The Cal-look Lounge

i was wondering what the opinions are on the "truss bar"

(http://images.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/pix/760732.jpg)

i haven't seen that many around, or perhaps it's a new item. i guess a lot of europeans go for a csp cup strebe instead. but this item costs less and doesn't require any welding.

also, does it eliminate the need for a traction bar under the engine?

I think a traction bar will always be needed on a hi-po VW. The fact that there is no factory mount supporting the motor near the oil pump has always bothered me.

With the way everything is mounted, it seems like the engine wants to pivot on the transmission/engine mount axis since there is nothing supporting the motor. Adding a truss bar would probably help to limit shock tower/frame horn deflection, but I can't see how it would help stabilize the engine.

I wonder if a traction bar actually bolted to T2/T3 mount bosses on case would completely rid a car of wheel hop?
I know a normal traction bar, like Berg's stops downward travel, but under wheel hop, the motor is bouncing around like a BB in a coffee can. If the bar is tensioned "enough" I guess it would pre load the motor upwards enough, but what if the engine was located in the rear in all directions, by bolting the case directly to a tensioned bar? I suppose a guy could even fashion some type of rubber dampers to go between case and bar (10mm male thread to screw into case, then hard rubber spacer, then female 10 or even 12mm threads to bolt traction bar to). Danny Gabbard are you listening?

sorry to take this off the above topic.

The Bugpack truss bar is rubbish. As is their rear support bar.

If you want to run a traction-bar only in Bittburg forget it. (Concrete! water-box). The Truss-bar is Match-Box stuff.
CSP is cool, but try the Franky's stuff........

I have a weld in setup fabbed by Mike at 407 speed shack ties frame horns to shock towers works Super. I'll try to get a pic up later.

I put a csp bar setup in my bug a few years ago. It looked like a good a good idea but I didn't notice any difference. What I did notice was that when I went to take it off to replace the transmission after it had ben in the car for about a year, all the bars were completely seized solid where the length adjusted. I called them and they said that I should have used anti-seize when I assembled it. I told them that they should send instructions with thier stuff and should put that information in said instructions. They sold me replacement bars for a couple hundered bucks. Meh.

Is it? Why?

I have installed it and must say I do not agree with you. The fit is near perfect and no cutting or welding is needed. It is rigid enough for 95% of us and it is cheap.

Btw speaking of tensioning the tractionbar,how much do you tension it? 8)

How do you know? Have you tested it with more than 50 hp?
The design is flawed at best. Just a look-alike product in my opinion.
There is a reason bridges doesn't look like this:

Is that really a fair comparison?  ;)


To call it rubbish is a pretty strong opinion, I assume you have tested it?
I agree that the design is not as good as the CSP design (ref. JHUs drawing) but my opinion is that if it prevents wheel hop then im satisfied.
It doesnt need to hold a bridge in my car  ;D

I don´t agrre, Marc!
There´s a healthy 2176cc engine in my car (best ET 12.9) and I don´t have any wheel hop although there is no traction bar mounted. Instead I´m using a solid mounted gearbox (with solid intermediate mount) and a set of torque bars (comparable to those by CSP). When I used rubber gearbox mounts (new VW items) but torque bars and intermediate mount (with rubbers instead of pieces of aluminium)  it suffered very bad wheel hop.
Bye,

Tobi

i personnally think wheelhop is caused by other factors as well.

so i wont go into that discussion as i don't know enough about it.

all i want to say is that diederick could buy this one OR maybe see what is needed after the car has been taken down the strip a few times. i agree with the extra support that is needed. but if you need to stiffen up the whole car with a 1914cc engine... i am not sure.

anyway as for the type3 setup. it acts like a berg traction bar. it is mounted rigid on the case and fitted in rubber mounts on the car. basically it was used in type3's that don't have framehorns and IRS suspension. it could make a nice addition, but like Jason said it wont really solve the problem off the engine rotating into the gearbox. then you have to go solid alltogether.

and i think that a good set off shocks, and a good tirepressure could avoid a good deal off wheelhop.

"Just a look-alike product in my opinion."

A look-a-like of what?

(http://www.csp-shop.de/shop/images/artikel/17704.jpg)

I do not agree.. but time will show.

