www.86garage.com

It's been through a couple of cars in Japan and one US chassis so the original Cusco blue was all scratched up. Ray cleaned it up and re-painted it the color you see now but it's still Cusco OG!

Clean install job Ray

Looks good..

Check it out! Even Haru (aka AE86Kai an OG C4AG member who returned to Japan) is sporting an old school Cusco rear shock tower brace:





He does clean work on his 86 by the way. Check out his build thread.

More:

is this part functional? or eye candy?

More eye candy. Most the flex from the rear end is where the trailing arms mount to the chassis just aft of the passenger/driver seats. Good place for some lateral gussets and also rust.

In a hatch, I see this component lessening chassis flex similar to the rear portion of a cage but of course to a lesser degree.

In a way it could but the biggest reason a welded in cage adds rigidity to the rear is because it ties it to the forward half of the chassis. This just ties flimsy chassis parts with more flimsy chassis parts. I'm sure it helps though, but you won't feel it. Good to tie stuff down to that's for sure!

I will not deny that this is a sexy little piece.