Triangular Carbon Reinforcement strut bar kit - New Development

[Radekxpl]

Came across this recently on Instagram from Slon, I’m very intrigued by this development aside from obvious cool look factor more so by actual practicality and purpose stiffening front end of the chassis of this strut bar design, I’m quoting here what was published in their post not sure 🤔 if any number are true; OE strut bar brace rigidity 29100 Nm/deg vs new triangular design 34300 Nm/deg 18% which if true is significant improvement. I take these numbers with grain of salt but I can definitely see how this design will benefit chassis stiffness. On the newer BMW’s F chassis cars for example,Bmw did implement similar design and it did improve rigidity so I think 🤔 Slon is on to something here. Definitely like the look though and it works with cabin filter as well definitely cool looking piece for those less interested in technical aspects.









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[antknee]

would've looked so much better with cleaner cut lines (similar to mason/rogue), and less swooping. I love how new ideas are coming out though still for this platform.

[heinzboehmer]

Have a feeling Obioban will be all over this

[Casa de Mesa]

Very cool looking and intriguing piece. Slonik any more details?

It looks like it eliminates, or at least requires modification, to the bulkhead piece (p/n: 64318362894).

[tlow98]

Very cool looking and intriguing piece. Slonik any more details?

It looks like it eliminates, or at least requires modification, to the bulkhead piece (p/n: 64318362894).

they re-making this piece from CF to fit the brace. Part of the previous insta post.

[Casa de Mesa]

they re-making this piece from CF to fit the brace. Part of the previous insta post.

Awesome.

[Obioban]

Have a feeling Obioban will be all over this

Oh yes. I’m stupidly excited for this. Been chatting with him throughout the development process— Slonik uniquely is making new stuff I really care about for this chassis.

They have lots of really awesome stuff in the works, but this is one I’m particularly excited about.

I’d point out that they have a chassis twister— so their posted gains are measured results, not numbers they pulled out of nothing. They gave a range of gains, to show the results on a stock, tired chassis and a fresh chassis with all their (thus far released) stiffening bits.

[Obioban]

would've looked so much better with cleaner cut lines (similar to mason/rogue), and less swooping. I love how new ideas are coming out though still for this platform.

I think it looks freaking great, but either way form follows function— which is really the important thing.

[Obioban]

Also ~4 lbs lighter than stock, off the front of the car (where it’s hardest to remove weight).

[tlow98]

Have a feeling Obioban will be all over this

I’d love one, too!

[heinzboehmer]

Oh yes. I’m stupidly excited for this. Been chatting with him throughout the development process— Slonik uniquely is making new stuff I really care about for this chassis.

They have lots of really awesome stuff in the works, but this is one I’m particularly excited about.

I’d point out that they have a chassis twister— so their posted gains are measured results, not numbers they pulled out of nothing. They gave a range of gains, to show the results on a stock, tired chassis and a fresh chassis with all their (thus far released) stiffening bits.

I thought you'd be super interested in this one . Looking forward to reading your thoughts on it when you (inevitably) get it on your car.

Since you said you've been talking to him about it, do you know how it attaches to the firewall? I can't really think of a good spot to attach it to without adding a bunch of brackets.

Oh btw, did you ever get the reinforcement wall installed on your car? I've been lazy and still haven't done mine... Keep telling myself that I'll do it along with the roof so that I don't have to get the adhesive twice, but I'm thinking I should just go and install this thing, otherwise I'll keep putting it off.

[heinzboehmer]

I’d love one, too!

Hope you do get one so that I can check it out in person!

[Casa de Mesa]

I will most likely order one of these along with the rear wall. I too like the way the strut tower bar looks.

[Slonik]

Hello guys!


idea about this Triangular Carbon Reinforcement wasn't like "wake up one day with a thought you see e92? lets make the same on e46".
first thoughts was about 3-4 years ago (or maybe even more, when i saw f82 first time in 2015), and of course, yes, it was based on all this strengthening solutions which bmw realized on next generations.
i've spent a lot of sleepless nights near cars and stripped chassis in my workshop, trying to measure and imagine possible solutions to realize this idea. form, like we have it for today was my perfect imagine, how to realize it under the hood of e46. of course as a spare, easier in realization, maybe cheaper in some cases etc was an options like to make more straight design carbon pieces or to make it like f82 style (those piece, which is hided under the plastic) - simply cut from the large sheet on water jet cutter (i think its called like that).
but i'm happy that we did it in my perfect way i've dreamed about.