I`m not a brigde builder and certainly not a tech painter but I do recall seeing bridges similar to this;

Both of you should do a file - exit on ms paint and get back to work  8)

That's funny BB! ;D

though i used the bugpack picture, i was actually looking at this 1" 4130 chromoly made in USA truss bar.

(http://www.kustom1warehouse.net/v/vspfiles/photos/6518-11-3.jpg)

it's a 1/4" thicker than the bugpack item. according to the vw shop it will eliminate the need for a traction bar. but they couldn't tell me if it will interfere with the z-bar.

p.s. how about this for a bridge  :P
(http://www.freewebs.com/roffafm/blog070104_erasmusbrug_paars.jpg)

no that is a dutch bridge... wouldn't last.

 ;D

Now that is a look-a-like!

 :)

At least its black.... I should paint mine...

Your luck must be better than mine. I fitted one to my dads car and it took all sorts of modifying to make it work. I wasn't impressed.

I had the rear support bar on my '67 years ago. They made the square tubing too thin, it would bow under the engine! I got into the habit of flopping it over about every 2 weeks or so ::)

Their rear support bar is indeed crap! On the bright side it's at least chromed...  ::)

Dam right! I have a few cool ideas for mine though  ;) Also is it just me or does the use of "Hemi-joints" in these so called truss bars inherantly allow FLEX/TWIST thus defeating the point of them  :-\ :)

I was thinking of making some for my car, do they need to be adjustable??
Was thinking about just making bars and welding them to the frame horns and the shock mounts.

Jelle

I think it has to be adjustable to be tension on the car.

I only have a 1835cc in my bug, but with urethane mounts on the back, a heavy duty oem vw front mount and a Joel Mhor support on the gearbox nose, I never have wheel hop.
But what do you think is the cause of wheel hop?

Do you think that strengthening piece welded on the chassis as this one are useful? 

Don't forget - that picture is of the underneath of a chassis which has had the torsion housing raised. You can't add bracing like that to a stock chassis.

Ha ok! That's what I didn't understand. Thank Keith.  ;)

They don't need to be adjustable, just rigid.  Adjustability just makes installation easy in every car.

Anyone hav any thoughts on my point about the hemi joints  :-\ ??? :)

Do They make a Truss for an early pan? with the straight upper shock bolts?

hey subee look at the one at eyeball-engineering.net, he has early and late truss bars way better than any out yet.  take a look hope this helps

Cool, then welded bars it will be...

well this is way old now seems but heres a shot of my trussbar setup finally....

(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/YAVE123/P1040879.jpg)

I couldnt run a traction bar on my 343. I ran the CSP truss bar and it eliminated all wheel hop and helped click off 1.4-1.6 60 foots too  ;)

Here you go BB, a crash course in bridge building (truss) construction:

Wiki: "The nature of a truss allows for the analysis of the structure using a few assumptions and the application of Newton's laws of motion according to branch of physics known as statics. For purposes of analysis, truss are assumed to be pin jointed where the straight components meet. This assumption means that members of the truss (chords, verticals and diagonals) will only act in tension or compression."

In other words, the point is to design so there is no bending...  the CSP design has no bending, while the other design relies on the top bar being stiff enough not to bend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truss_bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truss_bridge)

ive had my eye on one of them for a while  ;D
the tranny brace looks good as well .

hey you guy's are talking about a truss bar?  Why do you have to  HACK on the body make it fit?  CSP I spoke to them about it, at the Bug-in , they pretty much looked the other way.  Don't get me wrong nice piec of machine work  I had one but sold it, didn't want to detroy my car. IMO

What do you guys say about the Eyeball engineering kit?

Here you go the link:

http://eyeball-engineering.net/TorqueBar.html (http://eyeball-engineering.net/TorqueBar.html)

I like it

I like it too, but do they have it in stock?

hey BeetleBug,

send thema mail to :  Productquestions@Eyeball-Engineering.net

the way its designed , it should suffer more flex on the horizontal bar , but its nice and thick to overcome that .
means there is no chance of clashes with big headers too .

the way theres a joint makes it easier to fit too .

as i said earlier , the tranny brace is a nice piece of kit ...

