I recently put a 3 in off road y pipe on my car and its been rubbing up against the brace that is right behind the trasmission brace, i dont know what it is called or what it does. Nothing is bolted to it and it doesn't seem to be holding anything up, but it was rubbing a hole in my y pipe, which passed over this brace and under the body of the car. so i ended up removing it, it was only held on by four bolts and it fixed my problem. does anybody know which brace this is and if there are any consequences of removing it if it needs to be in place i can cut a section out of it and weld in a piece that will fit around my y pipe and bolt it back on.

 

i believe you are referring to the "unibody connector"

it should be a 4 inch wide x about 14 inch long flat, wavy, black metal plate.

if thats what your talking about...


go ahead and take it out


all it is, is a unibody brace. its there to "stiffen" the chasis for side to side roll and twist. however... torque 1 bolt, diagonal opposite of each other up to the car, and see how much it twists on its own. that cast plate does all but nothing, and can safely be taken off of the car. if i idea of reducing the structural integrity of your chasis even the slightest bit bothers you, you can buy aftermarket braces with different clearences/spacers on www.summitracing.com they should run you $120-$200.

i had the same problem, and i removed mine. never had any problems, and i know others that have done the same.

 

I thought it looked a little flimsy to be adding any structural support so I'll just go ahead and leave it off. Thanks

 

Beleive me, if GM could have saved $10 and left it off they would have. While I have seen persons remove it and have no probelms. I have also seen two cars that were not running them where the panard bar mount ripped from the body.

I would run it, but it's your car.

 

i forget the term that relates to this... but it comes from a theory of cause and affect...

if i wore red yesterday and it didn't rain
and i wore blue today and it rained...

it doesn't necessarily mean, that BECAUSE i wear blue... it will rain.

see what i mean?



i can tell you with the utmost assurity, that little cast flat piece of metal does nothing to structurally enhace the car.

 

Seems funny GM would call it a "reinforcement". It is flimsy, though.

 

Doesn't it also serve as a sort of driveshaft safety device? Not a loop, but it might keep the shaft from digging into the ground if it broke.

That being said, I removed mine a LONG time ago, because I couldn't get it low enough to clear my exhaust.

 

The transmount will brace far more than that piece. I've been w/out on for a year of true daily driving w/no probs. I know guys running built 6Ls and strokers w/out it that have had no probs.

 

I know everybody will disagree with me, so no real need for you to post.

If you want to learn a little here goes.

The brace is flexiable, but try to stretch it.

It operates in tension, stretching.

If you try to bend a "C" shaped tube, such as the trans tunnel, the legs of the "C" try to move apart. This brace limits that effect and makes the trans tunnel stiffer, more like a closed tube.

If you remove it you will loose stiffness, how much I can't say. But remember GM could have sold you the car without it and made more money. The fact that they put it on the car, should be a tip off that it does serve a purpose.

Z28

 

Which brings up something I thought of a while back. Steel cables under tension in an X shape should work well. I have a vert and thought about this, just not sure exactly what to bolt the ends to.

Right now with the brace in AND KBDD subs, the car still twists if you jack one corner.

 

If need be, just space it down a 1/2" with some washers between the brace and the body at each bolt.

You can keep the brace and gain the needed clearance.

 

I popped the brace off because it was also posing clearance issues with the y-pipe. It is supposed to offer chassis reinforcement under hard cornering and acceleration. I haven't had any problems with it off and I plan on upgrading to a crossmember mounted torque arm which will mount there anyhow.