rrobello

I swung by Agent 47 the other day to pick up a new mirror for my car and Heath had just finished installing their new Strut Tower Brace for the S197s that fits the factory plenum cover on the 07s+.

Info and Pics: http://www.auto-focus.us/autoblog/?p=116

BTW If anyone is in the San Diego area (or near and doesnt mind the drive) A47 is still looking for a car with a stock hood and a Whipple, Kenne Bell or FMS Supercharger to test fit this new brace and they will let you go home with one if you let them use your car for a few minutes to do the test fitting. Give them a call and ask for either Corey or Heath, (760) 496-3809

Here are some pics of it on a friends car:

05Mustang-GT

How much?

Cheese302

+1....

Silverback

Looks good,

I wonder if all these braces are equal performers? I would like some test data.

302svt

I would like to have one if the price was right.

kevinb120

Well, you can only get so much out of a brace, I don't know why just one tube wouldn't be plenty. Twin bars, should be plenty strong. I can't imagine anyone having the capabilities to ''test" every strut bar, you would have to be able to do full chassis flex testing with road force simulations, it would probably cost several million dollars to do it other then something very simple like strapping CAI equipped cars on a dyno.

mrkabc

Finally! An Agent 47 product that I like!!! Whooohooooo!!!

Too bad I already have an STB but it something to consider when I get supercharged next year. Coooool!!! (clapping hands)

rrobello

I can ask to see what testing they did on this if any, A47 usually does a lot of real life and road course testing of their products before they put them on the market, thats why they are so effective on the track. In fact I am going to go and lend my car for some extra testing on the ram air intake (60-100mph runs). Its a very impressive, no fooling around shop.

it says on their site $269
http://agentfortyseven.com/S197/index.html
http://agentfortyseven.com/S197/doublebarrel.html

DarkFireGT

I think I like the BMR one better, if for nothing else, the finish of it. That looks like a nice bar, though.

kevinb120

you can just look at it and tell that it works

PonyDNA

Hi rrobello,

The Agent 47 STB is one of the nicest looking pieces I have seen. But all of the STB's are just cosmetic on the S197 chassis. Maybe a convertable could find some small reduction in flex but even so it would very likely be an incredibly small improvement, sot of like $2,000 audiophile speaker wires. These cars just don't gain anything except for weight with an STB so unless you like the racy looks of an STB IMO you should spend the money on stuff that actually helps the car perform better, say like Agent 47's brake ducts. Now THAT's a great product! But that is just my take on money sunk into a car. Generally speaking I don't buy cosmetic parts for fashion or style because generally speaking they just add unwelcomed weight and/or drag, both of which just slow you down.

HTH!

PonyDNA

Hi kevinb120,

And on an S197 coupe that so much is zip, zero, nada. I know because I've tested it on my own car back when it was still stock and again after I installed all of the major suspension parts. You can easily do your own flex testing of front strut and rear shock towers with modeling clay and low stretch fishing leader. You use the leader to leave witness marks in the modeling clay due to movement of the parts you are testing. I learned this trick from Jim Hall, you know the famous designer and builder of the Chaparral Can-Am cars.

Testing with a 4-post shaker doesn't cost that much, you can find SOTA test rigs for rent in the $5,000-10,000 a day range while you change parts and measure the results to your hearts content. While not exactly cheap it's not millions of dollars either. The problem of using a 4-post shaker rig is that it's a waste of time and money because Ford already did this and made the S197 chassis good enough to pass this sort of testing no problem.

HTH!

RedDragon777

i wanted this when i first saw it on their site a while back, was also wondering if it fit the engin cover and now i know it does, awesome, now i can have a custom painted cover and not worry about the dang sagging hood liner

StangMahn

Im not a big fan of the STB's, I might would like one, if it came off the towers back to the firewall, like some of the older ones.

classj

Looks like a stronger duplicate of the granatelli single bar.

I just shudder at the cost though compared to the fifty dollar granatelli piece I did with the group buy.