I basically built an exact copy of the black one like in this pic.  Here are pics of mine.  I also used 1"x.120" mild steel hydraulic tubing, w/ 1/2" heims.  I welded brackets to my solid rear mount rather than fab an eyelet set up for the frame horn bolts. 

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/0103091616-00.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/0103091616-02.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/0103091616-03.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/0103091616-04.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/1227080750-00.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/1227080751-01.jpg)
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Hotrodvw/1227080749-00.jpg)

  Looks good nice work, I have a little question on the Beefiness of some of the tabs but looks like you did a good job.

 I'm very happy with how mine came out here's a shot again done by Mike at 407 sppeed shack in Downey Ca. Welded in but no cutting of body.

  (http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/YAVE123/P1040879.jpg)

I'm not racing yet, so it hasn't been 'thoroughly' tested yet.  Weld in didn't appeal to me.  I like things removeable.  I've never liked something so much I had to have it forever.......except for my wife.   ;)

Not to change the subject, but what is the best way to keep the rear frame horns from flexing? Tieing it into a roll cage?

--louis

1 : tied into the cage .
2 : welded to chassis .
3 : truss bar / tranny brace / traction bar .

It amazes me that people are willing to go down the strip in 12 second cars without any form of roll over protection. If I was putting in some form of bracing system into the back of a car that would see any amount of track time, I would take the opportunity to add at least a roll bar and rear diagonals.

true.

BUT in Belgium (where else  ::) ) it is illegal to put a rollbar or cage in a car that is driven on the street. i have heard it and asked myself and they said it is illegal. can't get my head around that either as all new cars basically have rollcages build into the chassis and case...

Hi Guys,

Here are my experiences.
I did run a berg mid mound on rubber and torque bars. ( similiar to CSP stuff )
Both did not help to eliminate wheel hop.
I welded the lower part of the torque bar to the frame horns.... it ripped out of it.. serious! ( the weld was perfect )
After that I installed a stiffer and more solid rear gear box support, welded onto that no problem.
Still wheel hop.
I then fitted solid mounts to the berg mid mount  ( cheers Tobi ) and it got better, but wasn`t gone.
At last I fitted a rear engine support, not solid with rubber.
Since wheel hop is gone...

But one thing, the CSP torque bar has one big plus, the rear suspension gets much stiffer and the handling
of any fast street car improves by miles.
Excellent when you like a "snappy" back end.


Cheers Stephan

There is absolutely no need to hack up the body with the CSP bar. You just need to have the long block with exhaust pipes
1 and 3 ready, to make/tack the lower brackets. The upper bar is the "easy" fit.

(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g32/pip90808/trussbar.jpg)

Oldspeed setup

I would move the tranny cradle ends down as close to the frame horns as possible.

That does not look like it is giving good triangulation.

--louis

Dam right! I have a few cool ideas for mine though  ;) Also is it just me or does the use of "Hemi-joints" in these so called truss bars inherantly allow FLEX/TWIST thus defeating the point of them  :-\ :)
[/quote]

Anyone hav any thoughts on my point about the hemi joints  :-\ ??? :)
[/quote]

OK..........I'll bite.  I thought about this also.  I pre-loaded the down bars with the floor jack under the cradle.  Basically, I put the the weight of the car on the rear trans mount.  Nothing moved.  This is how I set mine up., so it's pulling upward.  If anything, the frame hors won't go any further.  My heims if anything are being pulled on.  

Anyone hav any thoughts on my point about the hemi joints  :-\ ??? :)
[/quote]

OK..........I'll bite.  I thought about this also.  I pre-loaded the down bars with the floor jack under the cradle.  Basically, I put the the weight of the car on the rear trans mount.  Nothing moved.  This is how I set mine up., so it's pulling upward.  If anything, the frame hors won't go any further.  My heims if anything are being pulled on. 
[/quote]

Hmmm interesting BUT Just the wait of the car is very different to the forces involved when launching on a sticky track with slicks  :-\  :)

Possibly........but my car is a street car, not a race car.  It may occasionally see track time, but only on radials.  For my application, I think the heims are fine.  That said.....I have a friend that runs the same set up that I have on the track w/ M&H DOT slicks and has no issues either.