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The image above was where work stopped on July 14th, which was when the cage was about halfway finished. There will be additional tubes joining the upper side bars to the main hoop, in the roof, and of course the dash bar and door bars.
All outer tubes are routed very close to the outer skin of the body for maximum room to the driver's helmet and arms.
Now we probably could have argued for not using the optional "FIA bar" (below) on this Camaro. The FIA bar is the vertical bar that goes from the upper corners of the windshield to the foot of the forward most vertical cage bar at the A-pillar. Adding these is just good insurance, and has become common practice in all rally and many road racing safety cages these days.
This is a more critical tube on a more "laid back" modern windshield - which have typically windshields at 25-30° from horizontal (measured on cars in the shop to check this). This 1969 Camaro A-pillar is sitting more upright at a 41° angle, but that still means the top of the windshield/roof is 15-1/2" further back than the base of the windshield and the front foot of most cage tubes, so the FIA bar was added. In a roll over situation this will help keep the roof from crushing - and that's a big part of what a "roll" cage is supposed to do.
The first roof diagonal bar is in place above. Bends were added at the ends to gain more headroom for the driver and passenger. This bar is almost touching the roof skin in 2 spots and the ends fit tight to the cage. Most of the original inner roof structure has been removed except the forward most panel at the front/top of the windshield, and even this inner panel was tweaked for more room.
Here you can see that the second roof bar was added. This is optional, but worth it on a car that will sometimes have two people in it and driven hard on track. The first roof diagonal joins several others in a big "node" behind the driver's head for maximum strength nearest his helmet. These tubes are only tacked in place, and will be disassembled for final welding. Each tube will be individually welded at to the node - one tube at a time on atop the other - for full 360° welds on each tube at this junction.
WOODWARD RACK IS HERE
At this point we are well into July work. This is not the only car Ryan was working on in June/July, as he was pulled away to tackle some final work on the FR-S LS1 car before it left our shop, as well as some work on the LS1 Miata, but the Camaro was his main priority.
The Fox Mustang factory steering rack looked a lot worse for wear, and the original placement left a lot to be desired (it was going to have massive bump steer where it was placed, plus it was in the way of the harmonic balancer). We explained the rack's limitations and suggested a few options to the car owner. Options ranged from electric steering assist to several options of OEM and custom servo-style racks like this made-to-order Woodward rack, below.
He picked the Woodward servo rack, so we sent our calculated dimensions to Woodward and had it built. Brad took this picture of the rack and various parts that came in this kit. Ryan wanted to mount the rack to the front crossmember immediately, but the tailstock on our manual lathe broke, and he needed the lathe to make some of the mounting components, so that had to wait until we repaired the lathe. Next time.
DRY SUMP TANK MOUNTING
Mounting locations for the dry sump oil settling tank was discussed within our crew. Some racing engineers want to use the tank plus the 8-12 quarts of oil it holds as ballast, and place it way in the back of the chassis. Engine builders want this tank want it as close to the engine as possible to reduce/oil feed suction problems to the dry sump pressure pump.
With as far back as we have moved the engine and transmission, plus the driver, we felt we are going to be doing pretty well on rear weight bias and went with the forward tank location. This tank is sitting behind where the stock firewall would be, but it will be tucked inside its own (accessible) metal enclosure away from the passenger cabin. The passenger seat is moved back the same ~18" as the driver's side, so their feet will have plenty of room away from this tank enclosure.
Ryan mounted the tank at this point to route the extra forward cage tubes from the roll cage to the vertical tube that ties into the front suspension mounting tubes/plate. You can see the pink layout string in the image above, which runs above the tank. Planning ahead is crucial so we don't have to back track later.
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