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TSW X-Brace for the 02-06 MINI mounts under the vehicle for better torsional rigidity. Dr. Mike gets complete credit for the ingenious design done in true grassroots motorsports style. Fabricated and welded in the USA using 7/8" 4130 Chromoly and laser cut gussets then powder coated black. The TSW X-Brace uses 4 existing bolts and installs in 10 minutes.
Why the X design? Way, way more torsional rigidity than any other design, especially those with a ladder arrangement. Our design picks up the lollipop mounting points and ties those into the front rear subframe mount - we personally feel this will provide more benefit than anything else out there. From what we gathered while spending many nights laying under the car, there's really no point in going much farther up the front subframe. There's a lot of gussets and welds up there, and it's a pretty solid piece. The weak points, in our estimation, are the rear tie points and the lollipop mounts.
The X-style brace is designed to resist the twisting motion that goes along with the torsional loading of the chassis. In other words, the suspension will react more precisely to uneven surfaces, particularly in situations where one wheel experiences a bump or dip. It's designed to tuck up as far as possible but take it easy on those nasty speed bumps!
Registered: May 2006 Location: DC Metro Posts: 7695
Review Date: 6/9/2008
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 8
Pros:
kickass design
Cons:
pricey
easy install, tangible benefits. Sell it at $350ish and trim down the rear lollipops a bit for better clearance and you have a solid choice that is easy to recommend
OldRick 6th Gear
Registered: October 2005 Posts: 1407
Review Date: 2/5/2009
Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $380.00
| Rating: 8
Pros:
good improvement in frame rigidity
Cons:
additional low-freqency noise in the floorpan
The initial "review' of this product is essentially the manufacturer's description from their web site. While not inaccurate, it does not contain much detail. Here's some detail...
I recently replaced an OMP lower frame brace on my `05 S with a second-generation TSW X-brace. The second-generation of the product has no lollipops, but angle-brackets instead for less loss of ground clearance, and the design connecting the X has changed. Here are my thoughts comparing the X-brace with the simpler OMP bar.
First, the environment. I use my car for a lot of twisty mountain roads - around 20% of my total driving, and I've become very sensitive to handling changes on the roads that I know well. I strongly advocate the old racers maxim that one needs a rigid frame and a soft suspension, where "soft" is defined as the softest settings that never bottom out the suspension (because you lose a lot of grip when you hit the bump stops and have no remaining suspension travel - almost so as much as going airborne).
I've done more than most to make my road-and-street-driven car fit that spec, short of installing a roll-cage. I've got the Cabrio diagonal braces up front, an IE strut-top brace, and I've foamed the longitudinal frame members under the car for still more stiffness. I use a 20mm rear sway bar, IE fixed camber plates, and Koni FSD's, with lightweight 15" and 16" wheels. I've also got urethane bushings in the front and rear control arms and he lower motor mount.
So the replacement of the OMP lower brace with an X-Brace had some effects that were quite distinct. Remember, these comments are as subjective as it gets. First the good:
- The car corners "flatter" or at least with somewhat better-controlled body motion. Some of what I had believed was rear sway bar take-up during initial turn-in has gone away, which surprised me considerably. It feels almost as if I had installed solid-joint drop-links on the rear bar, with more immediate and more linear initial body roll. Apparently the frame flexed enough when torsional stress was applied to momentarily reduce the initial effects of the rear bar. Yikes!
- The car tracks straighter. I've got a few whoop-de-doos on my road home, where there are smooth sags in the road along the right shoulder of as much as 3-4" below the level of the rest of the road. These only affect the right side of the car, while the drivers side does not have the sag. Previously, these would cause a moderate tug at the wheel, and the car showed some tendency to steer away from the sag. With the X-brace, the car goes down and up a little more, but keeps going in a straight line without tugging at the wheel.
- The car is less affected by extreme grade changes. Although the cabrio diagonal braces helped a lot in reducing the tendency of the LSD to get "fooled" when crossing over a highly crowned centerline to pass, the bad habit of the LSD nearly wrenching the wheel out of your hand trying to turn back toward center is essentially gone with the X-brace.
Also, on a couple of hairpin turns where the grade dives down about 4 feet during the turn, my car just does it now, without any drama about losing your line when the body roll happens in the middle of the hairpin.
However, like the rest of life, nothing is perfect, and the X-brace has it's downside compared to the OMP. I'd criticize a couple of things about it:
- It transfers a bit of low-frequency noise and vibration to the floor-pan. Both road noises and engine noise are increased compared to the OMP, which did no such thing. I've corresponded with one NAM member who swaps the X-brace out after a track day in favor of an OMP for road use, and now I understand why.
- It could be stronger. Specifically, the gussets that connect the X have a plasma or EDM-cut TSW logo that cuts the gusset nearly in half. This does not appear in the image above. Each of the four gussets have this logo, which is about twice the size it needs to be, and is cut all the way through, instead of just being etched into the surface. I don't know if this actually weakens the gussets enough to matter, but they would clearly be stronger if they weren't sliced in half nearly all the way across by the logos.
- Finally, the price. At almost four times the cost of an OMP bar and with the downside of additional noise, it's not a clear-cut decision as to which is "better". Once I put my summer wheels/tires back on I may decide that the noise makes me crazy, and sell it off in favor of the Mini-Madness brace at half the cost. Remains to be seen.
So, there you are. All of life is a series of engineering trade-offs, and the X-brace is no exception. It’s a good product that does what it says, but there is a price one pays to get the benefits.
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