Lorne,
I too have tried other materials, alloy, pot etc. and all had some merit so One afternoon I thought that I'd shock test them and all but the brass instantly sheared, This was however in the vice at the bench and as you say theory is fine but practice is something else! brass had the greatest ability to distort and still hold before failure and this showed me that I was unlikely to have a loose end of a BRB waving about after failure from general fatigue or a minor suspension incident which might be unknown to me! Brass also allowed me to tighten the BRB to the chassis with adequate force to prevent the BRB being able to move around causing wear fatigue to the fastening along with no corrosion or galvanic degradation to any degree.
I also tried stainless steel and the latest offerings are not as soap like as they used to be so on the lathe I cut a shear waist at the through chassis point but on test I found that the stretch factor was unpredictable and I could not find a consistent level of tightening. If it failed at this point then that was obviously too weak yet if not, under testing further again results were varied so I moved on again!
I have to agree with you though that the BRB's on general offer at this time are probably about the best we could use to gain maximum benefit with minimum problems. I really can't see that in a severe crash the BRB could give such increased rigidity to the chassis so as to threaten the occupants and any one who has had experience of fitting them would quickly see jus how weak and foldable the crushed/folded ends are and it would simply deform from these points regardless of impact type.
My interest in this was just to eliminate any chassis damage to the longitudinal members in the event of what in effect would be a minor impact and not transfer the damage to an area further to the rear.
