thanks terry.

 

Terry does drive his car hard in the mountains.

I'm passing on this too.

 

Hmm, I was afraid someone would report something like this. I guess in the end it comes down to, you get what you pay for. I was an early advocate for the VRT bar because it just plain works. This may sound silly, but as I've said before, I could immediately feel the difference in stiffness. After the install, when backing out of my garage over the crown on the driveway, my coupe felt stiffer. The VRT truly transformed the handling caracteristics of my coupe. I've put on about 5K miles with this STB, and I would not go back to stock. It's a great upgrade.

Lou

 

Don't let me scare you off if you really want one......I'm still testing.

It actually helps stiffness some by just bolting the SS mounting plates down on top of the towers.

It just was not a WOW big difference for me. I still say the bar is too soft and alum is not the best material.

Here is a link to a good article on strut bar design principles:

http://www.rogueengineering.com/Merc...&Category_Code

 

I just purchased one of these (waiting for it to arrive via HollywoodG35) and I'd like to think we did our research. If you look at this link

http://www.greddy.com/products/displ...&SubCategory=9

you will see that the GReddy bar is made of aluminium also. The Ritchie Strut bar is very similar in design and I have to think if GReddy made one out of Aluminium then its must be a proven design, so Ritchie was not far off. Also, if you check out www.pasmag.com there is a dynamite Candy Hot Raspberry 350Z fitted with a GReddy bar...the car doesnt dissapoint ! It was built by Xtreme Motorsports. They are a Canadian maritime shop thats been around for over 15 years. It they are fitting their 350Z with a GReddy Aluminum bar then im thinking the Ritichie bar will work just fine on my car...and im gonna feel good about it everytime I think of the price I paid ! Regardless what material its made of, it WILL provide more stiffness bottom line. If you cant feel it, you're not driving your car hard enough. Thanks Ritchie !

 

Um, are you getting paid for your advertisement? Did you read Brando's post?? Did you notice he got a deal on the bar to assist in testing it, and his sig indicates he's packing a Vortech s/c???

<really trying to be nice here>

 

lol@terry not driving his car hard enough. maybe you should try rolling it down a mountain t?

 

Just saying you have to feel the difference no matter what you bolt on. Some materials are better than others but to feel no difference is odd.

 

i put on a ztube and didnt feel a difference only heard a difference
i dont think thats odd

 

The BIW of the G35 is fairly stiff to begin with so I would doubt that you would notice a big difference regardless of wheter you have a strut bar or not. Essentially, any 'linear' bar for the G35 is cosmetic. If you take a look at the Modulus of Elasitcity of TI (ARC) vs Aluminum (Richie), you are looking at less than half of the stifness. However, the moment of inertia for either bar given the packaging space is relatively small so you will not likely notice a difference regardless of the material. ALSO - this bar is not triangulated. Perhaps you would notice more of an impact if this was the configuration.

Regardless, if the chassis flexes 1/8", I doubt that a $700 titanium strut bar with give you the WOW factor that you are looking for.

I think a better comparison is to take both the ARC strut bar and the Al Richie bar on a road corse and see if your time/performance improves. To say that you notice that backing out of your driveway or taking an off ramp you notice a huge difference is speculative at best. I would rather see some comparative data to back it up.

 

LOL... yeah, I've followed him up and down the mountains, and he DOES NOT hold back!

 

What will work with the Turbonetics kit? Not fond of the price on the ARC, the VRT looks good, but it's in a diff. position and $400 or so, and this new one really got me interested til the latest posts, but the price seems great!

 

Ok.....after further testing and hard flogging.....

I do feel a difference.....no way near a $700 ARC price kinda difference...

but prob worth the $225.00. Steering is a little tighter.

Just bolting the stainless steel brackets on top of the strut towers prob helps a good bit. I still think the bar could be a lot stiffer.

JMO

PS
If you guys want one let me know....If I get 5 people, I can do a little better than the current group buy.

 

hows the steel project coming

 

The guy is too busy right now working on a couple of race cars. He said it would be at least April before he could look at it.