Billet Torque Brace vs Piston Brace, Engine Movement

Thoughts on the use of each? Which one is better?

This also comes into the consideration of the use of fixed engine mounts. As the use of these aid the movement, so supposing fixed engine mounts would stop this. But then, if that's the case, why did TRD make stiffened mounts, but PHR make solid mounts?

I have the WR one sat here but change of plans meant I never fitted it. I bought this over the solid brace as I wanted a little engine movement, I can imagine making everything solid will make the car shake something rotten and make it an awful place to be.

Your photo looks like Jellybeans car, I know he has one fitted so it might be worth your while dropping him a pm to see his thoughts

I have the WR one fitted.

I chose that one as its dampened.

I'm guessing solid mounts upper and lower isn't good for the car or engine :/

Yes anything that uses solid or just hard rubber will transmit engine vibration to the chassis/body, if you want to reduce engine twist and still retain some comfort, i would source a mountain bike adjustable shock and fabricate mounts, that way you will be able to limit movement and still be repetitively free of bad vibes.

As you can see by the video, most, including the Weapon R dampers just use hard rubber and just transmit vibration.

Suppose both have benefits then. But has any actually been proven to put more power down?

I'd go with the flex/damped one (I personally wouldn't have solid mount engine mounts). Solid mounts will increase the shock stresses the mounting points see.

Years ago I got a short block engine from a crash car when the impact had caused the engine block to crack a piece off by one of the four engine mount points, it was surprisingly thin, a few mm. If you read about high stress spikes and fatigue you could well be asking for trouble down the line with a failed component....not that there are any reported failures i know of but then very few go solid mounts.

Why would you want one at all? What problem are you trying to correct? That first billet thing, is it solid? what does it bolt to on the engine? If you have flexible normally positioned engine and gearbox mounts and a solid brace to the top of the engine the solid brace and whatever it's attached to will see enormous loads. The PHR one looks like a "We have these old office chairs sat outside, what gizmos can we knock up using the tubing, and persuade people they desperately need them, with a maximum possible profit margin?" The billet thing looks the opposite, "Lets see how trick and complicated we can make a brace, and see how much we can get away with charging"

The piston ones dont even move, theres just solid block of nylon in there

Surely the power loss isn't that bad that making the car shake is a better alternative?

Why would you want one at all? What problem are you trying to correct? That first billet thing, is it solid? what does it bolt to on the engine? If you have flexible normally positioned engine and gearbox mounts and a solid brace to the top of the engine the solid brace and whatever it's attached to will see enormous loads. The PHR one looks like a "We have these old office chairs sat outside, what gizmos can we knock up using the tubing, and persuade people they desperately need them, with a maximum possible profit margin?" The billet thing looks the opposite, "Lets see how trick and complicated we can make a brace, and see how much we can get away with charging"

Love the analogy Chris:d the only cars i know of that use none or minimal damping are drag, even F1 cars have damped engine mounts.

Love the analogy Chris:d the only cars i know of that use none or minimal damping are drag, even F1 cars have damped engine mounts.

I have never seen an F1, F3000 or F3 with anything other than solid mounts. The suspension hangs off the transaxle, which hangs off the engine block, which is solid mounted to the back of the tub. Engines designed to be a stressed member just sit there, ones from production cars usually have extra bracing to take the large twisting loads off the block.

So is there nothing to help isolate the chassis from potentially damaging harmonic frequency's generated at certain RPMs on an F1 car? no isolation pads/bushes etc?

Nope, not unless they have something on the very latest stuff. Rigidity is all.

Seems to make sense. So how come so many people buy these products? The ocd one is mental expensive. Surely tuners and alike would be common to this?

Same reason they buy wire puzzle strut braces that do sod all, and air filters that don't, and make the engine breathe hot under bonnet air. Same reason they buy dampers that are junk, and lowering springs that destroy the kinematics of the suspension, and are so stiff as to make wet road driving near dangerous. I could triple the size of the example list The buyers are gullible, nee ignorant, the sellers are keen to take advantage of it It's like me buying a new PC, I don't have the knowledge to sift the bull from the required properties.

I had solid mounts on my MK3. Sounds a bit clonky when your cranking but after that not really that bad, certainly no chassis shaker. Just make sure you have a solid gearbox mount as well. It also had a single piece Dave Mac 3" Prop. The rear sub frame has a solid mounted diff as OEM, only the subframe mounts had any compliance.

Running on 18" 40 rubber one thing I noticed is it liked to go sideways all the time with minimum provocation and next to zero transition. Fortunately MK's have a plate LSD as standard so most of the time it was fun. In a MK4 with either an open or a torsen diff I would imagine it would be no fun at all.

In the wet it was a liability.

you have no choice when the engine block is used as a structural part of the car. Any movement in the engine block compared to the rest of the chassis would turn a f1 car into one of those bendy buses. lol

Tim

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