USCT Inner Fender Shock Tower Brace Kit - Fact or Fiction?

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383FormulaS67

383FormulaS67

Bob
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I've finished installing AMD inner fenders, and patched the floor brace from fender headers. I've read about the USCT Inner fender brace kit, and pulled the trigger on the credit card, But once I've received them, and tried a test fit, I got cold feet.

It appears to me, they put a lot of stress on the shock tower.... I'm looking for any A Body members who have installed these, and can tell us, if these are Fact or Fiction they do work??

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Actually they take a lot of stress OFF the shock tower. That load is carried back to the firewall with what ends up being a box beam.
 
383FormulaS67 said:
I've finished installing AMD inner fenders, and patched the floor brace from fender headers. I've read about the USCT Inner fender brace kit, and pulled the trigger on the credit card, But once I've received them, and tried a test fit, I got cold feet.

It appears to me, they put a lot of stress on the shock tower.... I'm looking for any A Body members who have installed these, and can tell us, if these are Fact or Fiction they do work??

View attachment 1715382560 View attachment 1715382561
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The shock towers on my '68 Barracuda were only attached to the inner fenderwells with a few spot welds at the very top. Several of them were starting to tear through the sheet metal of the inner fender.

I welded them solidly to the inner fenderwell, and then installed my USCT bracing. I have the old style ones with round tubing.

I welded in the front frame rail brace in too. I fab'd up a Monte Carlo brace, and that is when the last remnants of cowl shake disappeared.
 
Some of the products they are making now are real nice. We always just ran a tube from the cage through the firewall to the front of the rail. and attached the shock support to the tube mid way. These new braces you don't need the cage support bars. Some of these vender's have their **** together with engineering
 
C130 Chief said:
Actually they take a lot of stress OFF the shock tower. That load is carried back to the firewall with what ends up being a box beam.
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Thanks, that is my concern how the effect the shock tower. I did speak with USCT about that, and he did not confirm that...., so Just looking for someone who installed them and has run them on the car. Most I could find is people installing them, but no daily drivers...
 
jbc426 said:
The shock towers on my '68 Barracuda were only attached to the inner fenderwells with a few spot welds at the very top. Several of them were starting to tear through the sheet metal of the inner fender.

I welded them solidly to the inner fenderwell, and then installed my USCT bracing. I have the old style ones with round tubing.

I welded in the front frame rail brace in too. I fab'd up a Monte Carlo brace, and that is when the last remnants of cowl shake disappeared.
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Wow, what's cowl shaking, I've never experienced that?
 
When I worked at XV years ago, we developed all the chassis stiffening and tested it all on a four post chassis rig at Multimatic in Canada. When the pieces we made were all put on together, the stiffness of the chassis was on par with modern cars. This meant frame connectors, inner fender braces, lower rad support and Underwood brace. We never made an under hood brace for the A bodies.
After they went out of business, US car tool came out with lightweight versions of what we had and called it their own. They even made a crude copy of one of our videos demonstrating the stiffness with a floor jack...Our parts worked. I’m not sure if any legitimate testing has been done on their version.
 
383FormulaS67 said:
Wow, what's cowl shaking, I've never experienced that?
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I have a convertible so there is no support from the roof of the car to the top of the windshield and firewall area.

Cowl Shake occurs when the under windshield/firewall area flexes do to road motion transferred from mostly the front suspension but also the engine torque. By tying a mid-point of the front fenders to a center point of the firewall/cowl area with a Monte Carlo bar this flexing can be dramatically reduced.

Its simply a triangulated brace that supports the area just above the shock tower between themselves and the firewall/cowl. I feel it as a dash structure rattle/vibration between the front door mounting pillars.

It helps me to visualize our uni-body chassis based cars as flexing much like an empty shoebox. If you hold the box from both ends and lightly twist in opposite directions, the box has very little resistance to torsional flexing.
 
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jbc426, post a few pix of your under hood bracing. Not sure if it would be needed with a hardtop that has USCT bracing or not. I would be interested in cardstock templates of the USCT front subframe kit. Would only need them templated out for one side since the other is mirror opposite. I enjoy fabbing my own parts, and have 2 cars that would need to be braced up.
 
As of today USCT Motorsports Inner Fender Braces, Subframe connectors (for my 68 fish vert) and core support are all "on backorder". :( Anyone every dealt with them and had to wait a bit for this all to be made available again?
 
I suspect these are made in small batches to fill standing orders and place some inventory on the shelf for future sales. Once they have enough orders to pay for the run they'll have them made. Keep in mind these are small companies making low volume products. Maybe a dozen or so sets will sell each year. Did you call and ask when they thought the next batch would ship?
 
I used a bunch of their parts on my Duster project and it is a nice solid car. I'd say it is the most solid driving Mopar that I've been in. Typically the Mopar unibody cars will have a lot of flex when you go over bumps that are at an angle such as railroad tracks or pulling into a driveway at an angle but my Duster has very little body twist in those situations.
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C130 Chief said:
I suspect these are made in small batches to fill standing orders and place some inventory on the shelf for future sales. Once they have enough orders to pay for the run they'll have them made. Keep in mind these are small companies making low volume products. Maybe a dozen or so sets will sell each year. Did you call and ask when they thought the next batch would ship?
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that pretty much what I thought and agree. I asked in an email - waiting for response
 
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