Chassis Stiffening

Im in the process of building a 75 monte carlo into a autox/track day/ more or less a streetable race car. I built my own chassis stiffening kit for the center section and rear stub but what can I do for the front stub? I was planning on building a brace that ties the cross member to the frame horns but is there more I can do? I was going go as far as building bay bars similar to that of a circle track car but I dont have a full roll cage in the car. How far is too far and do you guys think what I have done is enough? Thanks in advance.

Adding bars out in front of the cross member will do nothing. Trying to stop twist, without a good cage, is not going to happen. All you are doing is adding weight. Lateral stiffness can be improved with a good K-member design but, to improve torsional stiffness, you need to have a good cage that is triangulated down to the chassis and ties the front and rear suspensions together.
Mark

Look at some of the frame brace kits that hpi,hellwig, speedtech etc have developed for 68-72 a body's. Being as your cars frame design is quite similar this would be something that you might want to copy for your own design

Thats what i pretty much did for the center and rear stub. I built a coilover setup for the rearend so the rear stub is taken care of I was more concerned for the stub moving up and down as more than torsional. Thank you guys for all the tips! keep em coming! I want to be able to keep up with corvettes by the time Im done with with this!

If you're corvette hunting .....next step cage

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Originally Posted by raustinss

If you're corvette hunting .....next step cage

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Yeah I was afraid of that! Maybe next year then.

on my74 olds the biggest difference was made by the cage, i wouldn't build a car setup for road or auto X races without a cage.

I went with the HPI kit and it turned out great.

I really dig that crossmember setup! Pretty clean install as well!!

Used the HPI on on my el-Camino frame- had to cut it up some since we used the factory boxed frame rather than the HPI boxing plates

Although, a cage will add weight, the benefits of a cage is worth the added weight. You can always remove the added weight from other areas to get the weight back down to the pre-cage weight. Do not add a pre-fab off the shelf cage. You need to take it a reputable chassis fabricator not only for the chassis stiffness but, for your personal safety. A poor design installed cage can be more dangerous than no cage.

After you have the cage built to a standard such as, the SCCA specs, it would be best to have the cage inspected, by a licensed tech inspector/scrutineer and obtain a vehicle log book with that inspection so you won't run into a problem in the future.

Thanks for all the advice! Im really looking forward to making this car fast! Looks like Ill have to talk to a chassis shop I know very well about putting a full cage in the old girl! Thanks again for all the great advice!