Call out to Frog Arms owners
 

I've read all the threads on the topic and i'm still not sure what to expect from these.

The other threads are polluted with supposition and baseless pontification (i.e. people who don't own a set). Please only post if you have them and installed them! :fawk:

Surely Boss Frog must've sold a couple hundred of these by now -- this thread is a call out to all you guys to post your experience!

I have them, and they are installed. I installed them after my FM 2.5 Suspension. I didn't notice a whole lot, but then again I haven't tracked them at all. Sorry I can't be much help!

Thanks for the feedback, certainly a valid response!

To any lurkers - I'm looking for feedback with regards to the 'solidity' of the car. If anyone has racing feedback, that's great, but for me (And i think a lot of people) the big draw would be reduction of cowl shake and a more solid feel over crappy roads.

In my experience, I've noticed stiffening mods more over bumps on the street initially than when i finally put it on the track (except for teh moguls at HHR).

I will say that on my trip from Chicago to Watertown, NY the car felt extremely solid even around 80-85mph on some pretty crappy roads. I did install the FM suspension/frog arms about a week after I bought the car, but I have yet to feel any cowl shake/shudder that I hear others talk about.

"kepone" over at m.net did a nice install thread.

If you're not tracking your car, forgetaboutit.
If you're tracking your car, get a cage :)

Get some square tube... weld in 3 pieces on each side... profit.

They were a waste of money. I few pieces of angle welded together would get the same results. I'm not sure if they were the cause, but I had to re-adjust how the door hangs to keep them from drooping like a 3rd gen F-body door.

Ouch.

I'd installed them on my recently departed NA and it did indeed make the front end stiffer. By the time I had sold the car I had 3 point cobalt brace, frog arms, door bars, FM butterfly and a double hoop - the car felt more solid than any NA I've been in. My goal was to add solidity for daily driving, not necessarily for track use and I felt that they've met my needs.
Since the installation involves removing a few of the door hinges, you do need to keep the doors closed. Even with that they did droop, but all I had to do was to re-adjust them while they were supported by a floor jack and that was the end of it and no further adjustments were needed. In kepone's thread on m.net I have some posts with the adjustment.

i wouldn't put these on a street car, your reinforcement your crumple zones. kinda a stupid idea imo

And with that, a roll bar is far more dangerous then the frog arms.... But I do agree. It is a compromise.

you better rectify your statement with proof cuz your talking jive turkey. how in the hell could a real roll bar be more dangerous.

Or at least be more specific. I agree that you have a head injury risk with a roll bar on the streets (of course if it's a roll over, that risk is there anyway), but at the same time, I feel safer with mine because I know I won't have the same certainty of being crushed if the car were to end up wrong side up. I do have that added concern of cracking my skull open on a hard rear impact or a side impact, or any impact for that matter really.

Without SFI approved padding and a SNELL approved helmet, your skull is a sitting duck in the event of an accident. How many of these cars roll over in a wreck vs staying shiny side up?

I have a 6 point bar in the Miata, but have 6 point Sabelt harnesses in it also in the hopes that it will keep me and the passengers head away from the roll bar in the event of an accident.

Weird, this looks like mt.net but I think this thread is from m.net.

Nah, no one here has chrome vents. Added weight + added cost - benefit = FAIL

You sure about that?

you can pad a roll bar , you can't make frog arms crush in a wreck ;) and should pad if your seats are lower then your bar. my seats go up leave with the top of my bar so i hit seat not bar.

I have some stiff SFI padding on my double hoop. It's still very stiff, like plastic (meant for helmets, still) but it's surely softer than steel. Added a little extra peace of mind.

+1 that stuff wont do dick without a helmet. Then again my head is nowhere near the bar so its mute point in my case ;)

I have the frog arms, I installed them at the same time I took off my upper strut tower brace and the car did not seem to change in feel. If you have fab skills you can just weld some re-enforcements on like others have pointed out.

I had the Tuckin-99 arms on a street car. The jounce after a pothole was diminshed, but I never tracked the car.

I have chrome vents.

I had the same stuff and scrapped it for the foam flavor. If I hit my head on the bar without a helmet, either way I'm going to die, so I might as well make my trip to hell a comfortable one.

just got done installing the frog arms i got for christmas. I didn't waste any time getting started, though holy crap was this a tedious process.

I've read some people do it in 3 or 4 hours.. Took me a little over 7 hours, including some additional cleaning / lubing / rubberized undercoating.

Hopefully i can drive it tomorrow then i'll post back impressions.

just got a chance to drive a few minutes. My neighborhood is filled with rough roads, potholes and has a railroad track with several crossings so I was able to got a good feel for any difference they may have made.

My first impression was when backing out of my driveway. I actually drive around my other car, going off the driveway onto the grass. That transition immediately somehow felt more solid as if the front of the car was one piece.

Driving around, the car felt more solid overall, with less front end crashing / movement.

I find it hard to describe the feeling, as it still 'crashes' over larger bumps (my illuminas are set to 5 / max hard), but somehow it just feels nicer. Smaller imperfections and repeating bumps (like 100 small potholes on a super crappy street) are handled much nicer, they don't reverberate through the car.

One downside -- it was almost 4 a.m. when i was tightening up the passenger door hinge bolts and I didn't lift it up while tightening as i did the driver's side... End result is that it's a little droopy and makes a horrible squeak when going over bigger bumps which is interfering with getting a really good take on the effect of the frog arms.

Also I don't know if this is just placebo or reality but i did a quick "emergency lane change" at around 30-35 mph and it felt super flat / immediate.

Disclosure: I recently put tokico illuminas on the car. The frog arms, to me, did make a nice improvement on top of the illuminas. My impression before installing the frog arms was that the illuminas made the car much much much better, even at "5" setting, BUT the front end was still loose feeling with regards to bump absorption / feedback.

Rambling addition: I guess a good way to put this would be that the frog arms make small to medium bumps feel like this: "BUMP". Previously, it was more like "BUMP SHIMMY SHAKE", most notably manifesting in shaken kidney syndrome (Yes, my car no longer feels like i'm being laterally shaken left & right over rough roads).

I made my own. 3/4 square tubing, hits all the same attachment points. Haven't driven w/ it yet, still getting the car back together. But I did the same thing in my STI, these braces are more popular on that car, and there is an OEM brace there from the factory - it's just a stamped junky piece. My sti is quite, quite stiff, in a good way.

The pos harbor freight 90amp wire welder is an awesome toy. I've built my own replicas of appx $1000 worth of commercial braces, plus a lot of seam welding. Good bang for buck.

Thanks for the review ctxspy. I have been on the fence about these just hard to pull the trigger for stiffening the front when I can get frame rails instead - although I'm not so sure I'd want to drill 14 holes to install them.