Roll Cage vs Roll bar? It's suspension if your suspension doesn't keep you RSD
 

PT car = street car that is track capable not a race car. So at what point do you do a cage?

I'm thinking a 4 point Bar (I'm not calling a 4 point a cage) will afford some added insurance and even let me run Silverstate GT up to 150.

For a 3-4K lbs car 1.75 120 wall BAR seems to suffice until your get real serious.

Any reason I should rethink this and go full cage? I would like to be able to drive the car without a helmet on the street and not constantly be worrying about hitting my melon on the front hoop :mad:

Unlike GW I'm a Sasquatch at 6'4" so head room is always a premium. Hitting my head so often is probably the cause of the brain damage that is drving me to spend so much $$$ on an old Ford :rolleyes:

I say do it as long as no kiddies are riding in the back seat. You're planning on beating on that moster and have enough HP to really do some damage. Given your 'fittment' in the car get one custom made once you hve seats/pedals installed.

Years ago when i was at that decision point I spoke to Uncle Frank about it. Noob that I was, I told him I wasn't planning on driving it hard enough to roll the car but would take it on the track (how stupid was that statement?). Frank's response - "no one ever 'plans' on rolling their car."

700 horsepower and a dry sump. :lol:

This is a tough debate. If you have kids that want to ride in the back seat, you are building the wrong car in my opinion. With the chassis and engine you plan, you need at least a 6 point and race belts. Only you know to what degree you will use the car. OK, maybe you don't know until you turn the key and get out to some events.

So, as the old saying goes, you can't bake your cake and eat it too. What's important to you? Your kids safety, your safety, streetability, track compliance? Only you can make that decision and it's an important one for the function of the car.

You really don't know what a missile you are building. That goes for you to Ron. Believe me, 700hp will motivate anything down the straightaway in a big way. I've run a couple road courses with speeds pushing 140, the thought crosses your mind! And it does and will happen to someone in this community, eventually. I'm not trying to be a downer, I just think safety is vastly under thought in this community.

I remember when I built my first shifter kart. I didn't realize how important seat fit really was till I got it on the track and really pushed it. After one cracked rib I bought a really nice seat.:(

I agree nobody ever plans on crashing but you are an idiot if you aren't prepared for it. I always wore a helmet when I rode motorcyles even before the law.

No kids. Talked my wife into that before I got married. That's how I can afford the car and hopefully will stop working by 55. :D

No back seat so a 4 point with a proper diagonal bar is a no brainer in my mind. I just keep going back and forth in my head on adding the front hoop and down bars or not. Working in the front of the cage will add a lot of fab work.

Ron what did you do in your?
Todd I'm guessing you went with an 8 pt deal?

Dumb Question
 

So - I'll ask a dumb question. I've heard this mentioned several times. People are worried about their head impacting the front down-bars. I understand the concern, but if not for the down-bars - - if your head is thrust in that direction wouldn't it hit the A-pillar or the steel dash. I know the cage down-bar is much more rigid than the dash and the A-pillar, but my head (and I'm pretty hard-headed!!) is still the softer of the group.

I'm wrestling with this for a future project as well. I plan to have a 5-pt harness setup, but the other factor is if you wear a harness without a Head and Neck Restraint you are asking for trouble too.

It's all a calculated risk, I suppose. Please post what your decision is what your logic was behind it. It may help me make a decision.

Thanks

You only live once. Go full cage

Rob - I did the diagonal 5 point like you mentioned. 1 5/8" DSE pre-fab, sanctioning body non-compliant, not tied into any frame rails but fabbed strong enoungh for "what if". I also worked w Cris to prep the car for sub down bars, trangulated/reinforced under the dash. This was done for tortional ridgidity.

Brandon - My opinon only, but a good seat combined w good belts and a good halo is a good start. HANS is a whole 'nother level up, welcomed on track.

If I ever build a track only car, it'll have a sanctioning body compliant cage and I'll strongly consider a HANS system.

