Tom's Floor Stiffening brace

well, my 1st brace is looking to show up just around Thanksgiving. I will post a review + Pics once installed. I also have the Bt tech on order, though I genuinely hope they go in different-places. Will post more when it shows. -

 

Woo-hoo! It just arrived! Unfortunately I am at work and don't have my camera handy, will take pics when it gets home. It looks to be a little over 2 ft long and it goes horizontally across the bottom of the Prius. Again, just hoping it goes in a different place than the BT Tech brace.

Also, I think Brian (of BT Tech fame) is right in that this design could be improved: instead of everything getting bolted together (4 pieces) it would be stronger as one welded unit. Will post more as it comes along.

 

I'm going to need dimensions on the BT Tech brace, the bolt holes on the end of the TOMS brace look farther apart than the BT Tech. Let me see if I can get in touch with Brian.

 

Here are some pics on my kitchen floor. Have full size photos if interested. It's pretty late, I'm hoping to install this tomorrow evening (wife has car all day tomorrow, it is her car after all).

 

First, Happy Thanksgiving everbody! Now for the news: a) it is installed and B) it is in a completely different place from the BT Tech brace.

OK, I took photos but I do not know how to put the text *around* them for the ideal step-by-step tutorial, so if any moderators can step in and clean this up I would appreciate it

It turns out on the big body coloured rails there are holes in them underneath the rubber anti-corrosion stuff. Thoughtfully enough, Toyota put holes in them just for this brace and covered them up with one inch "stickers". That was cool of them.

In the first photo I am pointing at the "sticker", in the second photo the sticker is removed exposing the hole the bolts fit into. The bolts take a little explaining (I didn't think to take photos of them specifically until now) as they are threaded through a *wedge* piece of metal about 4-5mm thick. Since the wedge is wider than the hole, the bolt hangs down through the hole as shown in the third photo.

In the fourth photo you can see one side of the brace mounted.

So, where does this mount? Actually just behind the front wheels. If you have been underneath the car it goes in between the two "pre" mufflers (cats?). The fifth and sixth photos I am trying to show this.

The seventh photo merely shows the original wimpy toyota brace is still in place and will replaced by the BT Tech brace next week or the week after (Thanks Brian!)

As I've said all along, I don't believe this design is perfect by any stretch. I think someone with some mad fabrication skillz ( ) could really improve on this in stiffness and clearance. Let me go test drive it and see how it feels. Again, happy thanksgiving. B)

 

Hey, thank you for the responses everybody! It's nice to be able to contribute. I ran into a clearance issue with it so my ride evaluation is far from complete. Don't worry though, it DOES stiffen the chassis, you can feel that.

It turns out that when the exhaust pipe *rattles* around when the engine is on (very common) the frontmost enlarged exhaust piece (either a pre-muffler or a catalytic converter) moves enough to touch the "front" most bar just slightly. But enough to be hecka annoying (you can hear it in the cabin due to the direct attachment).

I'm going to pull it off tonight, and figure out the next step. One option is to get longer bolts (the ones that drop down from inside the rails), probably only need 4-5mm. Does anyone know where to get high quality bolts? Do I need high quality for this part (seems a silly question, but you only torque these to 26n-m or roughly 15 ft-lbs)? Any thought would be helpful.

No, that's no good as it would space the whole rail enclosure down 5mm and that isn't the right answer. Hmmm, since this car will never see a smog station maybe I should just run a straight pipe :blink: j/k.

I still think someone like BT Tech could make huge strides on the design of this piece (notice how I've kept bringing him up throughout this thread? B) ). If that were to happen I would tell anyone who is interested to hold out for one. If it doesn't, then I will work out some kind of extension for the clearance issues.

Anyway, that is the news for today, please come post a reply with any thoughts/insights. Also, when I've taken it off I can also put up any photos of any of the individual pieces that you want to see better.

On another note, I will order the TOMS strut tower brace next. If you are familiar with these pieces, just skip over this paragraph, if not let me explain why I am getting this next. The engine bay is just a big "U" with the open section being the front so it is not really an enclosed box like the trunk is. When turning, your front suspension towers are either BOTH trying to go *away* from the engine block or *towards* it. The front tower brace links these two towers and minimizes this movement. Because this is restricted it keeps the structure of your engine bay intact and helps preserve your steering turn-in of your new car (except for bushing wear of course). There are better designs out there (triangulated to the firewall) but not for the Prius. I don't expect a big improvement on turn in from this part (the car is brand new with 2,000 miles and the firewall is physically pretty close to the towers) but I hope to maintain what it has for a long time.

 

Sorry, forgot to mention the front strut tower brace will be a different thread.

 

Ceric, I forgot to respond to your corrosion question. I was thinking about this when I was putting it on. I'm thinking when all is said and done I would actually scrape off the corrosion coating for a better mating surface, go around the edge with some silicone gel and fill up underneath the washers as well. Of course, I live in the Bay Area and don't have salted roads, snow, etc.

If I were living somewhere else (let's say Chicago) I would think I'd leave as much corrosion stuff as possible on and still go around the edges with silicone as well as the holes. Does that make sense?

Again, if there is anything you want photos of specifically just let me know. Just keep in mind I'm only putting the car up on jacks, I'm not under a hoist, etc.

 

Hawkim, thanks for that idea, I will look into it. I've taken photos of the uninstalled pieces and just need to upload them. They really aren't banging into each other too much so that could well work. Will post the pix tomorrow am.

I thought of the heat shielding too. I was just worried if it was the cat then that might be waaaay too hot for direct contact with the shielding, especially if it rubs through the reflector part and ignites (?) the insulation part. Of course, I could be all wrong on this.

 

So, here are some more photos of the brace uninstalled. Notice the scratching isn't deep. I really like how they did the bracket (last photo).