I just wanna know if there is a strut brace out there that will fit for 3rd gen magna ? I am willing to drill new holes for it if necessary. I just don't wanna spend big bucks for this.

its only like $190 for a whiteline strut brace, dont be a tight ass!

Someone told me commi ones fit.

Cant confirm tho.

Maybe make your own? You just need a solid bar that can bolt to the 2 towers

don't bother making one, just buy one, as liberate said, they aren't that expensive.

If the budget is tight, save your cash for a whiteline rear adjustable swaybar. Proven to be a phenomonal bang-for-buck mod. I'm not 100% convinced strutbraces do much...if I get around to it, I'll take mine off at the track between sessions, and see if I can notice any difference without it.

If the budget is tight, save your cash for a whiteline rear adjustable swaybar. Proven to be a phenomonal bang-for-buck mod. I'm not 100% convinced strutbraces do much...if I get around to it, I'll take mine off at the track between sessions, and see if I can notice any difference without it.

that would be interesting to find out:think:

If the budget is tight, save your cash for a whiteline rear adjustable swaybar. Proven to be a phenomonal bang-for-buck mod. I'm not 100% convinced strutbraces do much...if I get around to it, I'll take mine off at the track between sessions, and see if I can notice any difference without it.

+1. Rear sway bar is said to be better than lowering. I think the TL's began with sway bars as stock, although mine is more of a sway wire than a sway bar.

Our new TW has a fairly chunky rear bar, I'd say 17-19mm.
On a front drive car, this is teh fisrt place to spend money if you don't have a rear bar. Reduces understeer and helps balance the car in fast sweeping corners.
Just don't get greedy and go too big, like on my TS wagon...it would go from mild understeer to mild oversteer instantaneously due to the inside rear lifting off, which is a bad thing, as it changes front end geometry (due to load transfer forward when wheel lifts) at teh same time as reducing rear grip.:shock:
Frankly, a strut brace should tie in to teh firewall to make any sense, otherwise you're just pushing the other strut tower around.

Regards, Andrew.

on a car like a magna with a lot of metal, a strut brace that connects the two towers would be sufficient, for a small car like a swift, corolla, pulsar, a strut brace that connects to the fire-wall is better because their strut towers and engine bay are small enough to be manipulated easily. I guess it works on the theory, the bigger the stronger which of course, is never the case.

+1. Rear sway bar is said to be better than lowering. I think the TL's began with sway bars as stock, although mine is more of a sway wire than a sway bar.

Yep, and it's a mod that keeps on giving...get some decent suspension, and it works even better..then get a stiffer front swaybar to match, even better again. The front bar re-introduces a bit of understeer behaviour back in, but overall handling dynamics are better, or so I have been lead to believe (will test this theory when it goes in this Friday, along with anti-lift/castor).

As I've started to discovered at the track, once you have the basic foundation mods in place (good shocks/springs and swaybars), you can fine-tune the handling to your liking with minor details like camber/toe settings and tyre pressure, and the end result is in a different league, compared to tinkering around with things when your basic suspension isn't up to the task.

Your suspension is only as good as the weakest link, swaybars/strutbrace will only do so much if you are sitting on stock springs and rolly-polly shocks. Next on the list is some koni reds/yellows or coilovers, as I believe the shocks are now the limiting factor.

I don't drive on the track, so my suspension mods are pretty limited. I have lowered Pedders springs (30-40mm drop I think) 22mm adjustable rear swaybar, and -1.0 negative camber on the front via camber pins (oh and a front strut brace). The car can now hold some decent speed through corners and feel allot better then when it just had the springs.

All the mods where done apart from each other, so I can give a slight description in what "I" noticed each mod do. Note: I have 17"x7" wheels with 225's (have had 235's, but find they are too wide for 7" width and lose some steering response)

In terms of effectiveness, or greatest change:
1. lowered springs, and wheels/tyres.

This obviously made a world of difference with the car sitting allot flatter. Corner speed is allot higher, but turn in needs to be done a little smoother as understeer is allot sharper now if pushing to hard, as the stock suspension absorbed some of the initial turn in force.

2. Rear sway bar.

This transformed the car much more then I would have expected. Turn in sharpened even more, with the car able to carry more corner speed. You will notice that even on tightening radius turns the front end just keeps going with the rear end feeling like it's doing more of the work. Another side benefit I noticed is this reduced allot of the on centre dead spot in the steering that the Magna's have. But now you had to be less aggressive with steering angle, as the car now has even less resistance to understeer on sharp turn in.

3. Camber pins.

I had a full 4 wheel alignment done after this, and the front camber set to -1.0 to try dial out some of the turn in understeer and to even out the tyre wear as I notice accelerated wear on the outer edges of the front tyres (I think I can even go up to -1.2 to -1.3) degrees, as the front tyre wear is still even). This mod didn't make as big a difference as the other two previous modifications, but it is still noticeable. There is a definite reduction in understeer, with particular resistance to mid corner bumps. A slight trade off that I might be noticing is slightly higher tendency to tram lining.

4. Strut brace.

This didn't do a whole lot compared to the other mods (besides make the engine bay look better lol ), but did make a slight difference. Where I noticed the difference was when pulling hard out of a corner with the front end really loaded up, the strut brace seamed to remove some of the wallowing feeling you sometimes got. Feels like the car isn't as effected by bumps that might have sent the inside tyre frying.

Thanks for all the info:)