nigel821

iTrader: (2)

Looking for some input on any of the facelifted RCFs that have installed a Tom's rear brace that takes place of the two separate braces that we have in the rear..

Not sure if this is the same on the preface lift but on the facelifted versions these braces have a recessed area and then a rubber insulator. The way it looks on the Tom's bar there's no recessed area so there is a gap where the rubber is now no longer touching the Tom's brace. Hopefully the two pictures correlate.Second picture you can see the gap with the rubber.

First picture you can see the imprint of the rubber on the stock brace and you can see the center portion that's recessed.. I love Tom's stuff but everyone marks this as compatible with all model years... Which technically I guess yes it does bolt up, however now it's resting directly on the center rather than distributing the entire weight around the circular part like the stock piece was.

If there's no solution to this then more than likely I'm taking this piece off. It doesn't make sense to change it especially if it fits like that...


Notice the indentation in the center and you can see the marks where the rubber was all the way around the stock brace.

Notice the Tom's brace has a center portion that sticks out and it does not recess therefore you have a gap all the way around where the rubber should be touching the brace...






Thanks,
-Nigel

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

Some more information.

Thanks for Ron for posting these pics on FB. Definitely appears that the pre-face lift and the face lift model braces changed.

Preface lift:



FaceLift: Notices how it's opposite from the pre-face lift.



So it was recommended that perhaps a spacer might fix this issue. I am printing some 3d spacers at the moment to get the dimensions right and then will more than likely take the spacer to a machine shop so that they can replicate it out of aluminum.
See test pics. This is the first iteration.





I'm annoyed this even has to be done. But more so annoyed that no one apparently that has a face lifted RCF has installed a rear Tom's bar and that vendors say it's compatible throughout all the years... and while YES, it does bolt on, it clearly is not correct on the face lfited models due to the gap that is shown in the first post. The bracket would then be resting on the bushing sleeve rather than the entire rubber pad(s) that are around the entire diameter of the bushing. Like with almost everything with this platform it seems like the companies that make things don't update for later years and just carry stuff over.

-Nigel

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

More information. Apparently, Tom's is now looking into this but according to them the installation picture looks fine. They stated that no changes have been made to the RCF through all model years and the way it's installed is by design. Ad much as I want to believe this it doesn't make sense. The bushing sleeve hangs down on the newer years compared to the older years and it's apparent because of the black stock brace pieces and seeing how they fit. Older models had the indentation pointing up just as the Tom's bar does. The newer models have an indentation pointing down to accommodate the bushing sleeve.

I don't think they understand since they keep referencing that "facelift" only appears to cosmetics of the vehicle and nothing else. They just keep stating that there is no other changes chassis wise, which we know isn't true based on pictures. It could also be a lost in translation type of thing as well..

As well as it "might" be fine it just looks super stupid having a gap all the way around and clearly the bushing isn't being supported, it's being supported by the bushing sleeve in the center. I think my sleeve/bushing spacer is what is ultimately going to work, I will fiddle with it this weekend. It's just going to be a bit of a pain constantly removing/installed and adjusting the height of the spacer but once it's done it should be fine. This is something that I feel like they could easily manufacture/make to solve this issue with the face lifted RCFs.

I'd be eager to see who else has installed this bar and if there is in fact a gap with theirs on the newer models, but it doesn't seem like many folks have installed it.... (not a surprise in our community). Anyways, figured I'd update. I'll update more as I tweak more.


-Nigel

krill

Nigel, your contributions to this forum are text book guidance, thank you for that.

I have 2020 RCF with Toms bracelet installed about 6 m ago in a local shop. After reading your post, I checked mine and yes there is a gap when I purchased this, it was marked as 2015+ and confirmed it is a fit to 2020 via email. Now, I rechecked, the seller changed it to fit 2015-2019…besides shop never mentioned any gap after install(

highly interested in your solution as I will need to address this. I still have the OEM braces if needed but TOMS kit made the body really tightened so prefer to keep w a solution.

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

Yep it's completely ridiculous.

The fact that Tom's is stating that this is acceptable to me makes no sense. There was no gap prior to this. Lexus has rubber insulators that are resting on a metal support bracket for a reason. With the Tom's brace installed, now all the weight is on the center bushing sleeve.

Tom's is adamant that nothing has changed throughout the model years when clearly it has. From the pictures that Ron and Louie posted of the black braces compared to mine, they are inverted.

Anyways with some more mocking up with my 3D printer, I have successfully made spacers.

I'm toying with the idea between two different size thicknesses but in all reality it's 0.5 mm difference which I don't think is going to be that crucial. However, one thing I did notice that not only is the rubber part being supported by the black stock brace, I can also see where the imprint on the stock black brace has a small mark where the bushing sleeve rests so in theory the bushing sleeve is being supported by the center recessed area along with the outer diameter of the black rubber bushing on the black brace.

So what I do not want to happen is make a spacer that is so thick that now the center sleeve is no longer being supported slightly and all of the weight is on the rubber, and the bushing is floating..

I hope that makes sense.

Here's the bar and some shots of the spacers but as it sits right now everything is supported as it should be.

I wanted to try to knock this out today because I'm off work and since I'm leaving work early on Friday, I plan on visiting the machine shop and seeing if they can make these.
More than likely it's probably going to be a couple hundred dollars only because of the area that I'm in, places don't like to do little things, they like to do bigger commercial govt jobs.

What I'm finding out as I get older, modding is less enjoyable lol. This is a super easy fix all Tom's would have to do is make spacers for the facelifted version of our car.

