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Some of you know that our very own Fanatic, "Texster68" (Chris Allen, in Austin TX) offers a set of products called a "Stabilissr" kit for our SSRs. Yesterday, my SSR got "Stabilissred" by Chris himself. I like the product and the results enough to post about it. Using some of Chris's own words from a prior description he published here on the board earlier this year, and adding some of my own words, here is what this product is and does:
The StabiliSSR is a set of hidden support hardware for either or both the front and rear bumpers / fascias of a Chevrolet SSR. The bumpers are made of a flexible plastic that has considerable movement while driving. You can see the movement by grabbing hold of the bumper below the front running lights, or behind the rear wheels or license plate, and observing the flex in the system. You can also guage the amount of movement by turning on your running lights at night (center button on headlight switch) and watching the amount of jiggle that you see in the headlight pattern. If you ever drive in another vehicle alongside your own SSR, you will see the rear fenders behind the wheels flapping a bit. In addition, the inadequate support of the rear bumper is what causes the left and right exhaust tips to look non-symmetrical, as the bumper distorts in shape as it is exposed to summer heat and winter cold. As a result, one exhaust tip will often look "shorter" than the other as a result! (The REAL problem is that the bumper has distorted due to lack of support)
What the StabiliSSR kits do is connect the lower part of the bumpers to the frame, giving a completely stable and solid look and feel to the car. The StabiliSSR mounts are custom formed to match the curve of the bottom of the bumper and are made of .125" aluminum and will never rust. The brackets are bolted behind the bumpers and are completely out of view unless you crawl under the truck and look behind the bumpers.
There is a separate FRONT kit and REAR kit. In the FRONT kit, there are two assembles, one for each side of the vheicle. In the REAR kit, there are 3 assemblies: left, right, and center. The left and right ones stabilize the left and right fenders, while the center one stablizes the rear center AND allows you to ADJUST to finally get the left and right sides of the rear bumper SYMMETRICAL.
All hardware required for the upgrade is included. You will need a drill, screw driver, and wrenches, and the installation will take about40 to 60 minutes (I saw that Chris gets them done front and back in about 40 minutes total. Your mileage may vary, especially if beer refreshments are involved). Complete instructions and templates for drilling into the rear frame support and into the HIDDEN lip of the front bumper are included. Minimal mechanical skills are required. Chris has installed these on his own SSR and taken it over 100MPH to make sure that the system will hold and not damage the bumper (see the sacrifices he makes so the rest of us can benefit from his scientific testing?). These two kits work great and totally eliminate the bumper shake that the stock setup has. Again, the installation is easy. Bring your SSR to Austin, Tx and Chris will do the install for free, it's that easy. (He also provided beer yesterday!)
I watched Chris do mine and Jim Kelly's SSRs, front and back, and the install seems as easy as Chris has claimed. A set of drive-on ramps for the front end work IS an advantage, but apparently not essential.
The only glitch we ran into at all was that Jim Kelly's 03 had a "different" left rear exhaust support than other SSRs, and that is important because Chris uses the same mount point to avoid drilling another hole. Jim K's 03 had what looked like a rubber vibration absorber where the rest of us have simple metal brackets at that one point. My theory is that this absorber was one of the early in-the-field retroactive repairs made to early SSRs to try to diminish the exhaust resonance that appears on many SSRs at certain engine rpm. We all got a laugh out of the fact that it uses a small hose clamp as part of its mounting scheme. (Makes our proposed idea to use s.s. hose clamps to dampen driveshaft ringing seem "more factory"!!).
When Chris was done with my SSR, sure enough, all four fenders were much more rigidly held in place, and the rear license plate bracket no longer "moves". The adjustments to make the rear bumper symmetrical are done via hidden adjustments to the StabiliSSR bracket that controls the mounting of the center of the rear bumper, and that bracket is MUCH more impressive than the non-adjustable puny factory one. You indeed cannot see any external evidence that the StabiliSSR brackets are there. And, the components are alloy, so non-corrosive.
On my own SSR, we could NOT make the exhaust tips symmetrical for a "dumb" reason: When the guys at MTI did my custom dual exhaust, they re-used the stock chrome exhaust tips, and made the driver side exhaust pipe LONGER than the passenger side, in order to compensate for the non-symmetrical rear bumper! (My stock unsupported bumper had taken a "set" with the driver side further back than the passenger side) So, after Chris "corrected" my rear bumper to proper "squareness", the driver side tip sticks out just a bit more than the passenger side. I told Chris I preferred to have the BUMPER symmetrical, and could live with the "deviant" driver side exhaust tip!
I think this is a really nice idea, and VERY well executed. Good concept, good design, and good choice of durable and non-intrusive parts. I would think that it cannot possiby be good for those fenders and bumper to be flapping at highway speed as they do without these supports, and the parts not flapping around certainly LOOKS a lot better too!
