How many of y'all have roll cages in your rides? I'm going back n forth on whether or not to put one in the '54 I'm building. Post up some pics of yours.....
As scary fast that my 30 Coupe is i prob need one.....thot about it Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Roll bar maybe, roll cage is best left to track cars , is a cage allowed over there? cages not allowed down here for street as they don't want you bashing you head on the steel pipe, I've had both half and full cage on the street and I guess I can see the point, there is a chance of headbutting the front pipes in a full cage.
Not done yet, but, it's a fully legal, registered street car. https://public.fotki.com/-Mike-/60_lark/ Mike
I could not see any way to put a "legal" roll bar in my coupe. So I just built one that would fit. Will eventually build a driver side door bar and just get in and out of car on passenger side.
I just finished installing a four point bar in my project car. I built a mock up bar and supports with PVC tubing then brought the pattern to a chassis shop, they duplicated my pattern in 1.75 DOM tubing. It is not a race legal set up but It does not matter, I won't be racing the car. Picture shows the bar, seats, and shoulder harnesses in the mock up stage.
I have an NHRA legal cage in my Chevy II. I need it to race with the times the car runs. It's probably not real safe on the street...but what can a guy do? I'm not interested in a race only car, and I want to go fast, so that's the compromise I make. Other guys who do Drag Week with fast cars, have more serious cages.
A very early pic of my street car under construction. Its a spec 25-1E chassis. That means i should be able to limp away from a 200 plus mph crash. How can it be unsafe on the street. I will put my chassis up against any new car in a crash test.
A cage is safe if you're wearing all the protective gear that you wear when racing. Without the helmet, it might be iffy...??? you have a lot more knowledge of this than most of us!
This is the argument I get, when your racing you have a helmet, but also egress in a hurry can be compromised compared to car without a cage, all good at a track with fire fighters and first aid on hand etc there to help not so good elsewhere. Dare I say a roll bar is traditional a cage isnt? (obviously racing is a different kettle of fish)
Also depends on the design for the correct application , just because you add a cage Does not mean safer , growing up @ the track I have seen a few Rollbare / Cages collapse ,punch threw the floor/floor pan . Model T & A are a tricky one to install a Cage /Rollbar because the chassis is so much narrowed then body
I just went thru this recently and found that compromise was the rule of the day. And I also learned why a lot of old drag alterd cars were sedans: a cage takes up a lot of space. Some guys want them for styling, but once you have a cage you figure out they are a bit of a pain in the arse. They make it hard to get in and out, they put a solid bar right next to your head, so you whack it when not wearing a helmet. Add padding and you are that much more crowded. NHRA specs are pretty rigid. And SFI fire resistant padding is hard like a block of wood. Now, I'm lucky to have tracks in my area without tech lanes, so you can run damn near anything. But for guys in big cities, getting run out of the track for going too fast is a reality. Aside from NHRA and actual safety, a rollbar gives something solid to weld seats, fuel tanks, etc, and seatbelts to and can form a frame for a rear bulkhead to separate the trunk from the cab. So there are good practical reasons to have one. Here are the issues I ran up against when trying to build a legal roll bar: 1. Support braces going backward off the main hoop have to be within 5" of the top of the main hoop. I just couldn't make this happen in my coupe, and wound up mounting them to the cross bar that supports the seatback. Any hope of having a NHRA legal roll bar went right out the window with that. 2. For cars with frames, the rollbar must be welded to the frame (which for me, would make getting the body off really hard since the body, frame and roll bar would basically have to be all welded together.). My compromise is that I put foot plates (with 4 bolts each) on the roll bar and another foot plate under the floor. I will eventually weld the foot plate under the car to the frame via an added crossmember or some sort of outrigger off the frame rail. Then the rollbar is at least bolted to the frame instead of just the floor. I at least complied with the uni-body spec for now. 3. No door bars. I'd have to look at the rule book again, but I think you need a driver side door bar to go down to 9.99 in the 1/4. I think the absence of a door bar limits you to 11.99. But, door bars make me feel much safer from an emotional standpoint. But in a highboy coupe, getting in and out and fitting the thing around an original bench seat is a real job. So for now that's on the back burner. May eventually do a removeable door bar. 4. Main hoop diagonal bars. These take up a lot of space, but without them the roll bar doesn't have much strength. Currently, my roll bar supports the back of my seat and has my seatbelts mounted to it. Other than that, it's a styling piece that may or may not add a bit of safety in a rollover, but no side impact protection. I got it as high and far back from my head as possible. My landspeed car is a fastback with lots more room and has a legit 175mph cage awaiting mods for cert to 200mph-I have to be a gymnast to get in and out, and the car looks like a spider's web. I tag my head on the cage all the time, and my helmet shows the marks from it.
