HM Kafer cup Brace

[Martice]

Hi guys,

I would like to find out, with your help, if a Kaefer Cup Brace can be made from scrach, and how to.
At fist site seems not to be a hard task, but I would like to hear the opinion of someone who've seen this brace and knows more about it befor I start testing my ideas.
At first, how does it work?is there anything special about its design and materials used?
Why is so expensive?($300 :p)


I am looking forward for your opinions on this! :)

Take care,

Martin

[Oliver Knuf]

It isn't everywhere that expensive. Mostly they cost between 200 and 250 bucks, when you have an eloxated version. The machinig of the fork ends with left- and right threads is problematic, so it's cost-intensive and aluminum itself isn't cheap. Then they are produced in 20 or 30 sets by several manufacturers and that makes them expensive. When you wait a bit longer, there will be a cheap Taiwan version, coming from Empi or Bugpack, I would bet. Then you have poorer quality but a good price and all people are crying about the quality!

Btw, my setup is self-built, costs togehter with the simple roll-cage inside totally around 80 bucks, but I machined all the screw-able ends on my own! It isn't adjustable, but machined to fit exactly! :) The design is different from the normal bracings that you know, as it's fitted together with the rear ends of my roll-cage.

[njv]

hello

do you know of any brace that will fit a typ 3 oliver IRS without frame horns as this is an area i would like to tie up on my car??

mfg.

[Martice]

Hi,
Thanks Oliver.

I figured out that if you design the brace for your own setup following its original design it wouldn't be hard at all.I mean the problem with the Kafer Cup Braces is that they have to be adjustble to fit all the chassis(spel) right?
If you make the bars "live" with the chasis in front of you there should will be no fiting problems.
But which is the position in which you should keep the car while fiting the bars?

It will be with the engine of, but it should be on the ground or lifted off the ground?.Hope you understand :silly:

I try to do it exaclty as you did it.

Martin

[Steve C]

Hi

I thought about making one using the VW tie rods & ends, that way they would be adjustable and if the tie rod arms need to be shortened you could just cut the end with rh thread and re tap it.

Steve C

[njv]

hi
thats a cool idear with tie rods what thread are they im fairly sure my local tractor shop would sell heim joints to fit in the ends as well !

or my local scrapyard has an old helicopter in for some reason at the minute and i know the controls on copters all use aircraft quality heim joints! must give it a closer inspection sometime.

i do need to tie my gearbox up badly just went out on the autobahn as it warmed up to 2 0c here it was windy as well got here up to 130 kph and cruised for 30 km head temp was a steady 350 o f and as soon as i dropped the speed down temps went down straight away keeping in mind the cht winter temp difference ie add 50 to what the gauge actually says i think its ok .

need to tie it all in more securely for the hard launches against the bmw guys at the lights ive had some pretty shocked faces so far. need to get the power down more even.

who sells lh thread taps and dies?

[kdanie]

www.speedwaymotors.com sells left hand taps in US sizes. They also sell high quality heim ends and threaded aluminum and steel tubes to make the links with. They have clevis type ends also. I have thought about building my own also.
After much thought I have decided that solid bolt in rods with out the clevis ends like the Kafer Cup braces or heim ends would be more rigid and cheaper. As Martin said, with the chassis available, adjustability is not necessary. I think with the engine in place and on the ground so the chassis is where it would normally be before the flex of hard driving is applied is the place to build it to.
ken

[njv]

hello
first moff good sorce for the parts for you usa guys but i guess it will be the local tractor shop for mr!!!me.

steel bar solid bar could get heavy quite quickly y not use tube steel or ally .

i have a plan for a brace growing in my mind made of ally with a certain amount of adjustability.

any good sites showing these type of things fitted would be much appreciated .

[Martice]

hmm...something good, like allways, may come up.Very interesting ideas!
about the position of the chassis, there was a discution on STF a while ago about how to make your own strut brace(another cool thing that I plan to do myself) and, if remember well, the conclusion was that you must keep the car off the ground when welding the brace...why? I don't remember...

It seems a better idea to keep the chassis at the usual form, as kdanie said, with all the usual weight pushing down when installing the braces.

