Hi Can anyone suggest/ recommend a good place to buy rear subframe braces. Most are not in stock or long lead in times.
Happy to get salvage if they are good quality.
Cheers
Darren
have you considered putting one of these on instead of just renewing the little braces ?
i have one and it makes a huge difference to the stiffness of the car
Cheers for coming back to me.
So the original braces are replaced with this item?
yea, I have them on my car and they seem to work good.
I ordered two over Easter from MX5parts with the lead time saying 2 weeks or less noticed it had gone upto 4-6 weeks rang them Friday to check and its going to be nearer the 6 weeks.
Notice some used ones on Ebay but the condition looked rough.
Interested in the full brace but reviews seem to say slightly out with measurements.
They fit fine in mine. I have also seen different brands that the middle cross member has no x brace. I’m not sure if thats gunna work tbh and if you are going for an eBay job - personally id take the oem out, clean them up and paint them with anti corrosion paint instead
Hmmm, I’m reading this thread with interest. For the last 4 years we’ve owned a 99 Mk2 1.8iS. Recently we sold it and acquired a 2011/2.5 2.0l SE PRHT.
I’ve really felt the NC is more jittery on cornering than the NB…quite a bit more. Often it feels like the backend is heavier and very likely to break free and slide out (even in the dry) should I push it too hard on corners. On the NB I hardly ever felt/worried about this it was just more go-kart.
So I’ve been wondering if it’s the extra weight of the NC and/or the PRHT (although we had a hardtop on the NB) further up.
Side by side the NB rear sits lower than the NC (without any customised lowering), so maybe that’s it. Or maybe it’s the softer/tourer factory shocks on the SE, whereas the iS was probably Bilsteins. I’ve also wondered if it’s just that I haven’t come to trust the NC and it won’t actually break free even though it feels like it. Or maybe it’s a combination of all the above.
Anyway, would a chassis brace make much difference to the equation? I realise coilovers would probably offer more, but I just don’t have enough experience to know where to best start with getting my NB go-kart back.
This my car. Stock mazda springs bilstein s/a, stock sway arms PRHT
stock underbody braces
IL motorsport under body braces
The back end never want to swing me around (either pre or post braces) Just make sure you keep the power constant and don’t unload the rear end the sliding is progressive. Personally I don’t think the braces completely transformed my car; improved the feeling what the suspension does yes but I don’t think it was bad before. Its just a little bit better.
yes, this item would replace the original brace bars.
tho it is possible to fit and keep the original bars if you finesse it but you really don’t need to
I fitted that exact one on mine and it fitted perfectly,
I suspect the guy complaining that it was off had warped his subframe or chassis!
What’s more, this brace will stiffen up the rear of the car and make it feel much more solid!
It’s one of those items that you don’t know you needed until after you have it! but once you have it you will never go back kind of thing!
I fitted one brace in the boot to stop my tin-top creaking, absolutely loved the difference, and ended up fitting the whole chassis brace set! and loved it even more!
here is my thread about the rear brace set
its quite a short thread and the very last post is worth a read as its from another member who also has the braces.
Old sun-baked tyres?
When I bought my NC it wore the original Potenzas, with 6mm tread, but was awful, with DSC flickering like crazy because of the abysmal lack of grip front and back.
Four new Dunlop Maxx and it was totally planted, glued almost, and no hint of DSC action.
Now almost eight garaged (ie not much UV) years later, the Dunlops with 5-6mm are beginning to show their age, still infinitely better than the six year old Potenzas were, but no longer 100% planted so I’ll probably change them this year.
I had 4 new Uniroyal Rainsport tyres put on back in Dec when we first purchased the NC. I realise Rainsport aren’t as sticky as some premium tyres, but the stats indicate they aren’t significantly worse in the dry.
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I never owned rainsports but a few people who track their cars say they are rubbish tyres. So without any personal experience it may indicate that your problem is perhaps the tyres
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Hi watched a couple of videos last night on fitting and noticed the clearance on the exhaust looked minimal and that was bolting over old arms.Mine would need to come off or they would fall off 
is the gap bigger than it looks.
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They’ve only been put on because my wife drives the car to work, doing a bit of motorway driving on route. So if an emergency stop is needed, at speed in the wet, I want appropriate tyres on there to give her the best stopping power.
When we looked at what tyres to put on, I asked here on the forum plus I checked the online reviews and specs on sites like tyre reviews. The Rainsport seemed the best option all things considered.
But all that aside, what I ‘feel’ through the car when cornering, doesn’t feel like it’s the tyres. It’s more body roll and jittery suspension that I believe is the issue. Also the COG at the back just feels higher and more substantial than the NB. When I had them both on the drive side by side (before selling the NB), the NC was higher with more obvious bulk/metal.
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there is about a 1-inch gap between the brace and the exhaust on mine!
my exhaust is still standard except for the backbox
the reason I know this is because I saw a comment somewhere where the poster said that the brace fouled his BBK exhaust.
I presume BBK was a typo for BBR, I’m actually saving the BBR 180 kit and want to have the center section of the exhaust done at the same time and so the next time that I had the car on the lift after reading that comment I got under and checked the gap.
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Had this debate a few months ago before I invested in the set of braces. Came to the conclusion the intent was to fit the IL brace over the top of the originals, so purchased new versions of both. However…I had fully expected the to result yo be that the IL brace was a substitute.
Did you feel a vast improvement with your car then or what ?
Night and day…however I’ve had the whole set fitted (apart from the front and rear strut braces).
I replaced the centre X brace first and that made a huge difference, but now I have a Cobalt front strut brace and the front, centre, lower rear and upper rear IL braces and new door rubbers. Can feel the tyres/suspension doing the hard work instead of the flexing chassis and the build quality now feels solid.
Now need to find a track. Goodwood on Friday 6th May looks like it has my name on it.
Well that’s more encouraging news. I often wonder if the snake oil principal is possibly at play. I mean, the concept and the physics of the whole thing do add up so I’m glad to hear another positive. Cheers.
Enjoy Goodwood
I think I’ve described it before as the car feeling like a block of solid rubber as opposed to the crashyness/tinny feeling as standard.