Hi guys, I see that many high performance sports cars have a front strut brace to improve the suspension handling. Is the brace actually a cosmetic gimmick or does it actually benefit the handling of the car. I'm wondering why the F Type doesn't have a strut brace. Your message thoughts please. Thanks.

 

In some respects it helps performance, but it certainly depends on how rigid the chassis is. Based on what I know about chassis design, my assumption is there wasn't significant enough clearance to fit one between the strut towers and the hood; and likely the chassis is stiff enough that the engineers didn't want to mess everything up just to add one.

 

Look under the hood, the F-Type already has four braces, all of which are bolted to the strut tower area. So in effect it already has a "front strut brace", it's just in four pieces and it runs front to back rather than side to side.

 

Do you really think that the F-Type chassis is not stiff enough?

The convertible is already 10% stiffer laterally than the XKR-S Coupe, and the suspension mounting rigidity in particular is noted to be 30% stiffer than the XKR-S.

And then the F-Type Coupe is noted to be 80% stiffer than the Convertible...

Numerous road tests and reviews of the Convertible when it was first released saw comments like "it shows no scuttle shake or flexing at all"

I don't think anyone ever complained about the chassis not being stiff enough... especially a Coupe...

 

+1. Other than a couple of birdcage frame cars I've had, this is the first where I have sensed absolutely no chassis flex.

 

strut brace is a bandaid for a flexy chassis......not needed on the F type.

Dave