Chassis mods

There are very minor differences. If you get the front under brace and breast plate you now have better bracing then the improvements they made and it won’t cost you a fortune.  

@dev

Thanks Dev. So no need for the front strut brace (just the under brace) ?  I had been looking for one, so now I need to redirect.

The most important thing with bracing is you need a strategy of what is important to you. I can only tell you what works for me. Bracing does nothing for the car but adds unnecessary  weight but it can give you better feel that can translate to better handling and confidence.  Some of it if designed poorly or redundantly can actually end up being dead weight.  I have the cheap EBay aluminum knock off TRD front under brace and the corkey breast place and it does well for my needs of reducing shake and keeping the weight down to a minimum. For the strut tower brace I have the TRD which is well made and does stiffen the front significantly.  
I never got a rear strut brace since most do not notice much as the factory X brace is more than sufficient.  

The best brace by far for me is the TOMS rear under brace.  The area where the rear control arms    fit is weak and can benefit from some reinforcement.  I hate that it weighs 13lbs but it gives me so much feedback on the rear tires.  

Later models (not sure of exact years) had bracing bars between two of the rear suspension arms, a solid four point brace between the steering rack and frame instead of two bars, and afaik a bit more central bracing. Most of this is replicated with the TRD lower bracing kit. But that's expensive. A center chassis brace or breast plate will serve you well. The rear arm braces I felt didn't do a thing. 

The OEM 03+ rear arm braces also require the 03+ rear crossmember to be able to attach, as well as special bolts for said arms. I was looking at this while I was helping scrap an 03 recently. Decided against it as the che rear arms accomplish them same thing in the early models with much less effort.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I guess now I need to decide on one of these:

Corkey's replica from the Netherlands at around $225

Phats at $205

or Cusco that I can get for around $125. Do people still like these?

In this case, do you get what you pay for?

If the car is staying relatively stock, a front STB should be mandatory.

The 03+ chassis bracing is pretty flimsy and cheaply made relative to the TRD braces, but the OEM braces can be easily fitted to 00-02.

The front brace bolts right up with no issues. I would suggest welding the pieces together since it's all bolted which makes it flimsy.

The rear braces need the bolt hole to the rear member mount side (toe arm bolt location) enlarged. I pulled the OEM braces off an 03. Not sure why, but it has a much smaller hole for the bolt.

Very easy to modify OEM and bolt in. I have the TRD braces on my 00 race car and the OEM ones from an 03 on my 01 street car.

@mrsponz

I have both the original Corky's and the Phats, one on each of my otherwise identical 2005's. I cannot tell any difference at all between them as regards performance. I would go with the Phats piece. I actually bought both of them from Phats. I get no income from the Phats product. I just like it.

My car is a 2003. All standard. No one likes the Cusco breast plate? I guess is is time to contact phats.

The only front-underbrace I could find "in-stock" was the Tanabe. is it worth it?

My wife says I cannot touch the Frunk, so a FTSB is out ( unless she really likes the breast plate) !!

Cusco is a pretty low end company IMO. Corky's stuff is out of production so you can't go wrong with TRD or Phats. Tanabe front brace is worthless, cheap flimsy aluminum and makes 0 difference. 

Posted by: @haloruler64

Cusco is a pretty low end company IMO. Corky's stuff is out of production so you can't go wrong with TRD or Phats. Tanabe front brace is worthless, cheap flimsy aluminum and makes 0 difference. 

Tunabe yes but Cusco no.  Cusco is a Japanese quality company that makes high end suspension parts.  They have also been in the game for over 40 years.  

They also put out crap like rebranded eBay strut bars with hinges with their own name on them. A lot of their products are questionable. 

From what I remember back in the day that  crapy front strut bar design was theirs not something that was rebranded. To their credit they were selling to a audience of Spyder owners  who wanted a front bar without any drawbacks to using the frunk hatch door because the majority of new owners at the time were not willing to compromise with the TRD version. It actually sold well but people like me crapped over the design but the owners did not care because they wanted that brace for the looks and because its JDM.  They are also the first ones to copy the rear TRD control arm braces which I bought BTW but I ended up selling once I got the TOMs which is more substantial. I found nothing wrong with the product. 

Not to much later on Cusco braces were copied by China and sold to the community.  Apart from that Cusco is a quality company but for me I don't particularly like the hype surrounding them because I think they are over hyped being JDM when there are better options from our own community.  

 At present they are the only one of  two manufactures left out of the four the makes a well researched quality street coilover system. Their coilovers for other applications have a great reputation in the tuner world.  

That design is not for any specific Spyder reason, it's a universal design they make for a bunch of cars. Their product lineup is a huge mixed bag, some great stuff that's well engineered and some crap. Much like a lot of well respected JDM companies.