PonyDNA

Hi classj,

You always get what you paid for a GMS product and in this case you didn't get cheated very much! STB do zero to help improve strut location on the S197 coupe and little for verts so you basically toss out a tank of high octane for no good reason except you like the way it looks.

HTH!

PonyDNA

Hi StangMan,

The S197 does not need an STB like the older chassis did. Even if you triangulated the STB to the "firewall" it would do nothing except to add weight in the wrong place and cost you money better spend else where for performance. Also note the the "firewall" is not a structural element, the structural bulkhead is behind the first cosmetic panel you see under the hood. This means that even if the S197 chassis could benefit from a triangulated brace you would nee to cut the false firewall to get to the actual stutural bulkhead behind it.

HTH!

kevinb120

I guess at some point the brace will help, but as is said its not on my list of mods as I don't think it does much if anything in street use. Although a bar bolting the strut towers together will obviously keep them from moving. If it's light it won't really hurt to have it either... The only flexing i want to get rid of is with the small strut che makes that tightens up the tranny to a small crossmember because that's **** rubbery connection down there. The SN's were a totally different story. Personally if I felt I needed one I would just use one of the single bar setups for the V6 with the added clearance for the plenum cover.

rrobello

even though these cars are built pretty well, ALL cars can use as much reinforcement in many areas, including the strut braces, while racing and getting on a car real hard through turns where the frame is put under a lot of stress, and the results are undeniable that it helps a lot.

You guys need to remember that Agent 47 races cars and builds stuff for race cars, so everything serves a purpose. If you would like to add the products to your street car then great. And the reason they created this double barrell one was because people were asking for a strut brace that would go over the plenum cover.

PonyDNA

Hi rrobello,

I've tested my S197GT looking for movement of the strut towers and found some when the suspension was loaded up all the way and then hit some bumps and expansion joints on concrete ramps. I tested using my own car with literally the ENTIRE Steeda suspension catalog installed plus D-Specs and Pro-Kit springs on boh stock 17" Pirelli P-Zero Nero tires and 18" 275/40x18 BFG g-Force T/A KD's. To tell you the truth there is a very small amount of flex in high-g corners with these 1" expansion joint strips that hit the chassis hard when the suspension was loaded up in the corners. This is the only time I could reliably measure any significant movement of the strut towers and this movement was very small between the strut towers towards each other based on the clay method. So as far as I can tell unless the strut tie bar's holes are sized with a moderate interference fit to the strut bearing mounts studs even a perfect strut tie bar will most likely not be able to make any difference in handling or grip.

But the real question is, for a street car why bother if the flex is so small? Even if you could stop absoulutely all movement between the strut towers in the direction that a single element STB works there would not be any advantage on a street car and even less to be gained in a well prepared race car on a track. So why not spend that $250+ on parts that can actually help a driver reduce lap times? You know like spindle mounted brake ducts, stainless steel brake lines, high performance brake pads, adjustable anti-roll bar, better tires, helmet air, cool suit etc. the list of effective performance upgrades to do before a strut tie bar is very LONG in terms of peformance enhancing parts.

But I have no doubt that IF the S197 chassis could benifit from a strut tie bar the Agent 47 STB is one of if not THE best designed STB on the market. The Agent 47 STB is very well designed structurally and is the only STB that has any real potential to reduce not only the movement of the towers collapsing inward/outward but also to a lesser degree twisting, fore and aft tower movements. The reason is due to the use of all four studs and boxing in the cross bar attachment point and mounting point on each side. Good stuff but only if the S197 chassis could actually beneifit from this sort of additional structural bracing which based on my own testing in the real world, Ford's testing and the many S197 based FR500C race car teams it does not.

I would venture a guess that if you took a well prepared S197 based race car and had run the car on the track to find some baseline lap times with the Agent 47 STB installed, then removed it and checked the lap times you would see less difference than the difference between a clean windshield and a dirty one.

HTH!