Cage systems in a PT car is a very personal choice and something is better than nothing...:cheers:

Spoken like a true pro...:thumbsup:

I've got a 10 point in the Studebaker, kind of a pain in the ass without the removable door bars. It's got Kirkey seats in it so no chance of smackin my melon in the back, front bars are far enough away.
To me, if your going to do any kind of track or open road event you should be protected. Blown tire or busted suspension part above 100mph can get ugly.

Its like the guy with the bad ass bronco or jeep, built to play but only has a single hoop, how bout the guy on the crotch rocket with shorts and flip flops?

A well designed cage compliments the car.
:cheers:
Dan

First off you need to ask yourself, "What will I be doing with my car?" If you are like alot of us you will start out with a few track days.......then the addiction hits :unibrow: . It's probably worse than nicotine and heroin combined. You wont be able to get enough. Your bank account begins to dwindle. Your family will approach you and tell you to get professional help. You cant hear them and the faster you get the more you want. :unibrow: :lol:
Put the cage in my friend....if you dont now you'll wish you did later ;)

I say put one in. If you don't like you can always cut it out.
I have a 10 point cage in my chevelle (no knee knocker bar under the dash).
It is 1.75" DOM .120 wall and the halo bar is tucked high and nice. The cage is through floor pan and tied to the frame. The Kirkey seats are a pain to get in and out of but they sit nice and low. I feel secure when strapped in with 5 pt belts. Here are a few pictures..it is a little slim on creature comforts and style points:lol:
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...f/IMG_6656.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...f/IMG_6653.jpg

I have kids but only my son (8 yrs old) has rode with me as my daughter is younger and not big enough. I have to use a bottom booster seat for my boy and shorten up the harness for him. If I had a back seat and no cage I am not sure I would feel comfortable with my kids back there anyway.

After all that is it a pain? Yes. I drove it Today and it is a pain to get in and out off. The 5 pt harness is a bigger pain imo. You can't have them pulled down all the way and make safe lane change on the freeway. I have thought about making the down bar with a curve, change seats and add 3 point seat belts as option for street driving. I only have one hobby car at the present time so having a track only car is not worth it for me. I want to get the max out of my $$ and time. Like said earlier there will be pros and cons with a cage in a street car. You are building a nice car so I would do a min of a 6 point

This is the absolute truth.

Some will say I am overreacting, and that you shouldn't have to meet certain safety standards, but 500+HP and open track events is a big accident waiting to happen. In fact they have already happened, but you just never see the publicity. Two people died at Silver State a couple of years ago, someone died at the Spectre hillclimb 2 years ago. In the past couple of years, I have noted deaths at driver training events, and open track events, and there are many, many, more accidents and deaths. There have been several off track excursions at PT RTTX events that could have been much worse. We as a group have been lucky, that luck won't hold out forever. I have raced, and I have seen many balled up racecars hauled away, and broken people taken to the hospital.

If you are going out on a big track, someday you will have an accident. Prepare for it.

Everyone makes the decision to take the risks that are acceptable to them, but use some sense and prepare for the danger. A typical PT car nowdays has more HP and less safety equipment than a nascar or TransAm car from the 60's. Look up the life expectancy of a driver back then, it wasn't much.

I am an advocate for building a racecar from the start. There are many classes of racing you can get into for a fraction of a top end PT car. Sure it is cool to have a streetable race car, but in the end, it will do neither very well. And racing just flat tears up equipment, don't do it if you are using your pride and joy that you poured years of labor and every last cent into.

This is what you need to be able to walk away from, and bear in mind that a vintage car like this was probably lucky to have 450hp

I elected to put a full cage in my Nova, knowing it would see track time and some street driving.
it is not a "LEGAL" anything cage, I used 1.57 x .095 as per scca specs. the only part that is not legal are the door bars besause legal bars make it impossible to get in and out. so my door bars are low whih provide some additional side impact safety as well as triangulation of the front down tube and main hoop. there is NO WAY you can even get in the back seat and I never intended to have anyone in the back so who cares.
I think the picture in the above post sayes it all!!!
my nova has 430 hp to the rear wheels and it is crazy how fast you get going. I am with Todd 700 hp will be fast on a long straight expect to see 150-160 mph!! you think that if you lost the brakes heaven forbid the original sheet metal will hold up? **** happens as they say. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. One other thing I did was to use approved FIA race seats. and it is surprising how comfortable they are and how tight they hold you in. another big benifet is that they sit you as low as possible as the bottom of the seat is only 1" thick and the seat tracks are another 1" so they give the max head room.
also use roll bar padding!!

