I spoke to autopower they mentioned it does have some stiffening capabilities if you weld it into the body. I plan on bolting mine in, but I may lean towards a weld maybe. I bought it mostly for safety as I am very interested in walking away from a potential accident. If you are looking to stiffen up the body cheap go with ITW foamseal and whole lot of TIG welds like they do on the stock cars they turn into circuit runners. They strip the car and TIG weld everything to stiffen up the chassis as much as possible... I actually considered that at one time but couldn't afford to ship it anywhere trustworthy.