chasis bracing

All or most Pantera parts vendors sell front & rear chassis bracing. All are of different design to accomplish about the same thing. To say one "works" means, for your particular situation, which is unknown. For instance, an older gentleman that always drives his Pantera at reasonable speeds on smooth highways has very different parameters for chassis stiffness that 'Ricky-Racer' who has his Pantera flat-to-the-floor at open track events each weekend. The brace systems are fairly new and were conceived to cure paint and metal cracking in the known weak spots in a Pantera chassis. Since the cracking didn't show up right away even when the cars were unmodified, its a bit too soon to say that any design "cured" it and others didn't. But some restrict access to certain areas of the car: specifically, Hall's front upper brace fouls up use of the front trunk for storage, and PPCs lower rear system restricts access to the underside of the transaxle and clutch. Others have similar areas. Call each one up, get brochures and decide what you actually need and what restrictions you can live with.

PPC Castle Rock or PPC Reno?

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Originally posted by jack deryke:
All or most Pantera parts vendors sell front & rear chassis bracing. All are of different design to accomplish about the same thing. To say one "works" means, for your particular situation, which is unknown. For instance, an older gentleman that always drives his Pantera at reasonable speeds on smooth highways has very different parameters for chassis stiffness that 'Ricky-Racer' who has his Pantera flat-to-the-floor at open track events each weekend. The brace systems are fairly new and were conceived to cure paint and metal cracking in the known weak spots in a Pantera chassis. Since the cracking didn't show up right away even when the cars were unmodified, its a bit too soon to say that any design "cured" it and others didn't. But some restrict access to certain areas of the car: specifically, Hall's front upper brace fouls up use of the front trunk for storage, and PPCs lower rear system restricts access to the underside of the transaxle and clutch. Others have similar areas. Call each one up, get brochures and decide what you actually need and what restrictions you can live with.

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You are right. I should have said how I drive my car. I am looking for a system to stop most of the body flex enough to stop the paint from cracking. I have cracks on each of the lower corners of the windshield, the lower outside corner of the right taillight, and right above the "gill" on the passenger side.

I plan to drive my car hard on the street and maybe an occasional autocross type event (once or twice a year).

I have nothing against the vendors but I prefer to listen to people who have actually laid out there money before I do.

What do you guys think of the system from P I Motorsports?



[This message has been edited by madguy (edited 08-09-2002).]

My car came with upper and lower front, and an aftermarket rear. PLUS a four point roll cage.

The car is quite stiff as far as chassis flex goes. Handles like a dream, too.

Parts are Hall and/or Bryars

I was speaking of PPC-Reno. FYI, those are all the weak spots in the Pantera, except the front windshield posts, which crack top and bottom in severe cases. Dennis Quella in CO has a reinforcement that looks like a bird-foot he adds to this area to firm it up. Another more elegant cure than the braces is to seam-weld the whole car in addition to the OEM spot-welds. This I believe is what the Group 4 LeMans racers had done back in the day... But then you need a new paint job.