so, one the new main things, which i wanted to test on our new torsional rigidity platform year ago, was this triangular carbon reinforcement (to get confirmation of my idea).
we had our wall already, but for those moment wall was in production like you know, so we only got confirmation of our results. and for this triangle we had nothing except idea .
how we've tested it:
we've welded steel center mount in similar design, like we planned to make this piece in a carbon fiber and, what i think quite important, we preferred to try our planned fixing solution - bonding to the chassis with a structural glue, like we already used on our walls (to see, how glue would work in this case).
so this steel center mount was bonded to the chassis and then we made some simple steel straight bars (thin stainless tubes, less than an inch in diam) to fix the turrets to our center mount.
during this test we still had oem strut brace on the car, so idea was to get similar stiffening by triangle.
those of you, who've read our topic about our platform, i'm sure remember that we got the figures with our wall installed on the "used chassis" - 18660nm/deg.
right after that we fitted on the chassis this steel center mount and steel bars and got 22443nm/deg, so difference was 20%.
this result solidified my confidence, that we need to spend the time and to develop this solution.

what were the main issues?
the main issue was to realize it like a street car solution, on which we still have all factory things on their places.
so for example, if we could use simple straight tubes during testing on the naked chassis - on a fully assembled car there is no chance for this, too many things on the road of this straight bars.
and my idea was to make a kit, which will include ALL necessary pieces for installation, so customer could go to the garage and simply fit all things to the car, without cutting, bending, drilling or even welding.
and of course, during all developing period i thought how to realize it with a minimum changes (less parts in the kit).

right now we are on the final stage, i hope its about 2-3 weeks till the end, when we could say "okay, we did it and ready to repeat"
for today all main things finished, and what we have:
triangle design strut brace with center fixing
all 3 pieces of cabin air filter, made in carbon fiber (modified design from OEM, to work with our triangle strut brace)
center mount, made from carbon fiber & cnc aluminum, which must bonded to the chassis with structural glue (fitment from under the hood, no need to remove engine etc, quite easy install).
aluminum bracket, which connect center mount and our triangle strut brace.

still need to solve wires channel, which fits in-front of cabin filter case in stock.
and we are waiting our order with oem CSL dipsticks, cause bended oem (non csl) dipsticks on CSL style intakes didnt work.
for those, who has oem csl map sensor location, kit will include map sensor with different connector location (no need to make remap, this sensor with the same specs as oem).

back to the our testing few days ago.

all present tests was done on our project - laguna seca M3. for those, who didn't read about it - you can go to our insta account and check info there (but i hope i'll find some time in the future and try to move all this build to this forum ).
due to it's previous mods it has radically different rigidity, than usual used chassis.
we got 29300nm/deg on this chassis on our last upgrade - our carbon strengthening wall.
so, testing was made on this config.
for a maximum objectivity we've made back to back testing and measured chassis on oem strut brace and got 29100nm in this day and then fit our triangle strut brace (center mount was bonded to the chassis 2 days before that).
on our triangle strut brace installed we got 34300nm/deg.
difference from our triangular carbon reinforcement 18%, which is quite close to our "prototype" testing year ago, when we got 20%. difference in this figures covers by difference between those tested two chassis - one of them had 18660nm/deg (before) and other 29300nm/deg (before), so even on so varied chassis rigidity improvement figures are saved.

but! i preferred to play safe, and we prepared two straight bars (similar to the year ago steel tubes), to check is there any difference between our carbon triangle and this straight bars fitted with oem strut brace (to repeat our testing on used chassis year ago). so we've stripped all extra parts, which interfered their fitment from under the hood and fit it on the chassis.
result was absolutely the same, without any difference from our carbon fiber triangle. so by this test we got the knowledges, that we had no losses due to our curved design compared to the straight (ideal) design, and we could say, that our new reinforcement would give about 20% torsional rigidity improvement on typical used chassis.

[Casa de Mesa]

Slon, this is awesome.

So a "mount" must be glued to the firewall, essentially? Am I reading that right?

Once the mount is glued, it looks like the triangle bar can be unbolted from the mount and the strut towers, so you can perform maintenance on the top of the motor.

Super interesting.