Ya know this brings up a point that has never made all that much sense to me in the uni-body Jeep world. There are kits all over the market for stitching plates all over our "frame rails" but how much does that really help (rhetorical question)? To me I look at those an improvement to anchoring suspension components but very little at helping chassis flex.
So what's next - a cage right? Well it's been my experience that VERY few people ever build a cage that does much for the uni-body rigidity. Sure they run bars every which way, but never tie those bars into the chassis; why???
Coming from the drifting/road racing community, we deal with uni-bodies on almost every vehicle. This is why you see cages with dimpled plates like this...
^THIS is how you reinforce the XJ. How is it that this gets missed so much?
*not necessarily suggesting the OP is part of this group - just expounding on your thread - sorry to hijack.*
Nice to see that someone else shares similar thoughts to me... Lol.
And I have a ton of interest in the drifting community and rally builds and that's where I got the idea of doing that to the cage and unibody for more rigidity. I try to go to as many drifting events at Englishtown as I can (i.e. Clubloose, Freedom Moves, etc). Before I even had a car (much less racejeep) I was ALWAYS checking out driftmechaniks.com (site seems to be messed up), andysapp.com (love his BMW), and willroegge.com (amazing videographer)
This video kinda started my obsession with the drifting community... Lol
http://youtu.be/CHLKCKYNLyc
Btw, Tuerck'd is a rad show to watch.
http://youtu.be/NbN997cR8Vc
I've always kinda questioned how much frame rail stiffeners actually help....
Anywho.. I took racejeep to an autocross in Atlantic City, New Jersey yesterday. Had an absolute blast and everyone loved racejeep. I even got a trophy thingy for having the coolest car there.
This is what racejeep looked like the day/night before the event.... #6 784 fuel injector decided to kick the bucket. Replaced them all with new injectors and racejeep ran great all day Sunday until the #1 sparkplug decided to foul on the way home (and then later unfouled). Gunna put different plugs in probably tomorrow. #racecarproblems....
Here's a
link to my times. I got a laugh out of what they put in the "car" box. Lmaoo
ERHMAGERD!!! RACEKOR!!!
Scooby spinning out into the grass
http://youtu.be/vCr5zQHZV_Y
Heat 1 run 1 with instructor. I wanted to make sure I could navigate the course without getting lost.
http://youtu.be/C3MU0fiHhVo
Heat 1 run instructor driving
http://youtu.be/_QehS0otZoM
Heat 1 run 2
http://youtu.be/I9u1rPXxU2M
Heat 1 run 3 whoops
http://youtu.be/r-Ca9cnkc-I
Heat 2 run 1 drifting, eating cones, and locking up
http://youtu.be/Xi69NrM77q4
Heat 2 run 2 cleanest and fasted run
http://youtu.be/BIMbgHZm6x0
Heat 2 run 3 instructor wanted to go for a ride
http://youtu.be/C5AX4r4cKdg
All in all, I had a great weekend. Gotta make a few tweaks to racejeep's suspension, but other than that it performed amazingly well. Seemed to handle pretty flat with minimal to zero body roll. Steering could be a little quicker.... Still gotta figure out how to do that relatively easily.