Crossmember Bars POLL

[sad_rocc at yahoo.com (Dan Smith)]

It's nice to see people discussing and analyzing the bar rather than just saying it's useless but come on, we're not talking about a space age subframe for the next Challenger or anything. Does it work? Maybe, I'd even go as far as to say probably. It's worked for Tobias definitely. Those endplates are big hunks of expertly welded steel. Sure, someday they may fail. But if you're abusing your car enough to make them break, I'm sure you'll have replaced plenty of other parts before the bar. It's quite possible that there could be areas for design improvement but don't fix what isn't broken. 
 
Tobias drove his car hard, cracked the hell out of the crossmember, put THIS design bar on ~2yr ago and the cracks haven't grown at all. I suppose it could be a coincidence, but it seems generally the cracks get bigger unless at least a stop hole is drilled. That's hard enough proof for me. And at $165 (shipped I believe, which is not a small amount), which granted is not quite pocket change, is still not a bank breaker. People spend tons on plenty of other useless performance/security items, like armor door plates, K&N filters, ABD big bore pipes and the like. All of these items have been proven to do zip and yet people buy them without question. Why is there so much controversy when this bar has shown benefit (arguably) and no downside? At worst, it adds a little weight to the lower front end of the car, which is not a terrible place for a little extra weight to be.
 
Like I said, if you want to argue the theoretical merits of 2 degrees more bend here or a slight sizing change there, cool! But if you want more proof, you're S.O.L. This is it, all the info on the bar. 5yr from now if people want to come back and discuss how the bar performs there will probably be more info out there and more hard evidence. They also will probably be NLA. For the hardcore engineering skeptics, all I can suggest is buy it, put it through whatever rigorous tests you can think of and if you still think it's useless sell it close to what you paid. They're a hot item.
 
Dan - overworked, stressed and tired of the insane amount of nitpicking lately (and not just this topic) 
 

		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Sports
 Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football