Neat idea and product Chris!
Chris can be reached at [email protected] or 512-288-4801.
Jim G
The StabiliSSR is a set of hidden support hardware for either or both the front and rear bumpers / fascias of a Chevrolet SSR. The bumpers are made of a flexible plastic that has considerable movement while driving. You can see the movement by grabbing hold of the bumper below the front running lights, or behind the rear wheels or license plate, and observing the flex in the system. You can also guage the amount of movement by turning on your running lights at night (center button on headlight switch) and watching the amount of jiggle that you see in the headlight pattern. If you ever drive in another vehicle alongside your own SSR, you will see the rear fenders behind the wheels flapping a bit. In addition, the inadequate support of the rear bumper is what causes the left and right exhaust tips to look non-symmetrical, as the bumper distorts in shape as it is exposed to summer heat and winter cold. As a result, one exhaust tip will often look "shorter" than the other as a result! (The REAL problem is that the bumper has distorted due to lack of support)
What the StabiliSSR kits do is connect the lower part of the bumpers to the frame, giving a completely stable and solid look and feel to the car. The StabiliSSR mounts are custom formed to match the curve of the bottom of the bumper and are made of .125" aluminum and will never rust. The brackets are bolted behind the bumpers and are completely out of view unless you crawl under the truck and look behind the bumpers.
There is a separate FRONT kit and REAR kit. In the FRONT kit, there are two assembles, one for each side of the vheicle. In the REAR kit, there are 3 assemblies: left, right, and center. The left and right ones stabilize the left and right fenders, while the center one stablizes the rear center AND allows you to ADJUST to finally get the left and right sides of the rear bumper SYMMETRICAL.
All hardware required for the upgrade is included. You will need a drill, screw driver, and wrenches, and the installation will take about40 to 60 minutes (I saw that Chris gets them done front and back in about 40 minutes total. Your mileage may vary, especially if beer refreshments are involved). Complete instructions and templates for drilling into the rear frame support and into the HIDDEN lip of the front bumper are included. Minimal mechanical skills are required. Chris has installed these on his own SSR and taken it over 100MPH to make sure that the system will hold and not damage the bumper (see the sacrifices he makes so the rest of us can benefit from his scientific testing?). These two kits work great and totally eliminate the bumper shake that the stock setup has. Again, the installation is easy. Bring your SSR to Austin, Tx and Chris will do the install for free, it's that easy. (He also provided beer yesterday!)
I watched Chris do mine and Jim Kelly's SSRs, front and back, and the install seems as easy as Chris has claimed. A set of drive-on ramps for the front end work IS an advantage, but apparently not essential.
The only glitch we ran into at all was that Jim Kelly's 03 had a "different" left rear exhaust support than other SSRs, and that is important because Chris uses the same mount point to avoid drilling another hole. Jim K's 03 had what looked like a rubber vibration absorber where the rest of us have simple metal brackets at that one point. My theory is that this absorber was one of the early in-the-field retroactive repairs made to early SSRs to try to diminish the exhaust resonance that appears on many SSRs at certain engine rpm. We all got a laugh out of the fact that it uses a small hose clamp as part of its mounting scheme. (Makes our proposed idea to use s.s. hose clamps to dampen driveshaft ringing seem "more factory"!!).
When Chris was done with my SSR, sure enough, all four fenders were much more rigidly held in place, and the rear license plate bracket no longer "moves". The adjustments to make the rear bumper symmetrical are done via hidden adjustments to the StabiliSSR bracket that controls the mounting of the center of the rear bumper, and that bracket is MUCH more impressive than the non-adjustable puny factory one. You indeed cannot see any external evidence that the StabiliSSR brackets are there. And, the components are alloy, so non-corrosive.
On my own SSR, we could NOT make the exhaust tips symmetrical for a "dumb" reason: When the guys at MTI did my custom dual exhaust, they re-used the stock chrome exhaust tips, and made the driver side exhaust pipe LONGER than the passenger side, in order to compensate for the non-symmetrical rear bumper! (My stock unsupported bumper had taken a "set" with the driver side further back than the passenger side) So, after Chris "corrected" my rear bumper to proper "squareness", the driver side tip sticks out just a bit more than the passenger side. I told Chris I preferred to have the BUMPER symmetrical, and could live with the "deviant" driver side exhaust tip!
I think this is a really nice idea, and VERY well executed. Good concept, good design, and good choice of durable and non-intrusive parts. I would think that it cannot possiby be good for those fenders and bumper to be flapping at highway speed as they do without these supports, and the parts not flapping around certainly LOOKS a lot better too!
Neat idea and product Chris!
Chris can be reached at [email protected] or 512-288-4801.
Jim G
