Cusco Rear Strut Brace Install

Once the carpet and the spare wheel cover are out here is what you see under them.
  

First we remove the platic cover sitting on top of the shock mounts.
There are four screws in each cover. Remove them and the cover will pop off. 

Under the cover there is a silver plate held down by three nuts.
  Its there for sound dampening only from what people are saying.

Remove the nuts and pry the tin plate up and out toward the back.
 *Remove the nuts and cover reveals three more nuts on the same screw.

Remove these 3 final nuts (they are holding your shock in place).
  

Place the blue pieces in first.
  The bar will fit if its attached but its easier to do
 each side separately and then add the bar in.

Here are both sides together with the bar attached.

Ok so now we know how things will fit in place.
  Time to do some real work.

You will need to cut grooves in the plastic cover plate
 in order to accomodate the new blue piece.
 The easiest way is to simply notch them in place
 first and then figure out a bit by bit how far to cut the plastic.

Now time to fix the silver sound dampeners.
  You will need them as otherwise the plastic cover you just
 precut will not really have a place to bolt on to (in front) and may vibrate.

Here in the foreground we have the original
 piece and in the background a precut piece.

This is how we cut it.  Notice the exact color of the sparks...
 if its different you are doing something wrong.

Here we have the other silver part in place after having it cut.

This is important.  You really only need to cut
 what is shown on the left side of the picture.
  The right part cuts too much out and its not necessary.
  The middle piece goes with the right part.

Here is what both sides look like after assembly.

Now to the big question. Does it make a damn of a difference? Well since there is no easy way to measure this objectively you will have to take my word for it. The 98 TT (targa) seemed to have a lot of rear flex both under high acceleration and on any kind of bumps on the road. Each time I drove over any kind of crack in the pavement the car would 'swim' over it. After I installed the rear brace it now feels a lot more solid. I guess the easiet way to describe it is before the brace each rear wheel seemed to have a life of its own. With the brace installed both sides feel like they are working together more. Bottom line is I like it. To me it feels more stiff and more solid.