found a way to rig ebay C pillar bars on sohc cars

[tastyratz]

Hey
This is just as an fyi. I picked up a generic c pillar 89-93 fastback brace from ebay for like 30 bucks from a guy ezplus2003. He was selling prettymuch what everyone else had. I know the sohc cars have different seatbelt mounts than dohc cars but I figured the threading was long enough. Aparently not...

the bar included was 40" long, what was required was 43.5 according to my measuring tape to really fit nicely on 89-90. I emailed the guy back and forth and he actually worked with me on things. We came to the conclusion that the brace for the rsx is already 43.5 in long! This is something he already knows now (although I dont think hes updated his auctions to make people specify) but I thought I would pass this information on to others who may want to order a part from this guy (recommended) or from any of the other ebayers selling the same thing. I have the rsx C pillar brace installed in my 90 240 as we speak and it looks/ seems like it will function great!

Its easy to make a dohc one out of bar stock since its flat, but sohc ones are either very expensive or not really available. Now we have a cheaper available option here...

[Flipzide]

haha nice good to know :bigok:

[phrozen]

just buy a 4' section of piping from home depot, cut it to size, hammer the ends flat and drill 2 holes. Best c pillar bar imo, no adjustable brackets no weak points, just fucking beefy. Trust me i came up with this idea long time ago, and lots of ppl use it nowadays. Wether it be dohc or sohc dosent matter and you can still use stock seatbelts. did for 2 years with no problems. and what cost like 5 bucks? if that, and u can polish it super easy or paint it. 6 bucks will get you the best cpillar bar $ can buy

[tastyratz]

If you can fabricate up something yourself then absolutely thats great!. If you dont have the means to do it properly though you may find yourself with sub par results after several hours of work.
Theres several problems with DIY on this one specifically sohc cars
Anything soft enough that you can hammer flat by hand is probabbly not going to be stiff enough to really be worth it. The bar I have has such thick pipe wall that I probabbly could never hammer it flat or put a bend on the ends like I would need (probabbly a 45deg ish angle)

Another problem with the sohc one is since theres the angle and other crap there in the way that makes it hard to impossible to make precise measurements. This means your going to have to drill 2 holes by eye and hope your on target. Because its impossible for someone to probabbly get that dead nuts the first time your going to have to either elongate the holes or use larger diameter holes effectively also introducing slop. It also is not avoidable on a sohc period because of the angle
You have your car and the 2 bolts are angled like so:

....../\_____________________/\
...../.......................................\
.../...........................................\

If you are trying to slip on a bar that is 1 piece straight on this going
^.............................................^
||............................................||

It will mean the holes wont line up.
Best way to think of it. Pretend the bolts are in place but floating- not attached to a c pillar to get in the way. If you were to measure the distance between the base of the bolts and the tip of the bolts you would have 2 very different numbers. The only way to make a bar that would slide on would be having an oval bolt hole as wide as the widest point and as narrow as the most narrow point. Once the bar is installed you have slop from the extra hole space- effectively allowing flex and turning it from a brace to a coathanger.

With a sohc the only way to effectively re-enforce that pillar would be to use something incorporating a bracket. Another benefit of a bracket like you would need is that you can pre-tension the brace (good thing)

Although your idea works great for 91+ with the simplicity of the pillar design, it has flaws when trying to use this on older chassis. If I had a dohc car I would probabbly buy some rectangle bar stock and drill 2 holes then be done, little bit trickier for us sohc drivers though...

[95zilvia]

Let's see some pics Phrozen!!!

[phrozen]

sheesh i thought everyone in the bay has seen my car. umm man those pics are 2 years old imma have to find out which hard drive its on ( have like 5 hard drives) haha if i can find em ill post em. var did his on pinky (sohc) and got it the first time

[i8yourfwd]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/intelectualism/DIYhatchbar/hatchbar-012.jpg
Home Depot FTW

[AllenRPS13]

any pics of yr c pillar bar? i wanna see how it looks like

[i8yourfwd]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/intelectualism/DIYhatchbar/hatchbar-010.jpg

were you talking to me?

[tastyratz]

i 8 did exactly what I would have done if I had a dual... square aluminum extrusion

[95zilvia]

make me one, grrrrr
better pictures of the mount. im too lazy to think to DIY anything myself.

[i8yourfwd]

make me one, grrrrr
better pictures of the mount. im too lazy to think to DIY anything myself.
Just heat up the edges and pound it flat.. then measure where to drill holes.. then drill holes.. then bolt up :)

[Sliders562]

what i did was i bought the c-pillar bar from ebay and it didn't fit my car beacuse of the seat belt assembly but yea i end up sacrificing my rear seat belts assembly in my hatch back and installed the c-pillar clean cut and it functions awesome stiff and sweet

[i8yourfwd]

i 8 did exactly what I would have done if I had a dual... square aluminum extrusion
How different are the SOHC points? I never really took a close look at them.

