E86 Front Triangulation Braces Retrofit

[Sharocks]

The amount of engineers that own these cars are part of the reason why I still like having both of mine.

I don't like them without the nerds behind keeping them on the road since BMW stopped caring about classics a while ago.

Thank you Heinz.

[SQ13]

Got excited then saw the price. I’ll add this to the long term to-do list.

I’m gonna remove the cabin filter housing to see how much of a difference its removal makes on induction noise. If it’s significant then I’ll be grabbing a carbon housing soon lol.

[heinzboehmer]

Very cool! Any chance you'll offer this as a kit w/ core exchange on the strut tower plates?

Unfortunately, no. I just do not have the time to be putting these kits together. This is part of the reason why I decided to share everything

The amount of engineers that own these cars are part of the reason why I still like having both of mine.

I don't like them without the nerds behind keeping them on the road since BMW stopped caring about classics a while ago.

Thank you Heinz.

Hell yeah, happy to contribute to the community. These cars are too good to ignore!

Got excited then saw the price. I’ll add this to the long term to-do list.

I’m gonna remove the cabin filter housing to see how much of a difference its removal makes on induction noise. If it’s significant then I’ll be grabbing a carbon housing soon lol.

You should remove both the filter housing and the firewall plug for max intake noise. It's surprising how much more comes in.

And yes, this is not a cheap mod. There's a good amount of custom parts to make, but the end result is so worth it.

You can likely take off a good chunk off of the cost with some modifications to the fabrication. Cheaper welding labor (or free if you trust yourself), cheaper fasteners and a different approach to the windshield mount can knock $500+ off the price. Maybe you can convince bigjae46 to sell you his forged carbon version of the mount.

Ideally, this mount would be a spot welded (or epoxy/riveted) sheet metal bracket, like the one on the E86/E9x/E8x/etc. Unfortunately, I still do not know the typical loads that this piece sees, so I had to design it to be stronger than the weakest link in the chain: the E86 braces themselves. There's a lot of potential for price optimization here, I just decided that spending more money to get this CNC machined was worth it, as I did not want to be stuck with a failed part that is permanently bonded to my chassis.

If anyone wants to add some strain gauges to a set of E86 braces, I can throw them on my car and capture a bunch of typical load data. Then from that, an optimized sheet metal design can be designed.

[George Hill]

Heinz, I didn't see the sheet metal brackets (that would be cut by SCS) for the strut towers in the files, am I blind or not understanding?

Re: the firewall/billet mounts, SCS is offering CNC services and they are not terribly far off Heinz price and adding multiple quantities brings the price down.

I reached out to my CNC shop that makes our parts and asked them for a quote. They want to modify the windshield mount (I'm assuming to make fixturing easier, but waiting for a reply) and so both of these items at qty 1x are far and above what Heinz paid or quoted by SCS.

BUT if we increased the qty to 5x then my shop comes out ahead. My cost would be $500.11 (with tax) per set for (5) sets ordered. I Imagine we'd be able to get the SCS sheet metal parts cheaper by increasing the qty too.

I think this is in the spirit of what Heinz wanted, there is no money to be made by me, so if he approves and there are enough of us interested but are held back by the price we could look at something like a Group Buy for the parts.

[Obioban]

Sendcutsend recently added CNC to their list. Might be worth pricing them out.

[George Hill]

Sendcutsend recently added CNC to their list. Might be worth pricing them out.

... SCS is offering CNC services and they are not terribly far off Heinz price and adding multiple quantities brings the price down.

[heinzboehmer]

Heinz, I didn't see the sheet metal brackets (that would be cut by SCS) for the strut towers in the files, am I blind or not understanding?

Ah my bad! Missed uploading those. Fixed.

I'll paste in a link to a premade sendcutsend cart once that's ready.

Re: the firewall/billet mounts, SCS is offering CNC services and they are not terribly far off Heinz price and adding multiple quantities brings the price down.

I reached out to my CNC shop that makes our parts and asked them for a quote. They want to modify the windshield mount (I'm assuming to make fixturing easier, but waiting for a reply) and so both of these items at qty 1x are far and above what Heinz paid or quoted by SCS.

BUT if we increased the qty to 5x then my shop comes out ahead. My cost would be $500.11 (with tax) per set for (5) sets ordered. I Imagine we'd be able to get the SCS sheet metal parts cheaper by increasing the qty too.

I think this is in the spirit of what Heinz wanted, there is no money to be made by me, so if he approves and there are enough of us interested but are held back by the price we could look at something like a Group Buy for the parts.

That's $500 for both parts? If so, that's an awesome deal.

By all means go ahead with the group buy if there's interest. The whole point of sharing this is that it gets adopted by as many people as possible!

I'd be interested in knowing how your CNC shop wants to modify the windshield mount.

[discoelk]

Protolabs will do volume discounts also. I was going to investigate pricing as soon as I had a chance to open h CAD. I can report back in a day or two

[George Hill]

Ah my bad! Missed uploading those. Fixed.

I'll paste in a link to a premade sendcutsend cart once that's ready.

Awesome, thanks!

That's $500 for both parts? If so, that's an awesome deal.

I'd be interested in knowing how your CNC shop wants to modify the windshield mount.

Yes, $466 plus tax and potentially cheaper depending on the revisions. I'm not sure what they would want to revise on it too, there would be some leg work on my end, but if we venture down that route even if we end up not following through I'll keep you posted.

By all means go ahead with the group buy if there's interest. The whole point of sharing this is that it gets adopted by as many people as possible!

I figured that was in the spirit of this project but wanted to get your blessing.

[Obioban]

…

derp

[///M3RIC]

This is awesome! Thank you for this impressive contribution to the community! A couple comments come to mind after perusing the document:
1. I don’t have the stock strut bar and after seeing the fabrication required I wonder if it would be feasible to have mounts made rather than buying and modifying a set.
2. Is removing the blower housing entirely necessary? I recently changed the blower motor and removal / reinstall was a very annoying process.

[heinzboehmer]

Yes, $466 plus tax and potentially cheaper depending on the revisions. I'm not sure what they would want to revise on it too, there would be some leg work on my end, but if we venture down that route even if we end up not following through I'll keep you posted.

That's an amazing price. And yes, please keep me posted! I'm very curious to know what someone who actually knows what they're doing will modify.

This is awesome! Thank you for this impressive contribution to the community! A couple comments come to mind after perusing the document:
1. I don’t have the stock strut bar and after seeing the fabrication required I wonder if it would be feasible to have mounts made rather than buying and modifying a set.

You definitely could do that and the end result would likely be lighter, since you could probably make it work with 6061. My simulations did not close with 6061 sheet metal parts under the cast aluminum brackets, hence the step up to SS. Billet one piece would be a different story, though.

But I haven't modeled the entire mount, so there would be some extra design work required.

2. Is removing the blower housing entirely necessary? I recently changed the blower motor and removal / reinstall was a very annoying process.

Yeah it really does suck. That's one of the worst parts of the job for sure.

It's not entirely necessary, but it does make your life a lot easier. Especially when prepping the chassis for the adhesive.

[0-60motorsports]

Im in for a GB too depending on price! this is awesome.

[discoelk]

Protolabs seems like the play here depending on quantity. $120 and $350 at a quantity of 5.

[YoitsTmac]

+1 if this is basically a group buy now