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

[onevoice]

Originally Posted by Vegas69

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.

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

[Blake Foster]

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!!