I always hear the same argument about a vehicles driver or passengers hitting thier head on a street driven car with a roll bar or roll cage. I don't know squat about roll cages but I have been on the scene of several hundred accidents including a couple dozen fatalities. The fact of the matter is that no one accident is the same and no one accident is predictable. There is a possibility that a vehicles occupants may sustain injuries because of roll cage installation, but there is also the same possibility that a vehicle occupants may have avoided major injuries because of a roll cage installation. It's a 50/50 crap shoot on what type of injuries one may or may not receive in a vehicle accident.

It would really suck to have some super bad ass cage in your street car and get killed in a fender bender because you busted your skull against the rollcage in the car. If your going to have a full cage in your car you better have full seat belts you use everytime so your melon does not get smashed against a really hard rollbar.

That is what scares me about rollcages in a street cars. Plus you never see a street car with a rollcage with any padding on the bars, because the padding is ugly. It wont be as ugly as brain matter sprayed all over you Recaro's.

Rodger

Consider it?? I'm gona slap you ;) ! A racing seat, 5 point harness and a head and neck restraint system should be MANDATORY FOR EVERYONE ON A RACE TRACK,, PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That would suck! But on the flip side of the coin I'll bet someone would be thankful for that super bad ass roll cage if they were doing 90MPH on the freeway, got a blow out, over corrected and hit the concrete median and rolled 4 or 5 times. Then crawl out the window, look at what's left of thier mangled car and san say "damn I sould be dead right now." Stranger things have happened.

Realistically..........IMO

Full cages = helmet, shoulder harnesses, and padded bars so the helmet isn't compromised. Practical, no, logical, yes.

150 mph in a timed competitive event = full approved cage, seat, 5 point harness, helmet, fire suit, etc. Especially on a public road event.

You can yard-sale a high hp car in a matter of milli-seconds.

That's the problem with pro touring and racing. Do you want a safe street car or race car? You can't have both.

I'll take a cage over no cage anyway. One reason I chose the car I found that already had a pretty good one.

Most of the pro touring cars around here aren't driven nearly as much on the street as people think and lead on. The real danger is on the track, not a 20 mph accident cruising once a month.

Cage that bad boy real good Torino Man. You'll end up more on the track than on the street with that thing. You got plenty of street cars in your stable from what I can tell. :unibrow: :thumbsup:

Don't know about you Kalifornian's but this Orygunian can't take his car out ever and cruise it at 20 mph, it just don't happen. Must be that little pucker with horns on his head sitting on my left shoulder. :D

Disclaimer: I'm also the guy that's done numerous track days seeing 135-165 mph lap after lap with no cage and only 2 wheels. :_paranoid

My point was that there are a lot of show touring cars around that really just put around and don't give it gas much. So many guys put in the top of line suspension and the latest this and that and don't even sniff its potential. If it's powerful and you wanna test the limits, cage it and go to the track. :thumbsup:

That's the problem, you build one of these cars and you can't sniff it's capability on the street and that leads you to the track. It happens.

Exactly......thats how I started. Messing around on the street is not cool......to many unsafe variables for you and the public.

Exactly right. Thinking back to the 80s with a 450hp 69 Firebird with GW and Herb Adams suspensions stuff I did some really stupid stuff. At the time there didn't seem to be a proper outlet for my PT car other than Glendora Mountain Road. I'm a little wiser now. Thankfully I found my way to the track on my motorcycles and found the difference between riding at 7/10ths and 10/10ths.

Well I do and it does scare me a bit.:_paranoid

It does come down to do you plan on driving it 10/10ths or not.

I can't disagree with the possibility of a high speed crash and the difference in outcome with a full cage vs a 5 pt.

But to that end do you have a fire suppressant system in your car or do you have a Hans device? If you are preparing for the worst then you should prepare for the worst right?

