Phase 9: ZZP Strut Tower Brace
Received in the mail on Wed, the 23rd or August. I cannot wait to get this on
Got this installed with the help of the Prez of my car club here in CT on Saturday, and man does this thing really make the engine bay pop. So before I bought this, I was patiently waiting for BMR to come out with a 1-piece Strut brace, but I wanted to get this one because I was getting my catch can system around the same time.
1st attempt at installation, I was way too confident haha. I was like, "this is gonna be a breeze, how hard could it be?" Well... I just thought that those black bolts and nuts would just clamp down on the heim joints and voila, Strut Brace installed... Not that simple. Got the base towers connected and tightened, then I tightened the black bolts, tightened the silver nuts to the bar. The bar still had a couple INCHES of play to the front and to the back. I had no idea why it was still moving when everything was tight. Ended up taking it off, calling dad and he ended up being just as confused as me as to why it was so difficult.
2nd attempt, this pretty much was the result of me having a crappy day at work, coming home and saying to myself, "you were just being an idiot last time, this is gonna be easy" Welp, foiled again. Still had no clue as to why the bar was still loose when everything was tight as can be. I called ZZP (they do not have a live customer service, service. Which was kind of annoying because this was on a Sunday so I wouldn't be getting a call until at least Monday.) and left a pretty idiotic sounding voicemail saying that I had no idea what was going on and everything is tight, etc... Took it off again and waited to ZZP to get back to me.
3rd attempt... So I got an email back from ZZP which told me exactly what needed to happen for the bar to be set. After the braces were bolted to the towers, I needed to loosen the heim joints, put one of them facing forward and the other facing backwards, tighten the silver bolts to the bar and then tighten the black bolts. (This took two people, I do not know how I could possibly have done this myself). Took some fanagling but we got it on.
I absolutely love the way this looks on my car. Since the Camaro already has "mini-struts" as I like to call them. It has not made a huge performance difference or any at all yet. This is pretty much just aesthetic but I am sure it provides some kind of cornering assistance.
MY REVIEW OF THE STRUT BAR
Can't pass this up for $100 bucks as the BMR ones for the SS models range from $120-$250. Was a little more trouble than I would have liked but I figured it out and it looks amazing (especially with the Catch Cans
)
Phase 9... Complete.