E36 Rear strut tower reinforcement

As the coupe is going from normal strut and coil in the rear to full coil over struts. Some more reinforcing is needed in rear to stop strut top mounting plate from buckling or braking while under heavy loads from aggressive driving or cornering.

Solution for this for me was to build custom one off brace that would tie together both rear strut mounts and also rear subframes two back mounting points. This brace is made from 20mm x 1,5mm steel tube. Design being some what triangulated. This is also just first prototype and more streamline and stiffer brace will be made in near future to replace this one.

I started making the brace from two ready made stiffening plates for strut towers. These got vertical braces and mounting point welded to them. All plate used in project was 3 mm thick. After top mounts were done. Could the first pipe length be measured, cut and welded. When after welding all lined up. Could lower mounting holes be measured in the floor and drilled open. To mount to these subframe mounting points. I had steel bushing in correct diameter and bolts to go through them. Will replace these with proper longer ones when final version will be made and subframe is out from car again.

With two lower mounting points also done. All that was needed was to cut the pipe that would connect them and weld it. Again checking that nothing moved too much. Then was the tricky part of measuring and tacking diagonal pipes in place. Doing this while keeping some symmetry between both pipes was tricky and needed few retries. All pipes fully welded all that was needed was few coats of paint and before that one last test fit that no clearance was too tight.