bang your head to the wall, while thinking why you didn't buy these the minute you got the car?  s;) s;)

[markiii]

tell me about it.

[GSB]

Finally got my new Toyo's bedded in to the point where I can start throwing it about a bit, and I have to say that the new tyres and the member braces have drastically increased my cornering speed  s:shock: :shock: s:shock:  ...

Not only that, but straight line stability is incredible. I drove all the way through East London to Tower Bridge and not one pothole knocked me off line... Superb.

[dieamond]

Do you have sway bars ?

When I installed mine I already had all the braces, it made twice the improvement !

[GSB]

I have the stock anti-roll bars at present, and I'm pretty impressed with the cars overall cornering ability. I tried Markiii's car with his Sportivo set-up and I have to say I'm still a fair way off from that level of outright stickiness.

I have the TTE springs on order, but I'm still not sure I want them as I regularly drive along cobbled streets with some evil speed humps, and even the good roads in London are far from brilliant surface-wise...

[dieamond]

Springs are a cosmetic mod...

After all I had done, it didn't change anything to the car but the look.

And the confort too, not in the good direction, you guess.

[markiii]

TTE springs are fine.

now teh sportivo is a whole other ball game.

[Tem]

Springs are a cosmetic mod...

Interesting opinion, but I'm not really buying that  s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

[dieamond]

"After all I had done, it didn't change anything to the car but the look"

This means after :
Anti flex plate
Lower braces front and rear
Front strut bar
TTE stabilizer kit
Crash bolts.

Maybe on a stock car it's more effective.

BTW, here in France we have the habit to say shorter springs don't do many things to the handling of the car, we praise complete suspensions upgrade.

[Tem]

Maybe on a stock car it's more effective.

Obviously it's more effective on a stock car, just like any item you listed  s;) s;)  But I believe you have chosen wrong springs, if they do nothing.

[dieamond]

H&R, I believe them to be hardest

All it does for me was loosing confort and make the car look better.

Maybe it's because my sway bars are on hard at the front and medium at the rear, there was already no roll at all, so nothing to gain.

I took a speedster guy as passenger on a track, he said my car had less roll than his speedster.

[Tem]

H&R, I believe them to be hardest

I thought TRD had the hardest with K=23.4N/mm(2.4kgf/mm) and K=46.2N/mm, (4.7kgf/mm)...what numbers does H&R have?

Anyway, how did you decide they do nothing? With just a buttfeel? You really should take it to the track against clock. Even if the springs didn't do anything but lower the car, the lower center of gravity makes a difference. It's not huge, but surely more than nothing  s;) s;)

[dieamond]

my times :

with braces : 1'09
everything but springs : 1'06
car as it is now : 1'05

of course same weather every time.

next time i hope i'll be on Yoko A032R.

that's why I say it didn't many things.
I feel the car is harder, but in real it's not that more effective.

I lost the numbers of the H&R with the SC crash  s:-( :-( s:-(

[Tem]

everything but springs : 1'06
car as it is now : 1'05

If the springs made a one second difference on such a short track on already improved car, I think it's quite a lot  s8) s8)  There aren't too many ways to get a second for 200 euros...

[dieamond]

Maybe...

[Anonymous]

In general, you want to set the ride height to be as low as possible, to get the center of gravity (CoG) as low as possible. A lower CoG produces less lateral load transfer (so you can corner harder before you overload the tires), less longitudinal load transfer (so you can brake harder before you overload the tires) and less body roll (because the CoG is not as far above the roll center(s)). However, there are times when a higher ride height will produce a better performing car:
-When the chassis of the car is grounding. This may be alright for short periods along straights (usually when the car has a lot of aerodynamic downforce) but is disasterous in corners  
-When the suspension runs out of travel and impacts the bump rubbers.
-A car with a higher CoG will transfer more weight to the rear under acceleration, and (depending on the car) get better traction out of slow corners.

[Anonymous]

I think Maurizio's explanations are cool. Surprised at Dieamond's comments about lowering the car...   s:? :? s:?  

A while ago, I gave much thought to what the MR2 needed to be an even better sports car:

TRD member braces (front and rear)
TTE beefed-up 3-way adjustable anti-roll bars

Apparently, similar chassis improvements were also carried out by the engineers at Toyota to the 2003 version

Following these mods, the handling changed from great to superb!!   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  Obviously, lowering the suspension should improve the handling further. But I am convinced it will not make as much a difference as fitting the anti-roll bars.

Having lowered my previous car (a 911C4)* I would recommend getting shocks and springs and get the wheel geometry (alignment) checked and adjusted. Otherwise, I was told, the roadholding will almost always be worse...

[Tem]

I would recommend getting shocks and springs

I would recommend getting matched shocks and springs  s8) s8)

If you just buy shock A, spring B, anti-roll bar C, strut tower bar D and chassis bracing E, you'll probably end up with something better than stock, but far, far away from what it could be.

TRD Sportivo with TRD member brace set and tower bars really isn't that much, if you think about what you get with it. True, it's not adjustable, but even if it was, I wouldn't change a thing, it's just perfect. Any harder and it would be too hard for our sucky roads, any softer and it just wouldn't be perfect anymore  s8) s8)  And another good thing is that I can't tune it wrong cause I can't tune it  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[dieamond]

Phat, I'll show you the 19th of June.