i posted this on the eg/delsol forum but since they only care about lights and cf hoods over there i wanted to see if this was a right forum for it..

well as we all know delsols suffer form bad body flex. the weak point its the floor. one solution would be fabing a subframe like the hot rod dudes. but that would sacrifice space underneath.. but what if i do inside the car.. under the seats.. using rectangular tubing welded to some brakets and bolt it on the the floor.. you guys thing it would help?

 

You would be better off doing it underneath.

Go find pictures of a Mazda miata, underneath the car, and look at the undercar braces if you want an idea of what to attempt.

 

bolting it to the floor wouldn't work, you would still have to weld and beef up the floor where ever it may be that you are bolting those braces to.

My only other question is what is done to your car otherwise. I wouldn't go crazy bracing and making my car heavier unless every suspension and rolling bit was EXACTLY how i wanted it first.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by snoochtodanooch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">bolting it to the floor wouldn't work, you would still have to weld and beef up the floor where ever it may be that you are bolting those braces to.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

i dont see what would the floor would need to welded and beef up.. its just like bolting a cage to the floor..

the floor would be sandwiched sortof speak.. by 2 brakets one on top (welded on to the brace itself.) and one underneath the car

 

ehhh, the sandwich makes it slightly better, but you could still have a problem with it coming loose or galling, amongst other things. A hole in anything should have an increased thickness to help relieve and disperse stress in that area, but the plate would help against that.

still my original question stands, what do you have done to your car that you think this is necessary and won't just go to a cage.

 

im 6 feet tall.. and i can bearly get in the car.. plus i dont want to attrack alot of attention with the cage..

as far as suspension mods... well i think they only help with the body roll not with body flex

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JCracer723 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">im 6 feet tall.. and i can bearly get in the car.. plus i dont want to attrack alot of attention with the cage..

as far as suspension mods... well i think they only help with the body roll not with body flex</TD></TR></TABLE>


..... uhhh that's my point. Body roll = very perceptible in a car and rather easy to eliminate. Body flex = nearly imperceptible to the driver (especially without the aforementioned suspension upgrades done) and very difficult to minimize.

i'm not trying to bust your *****, i'm trying to get you to go the right route. I am not doubting that it *might* be worth it. But at your point, I wouldn't worry about it. Like I said, I would get every suspension peice up to race spec and adjustability before I would begin fiddling with a few million dollars in honda engineer's design hours. That floor pan has all those peaks and valleys for a reason, to increase stiffness. I would just go another route that is all.

 

upgrading or moding doesnt hurt. just as upgrading stock suspension ..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JCracer723 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">upgrading or moding doesnt hurt. just as upgrading stock suspension .. </TD></TR></TABLE>

when it adds unnecessary weight with no performance gains it does

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rhd &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">when it adds unnecessary weight with no performance gains it does</TD></TR></TABLE>

what do you mean by no performance gain?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JCracer723 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

what do you mean by no performance gain?</TD></TR></TABLE>

he means that everything else is going to reach its limit before that brace is going to help.

 

Look into something like this



http://www.rcautoworks.com/FenderBracecomment.htm
http://www.rcautoworks.com/FenderBraces.htm

As far as weight, they weigh 4lb together. Plus weight over the front wheels is not always a bad thing. Every customer that I talked to after wards noticed a huge difference in handling.

 

I knew this guy local here in the seattle area that i met a few years ago and what he had i thought was a pretty good idea. he made a X brace that snaped into the roof mounts and he would put it in when he had the top off to help with the flex maybe you would be interested in something like that?

 

the thing is that .. the roof just locks into place.. it doesnt mount.. there are just spikes that come out of the roof and they slide into pillars ..

 

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1348914

 

You'd be better off just stripping off the paint/body glue and seam welding the interior.

It won't add as much weight, be as noticable, and it will probably make a bigger difference.

 

the problem with a floppy chassis is that when you get a good suspension on the car it will sometimes cause the car to handle worse than with a stock suspension

my old 240 for example... i could literally feel the body flexing after i put full coilovers and all sperical bering'd control arms in it.

needless to say, the car handled like complete dog *** and cracked the windsheld from the body flex.

 

i dunno but i would contact "raceworks" on here, i think that is his user name, he raced one and IIRC he said the chassi was very stiff actually.

 

who ever said you can't feel chassis flex is an idiot. You can watch a sol's windshield flex driving down the road. I've had two. Still own one which is now caged.
Prior to the cage, the biggest upgrade for flex was putting in a brace that was basically an X behind the seats restraining the targa bar from flexing.
The problem with doing the floor brace like you suggested is that it still leaves a huge chunk of the floor to flex. Unless you do a cage, it will be hard to eliminate without a huge brace running along the entire floor of the car like a lot of domestic convertibles use. Attack the whole floor and the targa bar and you'll be doing about as well off as you can without the cage.

 

i think a floor brace like the do luck bar might help, it attaches to the seat belt bolts, dunno if it's available for the delsol though

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bakeoff &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">who ever said you can't feel chassis flex is an idiot. You can watch a sol's windshield flex driving down the road. I've had two. Still own one which is now caged.
Prior to the cage, the biggest upgrade for flex was putting in a brace that was basically an X behind the seats restraining the targa bar from flexing.
The problem with doing the floor brace like you suggested is that it still leaves a huge chunk of the floor to flex. Unless you do a cage, it will be hard to eliminate without a huge brace running along the entire floor of the car like a lot of domestic convertibles use. Attack the whole floor and the targa bar and you'll be doing about as well off as you can without the cage. </TD></TR></TABLE>

ty for the input.. and yes right away i knew he didnt drive a delsol.. all delsol owners are aware of the flex

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by StyleTEG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You'd be better off just stripping off the paint/body glue and seam welding the interior.

It won't add as much weight, be as noticable, and it will probably make a bigger difference.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i agree, im getting ready to strip, seam weld and cage my del sol. ive been impressed with the difference it makes in the cars ive had experience with. Mine will be a drag racing application, and think it is just as important in my case as in a road race application. When the chassis flexes it acts as a sort of suspension and doesnt let the actual suspension parts do the job they were meant for. Also because ill have a cage in mine, im not going to go in depth as much with the seam welding where the cage strengthens the chassis, it will still be done, just in a larger interval.

 

ill be stripping my sol pretty soon for paint..

time to weld some braces down... ty for the diagram

of course i'll try to make some type of xbrace b4..


Modified by Elwuudz at 8:34 PM 12/4/2005

 

one thing to keep in mind with seem welding is that if you're doing any serious auto-x or road racing, it will bump you up in class. Occasional weekend warriors that aren't going after points and are just out to have fun don't really care what class they're in. They're going for a number... Food for thought.

 

Another thing to add about seam welding is that it'll initially change the structure of you car. Honda's intention when they built their cars to crush so any impact will be absorbed through the car body and not through your bones. I'd recommend it only for off road use. Just a thought.
One weakness of having a convertible it that there is nothing to tie the top part together. This makes it tricky for the car to have any stiffness. Imagine having a rectangle cardboard box. If you twist the box, it is pretty stiff for the design. Now imagine the box with one side missing. Now if you were to twist that, it is much easier than the box with all side closed. this is pretty much the same as what convertables are like. One thing Spec Miata and S2000 owners do is throw a hard top on their cars. This helps limit the flex by tieing the roof and the pillar together. Honda decided the only way to make the Del Sol work was make the doors structurally stronger(and heavier) to support what it lacked in an actual roof structure. Just another thought to throw in.