BT Tech Strut Tower Brace install pictures and Text

Come on Boo, get a move on.

 

I installed my strut tower brace and it seems to have tightened up the front of the car. Turn-in seems better and the car feels more solid on the twisties. I commute through an 8 mile canyon road 4 days per week at an average of 50 MPH. I give this a "good improvement" rating.

 

Uh-oh. That's another 6 more weeks of winter for me and mine.

 

Thanks Evan for your detailed report. I am glad to see that you were able to install our strut tower brace without too much drama!!

Please let us know your impressions after you put some miles on it!!

 

Very few crashes are planned.

 

Don't know much about this stuff, but it seems to me that given the location and apparent strength of the strut tower brace: (1) it will not interfere with proper, impact-absorbing crumpling, and (2) it will only help in stopping intrusions into the interior cage.

 

I'm thinking more and more about this one. My car does seem to have a mild case of the jitters over uneven pavement; the weighty 16" Bridgestone RE01's aren't helping any, either, I suppose.

As far as the brace's effect on the car's deformable structure, I think the best we can do is speculate.

 

I thought you put TOMs braces on yours?

 

Hey there Pinto Girl... When I installed our strut tower brace on my car, the first thing I noticed other than decreased understeer in turns was that the front of the car felt a lot more solid when going over railroad tracks or uneven/poor road surfaces.

 

Attached MS Word File of OP's Installation Pictures & Instructions

Lee,

Thanks again for your flickr set BT Tech Strut Tower Brace Install Pictures and Text. Great stuff.

Because I won't have internet access on the NYC street where I'll be doing my install, I've put your flickr set of 41 photos and text (plus efusco's post and your response thereto) into the attached Word file. That way I (and others similarly situated) could access it while doing the install.

 

My comments about crumple zones was a response to someone saying the brace would strengthen the car in a crash. That isn't its purpose and it's doubtful it will have much affect at all on crash safety. No telling without testing.

 

We just finished packing up and shipping out our last batch of BT Tech Strut Tower Braces!! For those of you that have had these on order for some time, please check your email for your UPS tracking info.

 

Welcome back, Pinto Girl. I've missed your cogent posts. I got mine installed today and can't believe how much better it tracks. The understeer is gone and it's almost like driving a BMW. It's going to difficult to drive my Prius economically!

 

Hello All,

Quick question, from the pictures it looks like the brace bar blocks one of the black fuse boxes attached on the firewall right below the plastic weather strip. How difficult is it to remove the strut bar if one needs to gain access to this blocked fuse box?

Thanks!

 

As many have said, very helpful pictures, which helped me yesterday when I installed mine, partly because the official instructions don't touch on the sequence of that last few re-install items.

And, the bar is a Very Good Thing. I have high standards for handling" and my other car is an M3 BMW with a TC Kline Racing suspension, camber plates, etc.. However, with the BT stiffening plate and this bar, like BT Tech I think I am now satisfied with the Prius' handling, particularly in minor ways as he noted -- like the solid feeling when I turn from the street into my upward sloping driveway.

Several installation comments:

1. As instructed, I tightened the nuts on the shock tower mounting plates, but the bar wouldn't fit into its slots until I loosened the nuts on one mounting plate. The bar then fit in, and everything seemed ok.

2. The bar (maybe mine is off a bit, see above) seems so close to the top of two of the fluid reservoirs (see pictures) than I assume the bar has to be removed to add fluids.

3. Fitting the relay box back behind the bar by squeezing it over the top of the fluid reservoirs was very difficult, with nasty plastic-cracking noises. Again, maybe my bar (& shock towers?) are not quite perfect. Doing it again, I would experiment with putting the relay box behind the bar before the bar is installed.

4. I guess that it will be possible to take the bar out as needed without disassembling the whole kaboodle. Seems like you could get a box end wrench on the back side, and the front nut is readily available. However, if I had to have one mounting plate loose to get the bar to fit into the slots, then I suppose that would also be the case when temporarily removing it, so all the shields etc, would have to be removed.

5. Cautions:
a. One of the bolts had come loose from the mounting plate during shipment, and thus two of the stainless steel washers had come loose and were missing -- I found them hidden between the flaps at the unopened end of the box.
b. DONT DROP ANYTHING over the engine -- things are so tight there that it won't drop through to the ground, you probably can't see it, and if you can see it you will have a hard time getting it. I dropped both a stainless steel washer and the little black cover that goes over the nut that secures the driver's side wiper arm on its post, and felt that it was a miracle that I could retrieve the cover. The washer is missing entirely.

 

Thanks for your post and your impressions of our product.

When I designed the BT Tech Strut Tower Brace, I made sure that there was sufficient clearances in the design. This means that routine maintenance can be performed WITHOUT having to remove our brace.

One of the main design goals of this product for me was to maintain an OEM type fit and finish and to make sure that it would NOT get in the way of normal maintenance.

 

I had the same issue with the spacing of the bar over the engine coolant filler on my '07 Touring as the previous post

2. The bar (maybe mine is off a bit, see above) seems so close to the top of two of the fluid reservoirs (see pictures) than I assume the bar has to be removed to add fluids.

​

The clearance is only about 10 mm (see attached picture) with cap down. You can not remove the cap under the bar.

Is this correct?

Do other users have this problem?

The only way to refill the coolant would be to remove the bar or drop the coolant reservoir from it's mounts.

I expect to hear about this when I take the Prius in for it's next service at the dealer.

Great product but I think there is a problem with either the build of the latest batch or maybe it was not checked across all years of Prius'es.

Any ideas on best way to be able to refill my coolant?

I also had to give up on remounting the relay box (you can see relay box hanging below the mounts in the picture). Not enough room behind the bar without bending the metal tray so much the wiper motor assembly would not mount in the tray.