S3 33QV front crossmember difference

[spottie]

What's the difference between a S3 crossmember and a S2 one?.
Is there any gains in retro-fitting one to a S2 car?, that's of course if there a difference.
And while we are on the subject is there any other parts to be fitted from a S3 QV to S2 QV to improve it?.
Cheers.

[damonb]

The front crossmember for a 16V car is a different shape to clear the exhaust cam pulleys and associated gubbins. I've never looked underneath an 8v S3 car but would guess they all use the same crossmember. The best performance improvement from an S3 car you could fit to an S2 car would have to be the 16V engine. I don't think anything else will have much effect.

[evilgidget]

8V S3 has the same crossmember as a S2 8V. This is different from the S1 8V.

At least that's what I've seen by comparing them...

[Spooty22]

Don't forget the S3 reinforcing bars which run from the firewall to the crossmember mounting points in the engine bay. They will stiffen up your chassis considerably and prevent the cracking which our chassis suffer from.

If you can find a pair, grab 'em!

[spottie]

Got those, I'm waiting till I have the engine out to fit them. Will they also fit a Sprint?.

[BigSud]

They won't fit a sprint as a bolt-in upgrade. Sprints are subtly different at the front compared to a sud and 33. From my fiddling around with it on a sprint I used to have, I think you'd need to weld a tab onto the chassis rails down where the crossmember bolts in, AND change the angle that the plate that bolts to the front of the bathtub makes with the tubular brace - it sits lower at the firewall end in a sprint and so won't bolt up without some changes.

[Greek]

Yes , you need to weld bases for the mounting point on the front end because they dont exist. My friend did that on his old sprint...