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First, for background, I like my car to have a rigid platform and soft suspension, attached through reasonably firm bushings. My suspension currently has Koni FSD's, urethane front and rear control arm bushings and lower engine mount, and three braces (now four). It's street driven, mostly on hilly, windy country roads. I've got an IE strut-top brace, Mini-Madness forward-trapezoid-type lower frame brace, and Mini Cabrio diagonal braces.
Of the above,the STB is almost useless, the diagonal braces are a nice low-cost upgrade, and the lower frame brace works quite well - better than the OMP brace it replaced.
The surprise to me was that the GTT mid-brace is also a pretty big improvement, almost as much so as the M-M lower forward frame brace.
What the GTT does is to tie the aft end of the lower subframe much more tightly to the bottom of the body, and brace the two sides of the sub-frame together across the "crease" where the exhaust runs. It reduces potential flex in the attachment of the engine and wheels to the body, and reduces geometry change under cornering stress.
The GTT brace is a nicely made piece, and reasonably priced at about US$125. Installation is about 10 minutes once you get at the bottom of the car - remove and replace four bolts.
The results were both distinct and obvious. When accelerating hard on a wet road, my tires (with LSD) would shudder and the car would swing from side to side at times, as they lost and regained grip - that is almost gone. Braking - same thing. At speed in a straight line, the car has far less tendency to follow the dips and bumps in the road - there is less kick-back from the wheel, and a real sense that the car is willing to go straight no matter what the road does, even hands-off. Cornering is noticeably more predictable, with both wheels holding traction quite a bit better, instead of bouncing around on irregularities.
As you can guess, I'm pretty impressed, although I expect that having the other three braces made the effects of this one much more obvious than they would be if you just added the GTT brace to a stock car. I would rate this, combined with a forward-trapezoid lower frame brace as being more effective than the Texas Speedwerks X-Brace.
Now for the price - 85 British Pounds is about US$125, reasonable, but GTT wanted 39 Pounds for S&H - about US$56. When I griped about the shipping cost, they backed off to "only" 29 Pounds (still US$42) and still a total rip-off to ship a piece that maybe weighs three lbs. if it was wet.
To top off the ripoff, it took twelve days to get here , as they mailed it instead of shipping via UPS or FedEx. My guess is that the cost to mail it was maybe $15.
The only part that annoyed me about this was the shipping and handling time and completely excessive cost - the brace is a really nice upgrade - recommended.