[i heart vw]

i think that know what you guy are talking about...but since i'm a newbie i don't know for sure, but...any of you guy have a picture of the brace?

[kdanie]

There are some pictures of the brace in the suspension section on the home page.
ken

[chigger]

Since my pan was off the car any way I built my own. To make it easier and because I am using a Porsche trans, I went with the padded ureathane off road rear mount. You can use stock rubber mounts and stock trans with it. The mount has holes to mount the bottom part of an engine cage on it. It goes from frame horn to horn to beef them. I got it from scat.
There were a couple of holes where the Z bar used to go through the shock towers, but they are to low and the crossbar would hit the trans. Using the shock tower bolt holes was also out because I wish to use adjustable shocks and I didn't want to take the Kafer bar off to adjust the shocks. Right below and foward of the shock mount holes is a lightening hole. Looking around I found some 1/2 inch heavy wall tubing. I taped both ends with a 7/16 inch tap and drilled out two short pieces to 7/16 inch. Then the lightening holes were drilled out in line to connect each other on opposite sides with a 1/2 inch bit. Using long bolts and nuts I bolted together the long shock tower to shock tower tube with the short tubes in the holes I had drilled in the shock towers. Using washers to space every thing right I then tack welded the short tubes to the shock towers. Taking every thing apart I finished welding the short tubes into the shock towers. It welded well so it is cast steel and not cast iron.
For the short tubes from the shock towers to the rear of the trans mount I cut some 1/4 inch plate, drilled mount holes and band sawed the sides down alittle past the bolt holes so that I had a spine which would fit into the down tubes. It looks like a pancake turner with a hole in the wide flat part and the shaft of the turner goes into the down tube. Four of these were made for the four ends of the down tubes. Bolting every thing up the splines were bent to match the angles from the shock tower mount of the upper bar to the trans mount holes. With the top bar adjusted in place and the bottom two bars adjusted in place the ends of the bottom bars were tacked, the bars disassembled and completely welded.
For final assembly the bolt through the top mounts had two nuts on it one locks the tubing length and the other locks the bolt to the inserts I welded into the shock towers. The upper mounts for the down tubes also have the same bolt and nut fastening them to the shock towers. Only the top tube is adjustable.
Making the down rods adjustable did not make sense as if you pull in top rod the bottom rods pull up the wishbones. Now as far as preload, I could not get a definitive answer on this one so this is why I did what I did. On the rear of the engine the cooling tin does not line up most of the time it is below the lip of the body allowing air to escape. This means that the wishbones over time have been bent down by the weight of the motor. There fore with no weight on them they would be closer to the original position. Seeing as it would have complicated things alot more to have and engine and trans mounted while I did all this I had to assume the position the wishbones were in with no trans or engine would be close to what was needed. I went with the static height of the wishbones and the static width of the shock towers to be the desired dimensions.
It took about $30.00 in materials and about four hours. This is a very worth while modification. Before I could wack the wishbone with a rubber hammer and watch it vibrate. Now the whole pan vibrates.
It is alot easier than I can explain it. This is what I did and I stick with it. Hope it helps. Whew! That took an hour of typing!

[Martice]

Originally posted by i heart vw
i think that know what you guy are talking about...but since i'm a newbie i don't know for sure, but...any of you guy have a picture of the brace?

Hi,

There is a very good tech article in the 'Technical Articles' article 'Kafer Cup Brace instalation' on the GermanLook home page.

[Martice]

chigger,

Thanks for your hour of typing :)
What do you mean by heavy wall tubing?

:haveadrin

[chigger]

Thin wall tubing would be like conduit tubing. Less than 1/16 inch thick. Thick wall tubing is like what is used for the tie rods to fit in. It is usually about 1/8 inch thick wall and sometimes it also comes with just a small hole in it down the middle. A machine shop is a good place to look or even the junk yard. Look for some tie rods that are hollow. I don't think a VW tie rod is long enough for the long rod. But it is long enough for the short rods. You can also use metric taps. The steel tubing is not really that heavy.

[Martice]

Chigger,
Thanks for the clarification.