My friend/co-worker and I are wanting to make some strut bars.

what we have

Cheap mig welder
pipe bender
minimal experience
a big saw that's meant for cutting exhaust pipe

We'd definitely be going for a firewall braced style. Inspiration comes from the TL-s that we just finished working on, and from a few aftermarket bars.

My question is what material should we use. We're leaning toward steel tubing since Al is a lot more expensive. Any tips or suggestions?

 

any advice?

 

Chrome-moly (6130, 6140, etc....) is a pain to deal with but its strong as hell. Beginner thing comes into play... I think it can be miged, but we always used to TIG it when I was doing school projects.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Boilermaker1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Chrome-moly (6130, 6140, etc....) is a pain to deal with but its strong as hell. Beginner thing comes into play... I think it can be miged, but we always used to TIG it when I was doing school projects.</TD></TR></TABLE>
i think you meant 4130 and 4140 (which you wont be using for anything). stick with 4130.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by L-CON1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
i think you meant 4130 and 4140 (which you wont be using for anything). stick with 4130. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I did mean that. Do what I mean, not what I say
Thanks for fixing, I was looking at 6000 series aluminum stuff right before that.

 

thanks for the tips...is that stuff expensive?

 

I would use stainless. Chrome-moly is tough, but it will rust. You can make the strut bars plenty strong by just designing them with a large section modulus.

 

cheap mig welder + chrome-moly doesn't sound like a good combo to me. You can't mig weld chrome cages and have it be legal... just a thought. I say use mild with a coating, or use stainless.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by beepy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I would use stainless. Chrome-moly is tough, but it will rust. You can make the strut bars plenty strong by just designing them with a large section modulus.</TD></TR></TABLE>

what's a modulus?

 

Here is your deal on aluminum. The minute you take the tig to it, it basically goes dead soft. You remove the heat treat from it. So unless you are going to re-heat treat your final aluminum product post weld, stick with steel.

 

Aluminum is carries about a 1/3 the strength of mild steel does, when talking about strut bars and the forces exerted on them....so why would you ever go Aluminum? With a MIG, just stick with mild steel and have them powdercoated. I did alot of them for DA's, and have never had problems with any of my stuff out there. Yes 4130 would be the best way to go but as mentioned, you cannot MIG weld it. By doing so you will produce microscopic cracks in the weld, and again as stated before, that is why it is not legal do MIG a 4130 cage.
Mild steel will be the cheapest. About a 1/3 the price of 4130 is. The hardest part will be trying to come up with a way to attach the tubing.bar to the front strut tower. DO NOT make it have a pivot point in it(bolt attaching the bar to those cheap *** plates)...that is a big waste of time and do not perform well at all.
GOOD LUCK!
Kyle

 

I always like to attach to the firewall as well as the strut towers.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by voodoodesignandfab &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I always like to attach to the firewall as well as the strut towers.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's the plan.

So, looks like we're going to be using mild steel. Thanks for all of the help guys. We were not planning on using a bolt in plate style thing. What i'd like to do is simply flatten the tube out and drill some mounting holes into it.

Should be pretty strong.

 

found this in the CRX forum.

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1475788

 

Takes time and skill

 

does it take m4D 5killz y01?

 

A lot of BMX bikes are made of 4130 chromoly. Just buy a bike for real cheap and cut a piece of it off to make it. BMX only has a 20" top tube but the down tube is longer. You could probably find a mountain bike frame with a long enough down tube (maybe your Trek). Don't have enough time to research the lengths or if it could work at all but it's an idea for cheap chromoly. It would be totally gangstarific.

 

I can get mild steel for wholesale. Tommy has hookups y0!.....plus these guys have said that migging cromoly is not a good idea.

 

can't beat the mad hook-ups

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by exratedaccord93 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A lot of BMX bikes are made of 4130 chromoly. Just buy a bike for real cheap and cut a piece of it off to make it. BMX only has a 20" top tube but the down tube is longer. You could probably find a mountain bike frame with a long enough down tube (maybe your Trek). Don't have enough time to research the lengths or if it could work at all but it's an idea for cheap chromoly. It would be totally gangstarific.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I bought a mountain bike on clearance at Target for $13, I think that's cheaper than you would pay for the metal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by exratedaccord93 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A lot of BMX bikes are made of 4130 chromoly. Just buy a bike for real cheap and cut a piece of it off to make it. BMX only has a 20" top tube but the down tube is longer. You could probably find a mountain bike frame with a long enough down tube (maybe your Trek). Don't have enough time to research the lengths or if it could work at all but it's an idea for cheap chromoly. It would be totally gangstarific.</TD></TR></TABLE>

are you joking?...

a real 4130 bmx frame if around $300. A lot of department store bikes have stickers that say 4130, but usually it applies to only the seat tube (the area i find most stickers on) the rest of the biek is made of mild steel and that's why I can buy a huffy from wal-mart complete for less than I bought my fit series one frame ( http://www.fitbikeco.com ). Besides, even if you stoel a full 4130 frame and cut it up, you'd have to strip it of the paint before anything and a lot of the time... actually MOST of teh time, it's powdercoat.. so good luck with that.. plus, if you took a perfectly good 4130 bmx bike and cut it up like that i'd have to smack you sucka!

 

I have two bmx bikes that I can barely give away. They're both 4130 and they're just laying around my house. I was saying if you could find or buy a cheap 4130 bike it might be worth it. I'm not saying to go out and buy a new frame. if someone did that, I would slap them too.

Where's the lovin' for gangsta ideas?

 

what frames?

 

GT proseries and K2 the biker. Why? do you want to buy them?

 

that guy didn't think you had framee y01......little does he know your mad bike riding histories son!