DeTomaso Mailing List: November 2000, Message #10

1.  What is the best chassis brace kit to use?  I saw one advertised by =
Hall and another by PPC in Ca.  Does it really stabilize the suspension,

>>>Either one does a great job of stiffening up the chassis, of that there's
no doubt.  Whether one is superior is a matter of opinion--I don't know.

>and can it be used in place of a removable crossmember when I replace my =
stock oil pan with a 10 qt?

>>>The PPC (California) kit uses a removable crossmember as an integral part
of the rear chassis brace.  Dunno about Hall's kit.

The lower Hall front brace is tack welded in and not easily removable.  The 
rear Hall lower brace attaches via the rear suspension, lower A-arm bolts.  The 
rear lower brace can be removed by pulling the A-arm bolts out far enough to 
clear the inside of the chassis rails.  But in reality it's not quite that 
simple. To get the bolts to clear on my car, I had to remove the sway bar and 
the shocks (some do it with the shocks on but I liked them out of the way).   
 The sway bar is easy to pull off but not so easy to put back.  Also you must 
capture and mark all the alignment shims for each of the four bolts or you'll 
need an alignment too.  Don't wait until they bounce off the garage floor to 
remember like I did. The factory cross-brace will have to be cut out.

I have a 10 quart pan, which I'm told is an Aviad (from Pantera Performance 
Center I think), that has a notch in the back which nicely clears the front 
cross-bar of the lower rear brace.  I don't know if other brands of 10q pans 
will clear.  Neither 5qt or 10qt pans can be removed with the rear brace in 
place.

On a related note, John Taphorn, Gray Gregory, and I have come to the 
conclusion that the lower part of the chassis is supported adequately by the 
motor mounts and ZF mounts and that the majority of the additional stiffining 
of the chassis brace kit is provided by the upper braces (2 rear bars, 1 front 
triangle). (OK, it was after looking at my car in great detail in the dark 
after several beers following a recent Pantera club meeting - but it was a very 
perceptive group and we had a flashlight).  John  has put together a collection 
of adjustable threaded aluminum bars, sphere balls, and mounting brackets that 
he ordered from racing catalogs that replicates the set of front and rear upper 
braces very inexpensively (less than $100 I think).  John will be testing the 
'dont need no stinking lower braces' theory on his car in the next couple of 
months.

John, you want to jump in here?

Dave Bell