Da mx5nutz.
:chessygrin:
Citazione:hese rails are apart of a package, stage 1 of 2, in strengthening the standard car. They have always been developed with this in mind, hence why it's taken so long, as has been said anyone can bend a bit of metal or copy other designs. There's also 96 pieces of stainless steel fixing hardware in the kit as well!
The rails are designed to do 4 things:
1. Restore factory stiffness.
2. Add some stiffness.
3. Provide a solid mounting structure for the cross brace.
4. Something else we're looking at.
There's no point in me 'testing' at this stage with a 10, 20, 30, whatever % claim as that would depend on what state the donor was and what factory braces are already on there! But, I can say that the design/material/fixing is way stronger than the job they need to do.
The astute amongst you will notice a couple of things about the rails. Firstly there's a number of cut-outs in the edge flanges to ensure that it sits as flat as possible to the car (mainly M2.5 models) and the holes in the sides are not there for looks or lightening.
What started this design was seeing how other designs didn't work (IMO). With the FM butterfly section I had a couple of fitting issues around some exhausts, but also the centre section didn't seem to want to fit inside the wings sometimes. Once all the key components were bolted up, the centre section actually buckled on one car! The acid test for me was that if you jacked the butterfly part of the brace, the brace would give rather than lifting the car.
I agree there are different types and methods of bracing the MX-5. However, some braces simply 'don't work' as you're not bracing the right part. I don't believe that welding up the doors would provide any more or any less effect than the rails, but you're still missing one fundamental element.
Those holes in the side of our rails are to provide a solid fixing point for the brace; you'll need to drill through them so you have a hole each side of the factory rail. A square section design will butt up to the rail (no loss of ground clearance other than the rail itself which is ~4mm) and you'll bolt through from the outside to hold it against the inside section of the rail. Once bolted in place, the whole structure will be strong enough to jack the car up, although we're not suggesting it as a jacking point just illustrating it's integration and integrity. The brace will provide structure that will tie one side to the other to prevent twisting, something that the rails/welding door etc cannot do on their own.
Cheers
Phil
:chessygrin: