[TitaniumTT]

This will be the THIRD strut tower brace to go on my car and the second one I've built...... sad. This one is by far the sexiest in my eyes. All aluminum, oval tubing, fits soooooo tight everything needs just a wee bit of prying to fit.

Anywho - the first was a standard Greedy that just never fit right. I used the base from that strut bar to add onto so it would sit further forward clearing the alternator, that was the 2nd iteration. Since that base was what a few other things were built around - the expansion tank and the intercooler pipes mainly, I decided just to copy that footprint and go from there for the 3rd version - so here's what we started with

Before I sold my other bar I traced the outline and went from there. I like to use a scrap piece of cardboard with two holes through it to make circles with. This marks the diameter of the shock mounting holes as well as the lip that needs to be cut out



With the base cut out I can start templating the pieces needed to mount the bar itself too. This got changed around a bunch, you'll see what happens.



With the pieces pretty much squared away I cut a piece of stock slightly long just so I can make sure everything fits, the bar is level, it clears the alt and the intercooler pipes etc etc. It does hit the hood slighty but a little massaging will clear that easily enough. The twins have the outlet pipe set far forward and even with my best efforts to keep the bends as tight as possibly, it still required the hood to be massaged. Mothing big, just about an 1/8" on a few of the supportst. No biggie at all.

[/img]http://forum.teamfc3s.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=39600&stc=1&d=11991295 83[/img]

With the templates made I cut out all the pieces that I would need. I then doubled them up in the vise and filed them down until each piece was an identical match of the other. The car herself is dead level so every thing that needs to be built on her needs to be dead level as well.

You can see where I heated and bent one piece. I wasn't confident I would be able to get a full 90* bend out of the other piece so the plan changed slightly



With the two mounts more or less welded into place I drilled a hole though the center of the bar and mounted it loosely to to check to make sure everything still fit properly.



After I was confident everything was as it should be I cut out another piece to run perpendicular and finished welding everything up