I wanted to recreate this 3 point shock tower brace. Does anyone recognize the actual brace? If not, I can fabricate my own, I was just curious if any of you guys already knew. https://www.google.com/search?q=fast+and...F%3B5184%3B3456

I am pretty sure that was fabbed specifically for that car in the movie. it appears to me that the center intersect point is where the wiper motor would live, and I don't think anyone would manufacture that for a "street" type ride. but then I'm not up on any handling type mods out there[manufacturer made]. that would be an easy couple hour and fun job to fab up however.

Yep, that is exactly where the wiper motor is supposed to be.

Looks like something we did back in the old dirt track days to brace the front end. Interesting how it is attached to a couple of bars running between the firewall and the radiator support,and not to the shock tower. Then, it doesn't appear to be a roll cage inside the car to attach the firewall end of those two bars to. Without a cage, and without attaching to the actual shock towers, it looks to be simply for appearance reasons. I guess another 15lbs on the front end is suppose to be good these days? Gene

There is a cage on the inside. A 10 point I think. I can see how this would tie the top together at the core, shock tower mounts, and the firewall if a bar is ran to each side. I was really thinking of replicating this to really tie everything together and to decrease flex at the shock towers. I have a 10 point cage, torque box, subframe connectors, and a core brace, so I'm really aiming for tight.

On our dirt cars, this style of brace was a great help in stiffening the front end. On more then one car, we removed the inner fenders after we added this brace, but we also had the front bars attached to each other and to the frame rails. The two side bars were also attached to the frame rails just behind the upper control arms. Gene

Thanks poorboy. So if I were to do this, Id probably benefit a lot more by running the bars to the frame in two locations. Do you have any pictures of those builds by any chance? Could you also tell me what kind of difference in handling you received from this style brace? Thanks!

Sorry, no pictures, if you can locate pictures of the Old Mopar dirt track kit cars, we copied that system.

This was pretty much standard operating procedure on our dirt track. You had to have the bars to keep the car from bending at the firewall. (If the car survived 3 years, we were still bending the cars about 1 1/2" out of square and flat, right front to left rear!) We were running with 10" wide tires on a dirt track that was basically (2) 3/16 mile straights with two 180 degree, slightly banked U bends at the ends of the straights. We were turning our Mopar big block 383s 6,000 rpm in 3rd gear (we raced in 3rd because we couldn't afford a set of 5:13 gears) of the 4 speed at the end of the straight, where you braked hard, cranked the steering hard left until the car's rear came around and started to power slide, then it was full throttle as you cranked the steering towards the right, then gently steering back towards center until the next turn, where the process started all over again. One of the guys in our class ran an old Ford Police car that still had the functioning speedometer, according to him, he was hitting 85 before he braked for the corner. I believe he was slow! If we turned that track in a 30 second lap, we had to average 60 mph on the whole lap, and we were turning 28 second laps.

We ran in the lower class with a full bodied B body (and later a 73 duster) with everything unneeded removed. Car had to weigh in at 3200 with the driver sitting in the seat (we were usually towards the light end, especially with the Duster). We were lined up based on a time trial run, and we were generally in the 28:00 second range (about mid pack). The track was measured 1/2 mile on the inside edge of the track, and it was a clay based track (very good traction).

Sorry, got sidetracked. Without the bracing, the ties to the frame rails, and the roll cage,the car would have had a dangerous amount of flex in it going into the corners, and a lot of flex coming out of the corners with the car crossed up on the banking. When the car doesn't flex, you can make use of the power available to move the car forward without concern of the car doing something strange as it unflexes. Gene

Thank you so much for all the information, if anyone can give me some pics, that would be stellar, but other than that, I have started the project now and will post pictures when done (If i can figure out how).

i know the guy that built all those cars...

After rereading this post, all these months later, I remembered we had an 80s 5th Ave that originally had bracing that went from the center of the inner fenders to the firewall pinch weld, about 12" apart, 6" or so from the center. They were bolted into place on both ends. Usually these were in the way when you wanted to do any under hood maintenance, and were often removed and pitched. They were about 3/4" thin walled tube (think 1/2" electrical conduit) with flattened ends with holes for bolts at each end. I believe I remember removing them from a lot of Dusters, and some mid 60s B bodies!

This info is probably old and useless to the OP at this point, but it may be of interest to someone. Gene

That is correct, my 87 Diplomat had them. It was to control fender shake, not really strong enough or designed properly for what the OP was thinking.