If I had a CNC machine I could rip these out easily. I'm half tempted to use some type of carbon fiber filament but being on the suspension I don't think there's going to be that much flex in this area it just fills a void, but I'd rather have them be made out of metal which makes more sense to me in long run, weather temperature stresses all that would be much better for a metal spacer.










-Nigel

LoSt180

Somehow I ended up with a set of GSF rear braces, the more I see these pics it makes me want to go ahead and source the proper RCF specific brace. The GSF ones are two parts, just like stock, while the Tom's RCF brace is joined in the middle.

The center bushing sleeve supports the majority of the load, so yes you'll want to adjust the spacer thickness so that the bolts can be torqued properly. Tom's is mostly correct that the center is the primary load point, but the large bushing support looks like it'll help with any twisting loads from launches or sharp turns.

Basically it's kind of like, "it's not needed, but better if it was there" type thing.

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

I don't think you'd have any issues selling the Tom's brace to a GSF owner honestly. IF you did the one piece you should post and see if you can notice a difference between the two. You'd be the only one that we know that has had both so you could make a statement on if anything was changed/noticeable. I can see how the two-piece design would be easier to install because you can do one side at a time without having to support stuff like how I have both jacks. I'm glad I read somewhere about supporting the diff because that would be a problem if someone just unbolted the braces. I'm not sure how much that part of the diff/black support bracket would drop down. Probably wouldn't be good, especially if you were under it...lol

I'm sure the center sleeve does take a majority of the load but it's annoying what Tom's is saying. They've seen the pictures that you and Ron provided on FB and my pictures here. The black braces did in fact change. But they say no, so it's annoying. It's not like I'm trying to feed then incorrect information or saying I want my money back. Just trying to help them see that there was a design change somewhere in the mix. We are a small niche group compared to a lot of other car makes/brands.

Plus, if you look at the black stock piece you can clearly see how the side rubber pieces do indent and make a clear mark on the piece. If they were barely touching or there was no load, I wouldn't really think twice on it, but it 100% leaves an impression. I just want to retain the OEM look/function without stuff floating around in the air. In the subie world this would probably be a full send, but not the RCF. It deserves better :-p

Attached my part number if you do in fact want to get the one piece.



-Nigel

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

Well, I had custom aluminum spacers made and anodized black to keep it as discreet and OEM looking as possible.

The spacers now fill the air gap and everything is supported exactly how it should be.

Kinda silly Tom's doesn't acknowledge or address the issue with facelifted models but that would probably require them to re-engineer the part or in the very least effort just include some spacers... But I'm happy how this turned out It addresses my personal issue and now I don't have to worry about it or think twice about it.








EDIT: Milage may vary depending on what mods you have but I did end up having to slightly trim the bottom of the Tom's brace. The lower round portion that the chassis bolt goes into the subframe hangs down low. Regardless of the spacer or not there was just about a 1-2mm gap from the bottom brace to the top of my Invidia exhaust. If you had the OEM exhaust piping size it would probably be fine. However, I didn't want to chance it and hear tapping or metal on metal clanging from suspension/exhaust movement... so I did the following. Where the red line is where I cut/grinded some of the material away. It's not noticeable at all but now I won't have any issues with clearances. Touched up the bare metal with gray paint and you can't even tell anything's been done. I did this for both sides. Once the exhaust was bolted back up, I pushed up on the piping to see if there was any vertical movement and there was not, so I think I should be OK. If not I can easily remove another 2mm of material and still be fine.






-Nigel

JT2MA71

iTrader: (7)

Awesome work! Nigel.

LoSt180

That's awesome and glad you had the materials/tools to fab up a proper solution. I didn't think to cut down the tube of the bracket when it was in fact knocking against my Invidia. I ended up just taking a ball peen hammer and "clearancing" the exhaust a bit. It's not noticeable and a small dent shouldn't affect flow.

J168

I'm hoping its just for NVH reduction. STi has a similar but not identical design on the S209 where a rubber spacer is installed to create a minute separation between the rear subframe and the car body. Purpose was to make the suspension more pliable to increase tire contact with the street. Here is the part number ST20176AS000

Not too happy to find out I have to shave metal off the brace or peen the muffler to make this brace fit. I have a TE and not interested to alter a ridiculously expensive exhaust.

nigel821

iTrader: (2)

That's very interesting on the isolator for the s209!
I'm actually half tempted to pick one up just to see if it would fit on the RCF...
I end up having two sets of custom spacers made. In theory the metal spacer that I had made just fills the gap and the stock rubber isolator that's currently on the subframe then makes contact.. almost no different than the stock brace that was there.

Yes it's much easier to modify the Tom's rear brace and cut the angle where the bolt goes through. There'd be no way that I'd be hammering the exhaust.

I ended up cutting the brace with a Dremel while it was on the car so I could look at it. Not looking back at it I would have just simply taken my angle grinder and it would have been 30 seconds to do off the car. So either method would work.

Personally the least invasive way was just modifying the brace.

I'm rebuilding my Max Jax cylinder since they started to leak after 12 years once this is done I can get the car back on the lift and take more pictures if need be.

-Nigel

J168

Lol, a Tom's x STi collaboration. Yeah, that is a pretty cool modification that you did with the spacers. Personally, I'm just going to leave it the way it is and see if the NVH increases for the car. I actually took a look under my RCF this weekend and saw that the stock exhaust pipes are routed around the bolt holes so I should be good. I guess we will see when installation time comes around. This is a good thread, I would have freaked out if I was the first person to find this difference.