Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Strut brace for Ghibli

I've been after a front strut brace for my Ghibli for ages. I know that Sparco used to make one, as you can see from the picture below:


I found this picture on a Japanese blog, but since my Japanese is not too hot I couldn't make much of it. I found another picture of the strut brace also on this blog:


It looks like quite a simple design. I was a bit worried about having one made for the Ghibli (I've tried tacking down this Sparco one, but it was discontinued a while back and no one seems to have it in stock... maybe the Japanese bought up the entire stock?), since there are ridges on the top of the strut tower. However, it looks like the Sparco design just sat on top of these ridges? If they did this then I have to assume that it's OK? Here's another picture courtesy of the Maserati Club Holland:


If I do get one made up then it will likely be by the guys at Forge UK. They've already told me that they'd be prepared to make one for me if I sent them the dimensions, so I'll send them these pics and a few from my engine bay and seek their advice.

An alternative was offered to me on Enrico's Maserati pages. A guy in Italy makes some strut braces for Ghibli Cup racers, but these require welding onto the strut towers. I try and keep all my modifications reversible and this one obviously wouldn't be. It would also necessitate sanding down the the strut towers to remove the paint and expose the bare metal and then a paint job once the brace was installed. This is just too much work, so I'm definitely after a bolt on solution.

Another option is the brace offered by MaseratiNet, although I suspect that it's intended for earlier Biturbos and not the Ghibli. To be honest, I'm not too keen on its looks and think it's rather expensive. If I compare this to what I could have made by Forge, I think the Forge ones look much better and I know the quality is good, or at least I've been impressed with stuff that I've ordered off them in the past! Looking at the advertised range of products, I think a modified version of the Cosworth Alloy Strut Brace would be just the ticket for the Ghibli and would go nicely with by Forge Blow Off Valves! The general form and rise of the Cosworth brace seem very similar to the Sparco Ghibli one.


I'm probably not going to order anything yet, since I think it's best to get the car through its big service and overcome the CO emissions problems first, but this one is certainly on the back burner!

1 comment:

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