BMR Watts Link - Teaser

[Whiskey11]

On my WL watts link, they supply the eq of a pan hard bar upper BRACE. The oem ford pan hard bar brace is fubar imo... just 3 sided. Originally I tossed the oem ford PHB and brace and replaced it with the BMR on car adjustable PHB and heavy duty upper PHB brace. That BMR brace is made from rectangular tubing..and makes the oem Ford brace look like junk.

The eq of that brace that comes from WL is chromoly tubing. I can see the brace in the pix that kelly posted. At $500.00 they will be flying off the shelves.

That brace is only ever in tension/compression. Any rigidity you are trying to add in torsion is going to be extremely minimal because of the way it mounts on the driver side. Those two bolts simply aren't strong enough to keep the chassis from twisting. In that regard the OEM brace is more than capable of dealing with the forces it will actually see. It isn't pimpy looking but it does the job. As much as Kelly doesn't like me to say it, an aftermarket brace there is a waste of money.

Now if Kelly has chassis deflection numbers pre and post brace installation proving otherwise, I might believe the claim that an aftermarket brace is "better".

 

[Sky Render]

Whiskey is right. I upgraded my panhard brace and felt precisely zero difference.

 

[Norm Peterson]

On my WL watts link, they supply the eq of a pan hard bar upper BRACE. The oem ford pan hard bar brace is fubar imo... just 3 sided. Originally I tossed the oem ford PHB and brace and replaced it with the BMR on car adjustable PHB and heavy duty upper PHB brace. That BMR brace is made from rectangular tubing..and makes the oem Ford brace look like junk.

Here's where a little background in civil/structural pays off. For the only loads that the OE PHB is ever supposed to see, a 3-sided cross section is entirely adequate - given that it was given adequate analysis and testing. Crash standards and such being what they are, this is a reasonable assumption.

The weak direction that everybody sees in it? It's not loaded that way unless somebody does something stupid like try to tow the car out of a ditch by tying off to the PHB brace. And if you hit a curb sideways with a rear wheel hard enough to bend this brace, that'll be the small part of the damage.

I don't particularly care if anybody swaps their car's OE PHB brace out for an aftermarket one, as long as they understand that the OE brace really is strong enough. Certainly for any street driving or any driving most anywhere on street tires it is.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

the current RC adjustments are roughly about 3/4" above the axle centerline....down, close to 3" or so below.

Hmmmmm . . . I wonder if this little piece of information drove the design of some other new part . . .


Norm

 

[csamsh]

That brace is only ever in tension/compression. Any rigidity you are trying to add in torsion is going to be extremely minimal because of the way it mounts on the driver side. Those two bolts simply aren't strong enough to keep the chassis from twisting. In that regard the OEM brace is more than capable of dealing with the forces it will actually see. It isn't pimpy looking but it does the job.

Beat me to it

 

[Norm Peterson]

All the brace really does is split up the PHB load to the two frame rails and keep the chassis side "pedestal" from being bent over and twisting its frame rail structure. Without a brace, the pedestal would be a simple cantilever, which is not a structurally efficient approach to begin with (higher stresses and greater deflections under load, for which you very likely end up paying for with heavier overall weight and no structural redundancy).


Norm

 

[BMR Tech]

Can't say I disagree. As a matter of fact, if you speak with one of the many customers I have planned suspension set-ups for, over the years, they will probably even tell you that I usually steer them into another direction.

HOWEVER - there is always more to a given situation.

In our case, like I stated above, we built ours more-so, with clearance in mind.

What this does, is, it provides more clearance than the OEM piece, as well as most other's available.

The bend, where it is, allows for more clearance between the PHR Itself, and the PHR Support bar.

We also user a shorter tube size - that helps with clearance on some exhaust applications.

So, while I agree that this specific item is not super crucial, in terms of upgrading for performance benefit - I assure you, I sell many of these by request, due to the design of it for specific application and/or occurrences.

That's all.

 

[csamsh]

Oh boy look at that bend. So yeah, if that piece is bent, it's going to experience more forces than just coaxial ones (wrt the support), so the boxed and strong nature of that piece are probably necessary. Look up pictures of what happens to panhard bars that get bent...they don't last long.

 

[BMR Tech]

Doing some last minute test fitting and measuring, before finalizing the design and starting product release process and production.

Unfortunately, we have made several tweaks...so I don't have any clue on the pricing point right now.

Dat Roll Center Adjustment!

 

[Sky Render]

 

[Whiskey11]

Doing some last minute test fitting and measuring, before finalizing the design and starting product release process and production.

Unfortunately, we have made several tweaks...so I don't have any clue on the pricing point right now.

Dat Roll Center Adjustment!

I'm not sure air cooled rear diff bearings will work Kelly!

 

[cbass]

This one is designed to work for people with open differentials? What about us LSD guys?

 

[BMR Tech]

roflmao

Just part of the process guys. Don't worry, it actually comes with an invisible diff cover that doesn't even need all of the mounting bolts.

 

[sheizasosay]

Looking back at the original on post #1, looks like all your RC adjustments went =2orSouth of diff center. What did those top holes do to make you mad Kelly?

 

[BMR Tech]

Looking back at the original on post #1, looks like all your RC adjustments went =2orSouth of diff center. What did those top holes do to make you mad Kelly?

A few things.

That original post, I used just one of the several plates that we have been using for development.

Our part designer, Brett, (the founder of BMR)....decided that he wanted to put the RC positions slightly lower than the original plate. I won't question his engineering, he built BMR to what it is today. lol

It also allows for us to add the BMR logo to the plate. Anytime we can do that, we will.

 

[ocpony]

I'm not sure air cooled rear diff bearings will work Kelly!

That is hilarious!!!!

 

[BMR Tech]

Again, a few revisions. Shortened the arms a little, and modified the mounts. Still working on implementing as few gussets on the driver side bracket.

We are pretty thrilled so far. And, I can honestly say - not feeling the car sway from side to side under heavy acceleration sure is nice! when you see a REALLY fast manual trans S197....you always see the rear sway on the shifts, due to the panhard bar.

 

[popeye]

There are a lot of doubters on the benefits of a watts link for the straight line launch. I ran consistent 1.8 60' on toyo street tires with my saleen unit. Nice to see good progress.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Wes06]

sploosh........

 

[csamsh]

need more info on that rear brake setup