I don't know what I'm convinced of yet but I think it is a good thing we are all having this discussion.

If you're going to drive it on the street often, like 3k+ miles a year, not 300, I would just do a four point. It might not be ideal for the track, but I think you should tailor the car for where it is going to see the majority of its time. You need to think about what is going to be safest for you most often. After that, you'll have to compromise on the other end. I drive my car often enough on the street that I think there is a greater chance of me having (another) accident on the street than there is on the track. While there is obviously no replacement for safety items like a full cage on the race track, perhaps the second greatest part of having a safe weekend track car is a safe driver that is always aware of the limitations of what he or she is driving.

Matt

WITH AGE COMES A CAGE

Good point. A fire suppression system is on my list. And it doesn't have to be invasive on a street car. I know Albert put one in his latest car and I'd like to see it as I heard it's packaged cleanly.

That's pretty insightful for a 19 year old. :D

Obi wan!

Check out Penny's fire supression mod. Very :cool:

Here's my take. Spend the money now or a lot more later. If you're building a street legal race car (which all of theses cars are and don't kid yourself) build it like your ganna do the 150 mph plus. Everybody always says they wont until the cars finished and then have to spend a lot more around a painted car. Then when it's painted you still wont be able to go the full extreme with out harming the paint or apolstry

Yes, it's expensive! What isn't nowadays if you want quality and safety? My customer I'm building the Cuda for said no at first,but then his brother go's. Were building this car with 800 plus hp why wouldn't we put one in. I opened my big mouth and said lets hide it. This cage was the most difficult,time consuming,and challenging peace that i've done. The biggest concerns from the begging were vision out the front and rear windows which never changed because the cage is tucked into the car. 2nd Im 6' 3" and my head won't hit the halo bar or the side down bars. So in the end the customer has full safety no dinging his head and can race it on a track.

In my honest opinion. It's one of those things that are a necessity. If you're building a car of this caliber with this much HP and are GOING to use it on any kind of track or street put a cage in it! NOT a bar! Spend it now and have a peace of mind later.

Here's a few before and after pics.

Mark

Mark, That is the best fitting cage I have ever seen!

Posting this vid/story by request.
:( This was not a rollover as you will see in the news story.

Here's the other thread.

Personally I wouldn't want a street driven car to have a full cage with a tube running along the side/top of my head. That would mean at the very least I would want to run tight 5pt harnesses all the time and that would only be an option if my head could not contact the bar.

What I would do, especially considering your height, would be a 6pt bar with low roadrace style front down bars so the car was still easy to get in and out of. You still have rollover/side protection, a place to mount harnesses, chassis stiffening but no chance of busting your head open on a bar.

Best compromise IMO.

If you are not worried about roll over protection how about a removable harness bar?

Has anyone on here tried the TigerCage (http://www.ridetech.com/store/tigercage/ ) ? Just wondering what the thoughts are on it?

i am building a 71 camaro and i am considering a 6 pt roll cage also. with no cross bars going across the interior how could you hit your head on anything? if the bars are at the roof line and go down by the a-pillar how would you het the bars? above the window area maybe? and as for rear passenders where would they hit the bar at? surly not behind the drivers head near the roof line? or would it be the roof bar that goes into the trunk on the side? just tryign to under stand. i would like to have a roller protection in my car but i don t wanna give up my back seat passengers.
thanks

I went with the RPM rollbar. certified to 10.0 it was a 1.75 inch chromoly setup. The bar was a 6 point with removable door bars. It was a little pricey but for applications that they have made them for the bolt in feature is very good. You can buy the forward extension for the cage to get an 8.0 cert, allegedly.

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t...age-82-640.jpg

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t...ior-25-640.jpg

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t...ion-54-640.jpg

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t...e-72-640-1.jpg

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t...e-68-640-1.jpg

Now that it nice. :thumbsup:

this may be due to it being late at night, but what part of the cage would you be concerned with hitting your head against? With a seat belt on at least, i dont see what you may come into contact with.

Also I want to thank that crazy ford guy for this thread. I wasn't even considering a cage at all until i read through this. If i wreck it (again), its probably going to be at a high speed on a track i would assume.