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All convertibles have an inherent weak center section in the middle of the car between the front of the door opening and the back of the door opening. This weakness is because the section height of the car is the smallest at that point compared to other parts of the car. The entire section height of the car is only as high as the top of the center tunnel of the car. The shorter this section height of the car is, the more prone it is to twisting and bending. If you compare the short section height of a regular modern sedan that extends all the way to the roof of the car to our car, you can see how much shorter of a section height we are dealing with as a convertible, and also why modern sedans are stiffer than convertibles.
For those that are not familiar with it, the center tunnel of the car is an upside down "U" shape channel that has the drive shaft and exhaust running through it. GM boxed in this "U" channel with a stamped steel piece that is ".060" thick that runs right down the middle of the car. When you remove it from the car to install our DDMWorks Backbone brace, it becomes pretty obvious how flimsy the stock piece is. You can easily bend and twist this piece compared to the backbone brace. There is no weight advantage with the new piece it is actually heavier than the stock piece. The real advantage of the DDMWorks backbone brace is that you are stiffening up this short section height "U" channel and making the chassis stiffer allowing the suspension to work better and not twist as much. Some people with added power have actually cracked windshields on the car because of the chassis twisting. Once we installed the first prototype on the car it was immediately obvious that we improved the torsional rigidity of the car after a short drive down the road, the car responded quicker and took a set into a turn quicker. With this brace and the Pro-beam on the car the handling difference is very noticeable from a stock car. Where the stock car feels slow to react, cars with both the Pro-beam and the backbone are faster to react to turns and feel much more solid. The brace pictured is of one of the earlier versions, as the current versions are solid without cutouts. We also did some torsional testing here at the shop with the old test mule, Randy's car. The procedure that we followed was as follows: 1. We started out with the stock piece in place and put the car on the lift so we could raise and lower onto jack stands. 2. We then lowered the car onto 3 jack stands, 1 jack stand was located at the drivers side front suspension pick-up point, a 2nd was located at the passenger side front suspension pick-up point and the third was located at the passenger side rear suspension pick-up point. 3. We then used the jack and lifted the car by using the driver’s side rear suspension pick-up point. We took a measurement of the distance between a fixed point on the car in front of the rear wheel to the ground, and made note of it. 4. We then used the jack to raise the driver’s side rear until we could move the front jack stand, and then made note of the distance that we had to jack the car. 5. We then repeated this process several times to get a good range of values and make sure that they were consistent. 6. Once we took these initial measurements and had a good average of distance to lift the car, we lifted the car straight up using the lift, and swapped in the Backbone, lowered it back onto the jack stands and repeated the whole process above. The results: With the stock piece in place, it took an average of 12.1 mm to raise the car off the front jack stand. Once we put the backbone on this average dropped down to 8.4mm, which is a 30% improvement This improvement to the chassis does not make the ride any harsher than stock, just makes the car a more solid platform for the suspension to work off of, giving the car a ride like a more expensive vehicle. 1. We started out with the stock piece in place and put the car on the lift so we could raise and lower onto jack stands. 2. We then lowered the car onto 3 jack stands, 1 jack stand was located at the drivers side front suspension pick-up point, a 2nd was located at the passenger side front suspension pick-up point and the third was located at the passenger side rear suspension pick-up point. 3. We then used the jack and lifted the car by using the driver’s side rear suspension pick-up point. We took a measurement of the distance between a fixed point on the car in front of the rear wheel to the ground, and made note of it. 4. We then used the jack to raise the driver’s side rear until we could move the front jack stand, and then made note of the distance that we had to jack the car. 5. We then repeated this process several times to get a good range of values and make sure that they were consistent. 6. Once we took these initial measurements and had a good average of distance to lift the car, we lifted the car straight up using the lift, and swapped in the Backbone, lowered it back onto the jack stands and repeated the whole process above. The results: With the stock piece in place, it took an average of 12.1 mm to raise the car off the front jack stand. Once we put the backbone on this average dropped down to 8.4mm, which is a 30% improvement This improvement to the chassis does not make the ride any harsher than stock, just makes the car a more solid platform for the suspension to work off of, giving the car a ride like a more expensive vehicle.
Fits: 2006+ Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky
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