[WILDACEX187]

does that thing actually do anything or does it just obstruct your rear view?

[phrozen]

does not obstruct ur view unless ur short =D

[tastyratz]

it actually does something on a hatch, but not on a coupe. The C pillar does not have anything to keep the rear stiff where the hatch is and tends to flex. This wont be like adding a strut tower bar but you would probabbly feel it before useless mods like floor bars.

The SOHC mounts are very different from the DOHC mounts. Dohc C pillars are perfectly paralell so you just need a flat bar with 2 holes (easy)
SOHC mounts are actually V shaped and the bolt points towards the glass at an angle making it impossible to drill holes in flat stock.

[WILDACEX187]

so the do-luck floor bar does nothing but a ebay c-pillar does?

[tastyratz]

Somehow I suspect sarcasm.

Do-luck makes great quality products, however there are braces made for our cars that have very moot differences and tend to not really be worth their weight. Floor bars and rear lower tie bars are great examples of that.

The C-pilar for the hatch model 240 is most definitely a point that will cause alot of flex. Re-inforcing this (whether with an ebay bar, a piece of extrusion, or a high end mandrel bent purty powdercoated type-r brace from JDMOMGcorp.) is a good idea and will produce more beneficial results.
This is a high up point which matters alot when considering flex (think of how people comment the way a convertible will feel sloppy vs a hardtop)

[WILDACEX187]

well i've never experienced neither so i cant comment. i saw one of these bars on a coupe and it was right in the middle of the rear window. didnt see how that helps any but i guess a hatch is different.

[tastyratz]

the coupe doesnt have such a long unbraced C pillar like a hatch does. Coupe its for cool kid "but its reflective and shiny" appeal. No real point to brace that since the rear seats have the metal going across.

Hatch its actually a point of flex and one of the larger reasons a hatch isnt as stiff as a coupe...

[S13_Project]

^^^can you please post a picture of the c-pillar bar you have?

[nrg]

There's hardly any flex at the C piller. The middle of your car flex, and the strut tower mounts flex. THAT's IT! there's a formula and math calculation on why there's flex there. It's a unibody frame anyways. google it up.

The b to c and c to c piller bars got popular amoung the honda crowd. it's a bling object for them. Hopefully you understand this.

[boost]

so are you using the mounting brackets from the rsx bar or 240sx bar or are they the same?

[BlackSilEighty]

Only downside to Home Depot piping is that it's heavy. Probably about 3 times heavier than a billet pillar bar. But besides that it's great because it's so cheap.

[theicecreamdan]

There's hardly any flex at the C piller. The middle of your car flex, and the strut tower mounts flex. THAT's IT! there's a formula and math calculation on why there's flex there. It's a unibody frame anyways. google it up.

The b to c and c to c piller bars got popular amoung the honda crowd. it's a bling object for them. Hopefully you understand this.


so I guess ALL the forces a car encounters go straight to the strut tower mounts and the middle and thats it?

[BlackSilEighty]

There's plenty of flex everywhere... If you've ever messed around with a completely stripped car (no engine, no panels, no interior, no nothing) it flexes like crazy.

[tastyratz]

Yes it is using the brackets and bar from an rsx. The brackets are fairly universal and it fits like a glove.

nrg: you would be surprised with how much the rest of the car flexes. If this wasnt true then why would adding a sunroof or driving a convertible cause the chassis to lose stiffness?
Wanna find out how much the car flexes? take a piece of string and tie it tight from one seatbelt bolt to the other. have someone whip your car around taking hard turns and beating it up, you should actually be able to see the string go limp/taut. This is a great way to establish points of weakness in any chassis, not just the C pillar.

[Ghettokracker71]

Good idea tastyratz,thanks I'ma hav e some string tied to the Dc4 for a while haha..

There's hardly any flex at the C piller. The middle of your car flex, and the strut tower mounts flex. THAT's IT! there's a formula and math calculation on why there's flex there. It's a unibody frame anyways. google it up.

The b to c and c to c piller bars got popular amoung the honda crowd. it's a bling object for them. Hopefully you understand this.

I've seen them on one car on a pic onetime and have googled it several times and haven't found info for shit...happen to know where I can find anything out about them? If nothing else,sheer curiosity has the best of me

[Sliders562]

CLEAN INSTALL yet sacrifice rear seat belts

[Sliders562]

more pics up close

for FASHBACK

[nrg]

I've seen them on one car on a pic onetime and have googled it several times and haven't found info for shit...happen to know where I can find anything out about them? If nothing else,sheer curiosity has the best of me

so you buy items and think they work? Take a class at UTI for your answers. :)
the car is a FASTBACK. if you take apart the entire interior, you will see how the car is built and the reason why that c piller will be useless.
Now if the car is a damn astro van, the c piller would work.

[2wo4orty]

ok just wondering how hard would it be to
make brackets for the sohc