A full cage is dangerous on the street, without a helmet and 5 point harness your head will hit the funny car cage or main hoop. From personal experience I know the effects of bouncing off the cage in full race gear. A local racer was killed recently driving his 8:50 index on the street, car rolled and he hit his head on the funny car cage. At our shop we will not install full cages in street cars.
Legal for the ET I will be running in my '40 coupe. 4 point welded to the frame. Gonna try not to need it. -Abone.
But there's still alot of car to hit your head on w/o a cage. I've got a hard time thinking it's better to whack your head into the B pillar for example, rather than a well padded cage tube. I'm suprised there are so few triangulated designs on the pictures shown here. A square construction does suprisingly little to increase rigidity, while a simple diagonal (or cross) brace in that same square can make a huge improvement. Want rigidity? Triangles, triangles, triangles!
If you look at Racerx's pics in this post you will see a Certified cage has the bracing you refer to. Big difference between roll bars and certified cages. Done correctly a 6 point roll bar in a street car is fine.
The rules for bars/cages for racing have been around a long time, and seem to be pretty effective. As noted, the speed the car runs is what determines how much "stuff" you need. Land speed racing cages are serious business, because the cars go so fast. Drag racing cages get serious when you get going quicker than 8.50 seconds in the quarter. The minimum roll bar for NHRA is a 5 point bar for closed cars running 10.00 to 11.49 seconds (with a few qualifiers), it needs a door bar on the driver side. Cage is required for cars in the 10s with a modified floor or firewall. Open cars need this stuff at slower speeds. I usually wear the 5 pt harness when I'm driving on the street....there is a lot of metal in the car to get banged up on. But as mentioned, you can say that about any old car. a couple pics of mine. It has sill bars because the floor has been modified, but no dash bar, because the firewall has not. I didn't have any pics that show the whole cage, so I took a couple this morning. Brian rebuilt his car so the floor and cage are part of the chassis, the body comes off, but not in the original way...the floor stays on the chassis. Lots of work to do this, but if you want an old hot rod that you can go fast in legally at the track, it's necessary.
My Novas' NHRA legal 8 point bar, though I never planned to really race it much but just in case. All tig welded except for the four floor plates, the two diagonal bars are required on unibody cars, these are tied into the subframe connectors. The two trunk bars are tied into the rectangular tube rear subframe.
Thats all nice and fancy and for full drag cars, lets see one inna 29-32 5-window coupe that is street/strip and where you can get in and out of the car without being an acrobat....car is full 2×4 tube frame w rear kick only Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
I have a Model A 1930 that runs over 103 mph in 1/8 @ 6:60s ( dayle driver) with stock seat's stock frame thats been boxed with 6 inch wide tire's with one of my B.S. motor , I am in the process of an engine swap that makes 150 more horsepower, Its to the point I feel I need Full cage 28-31 cage /roll bar is not practical on stock frame location , Frame rails run in the middle of front seats almost impossible to attach to Frame ,A cage / rollbar that will be safe , unless you use 1932 frame (with 28-31 body ) that is pinched at the cowl , On 1932 up rollbar /cage can be successfully done on stock frame location
My 30 has a custom built by me frame, goes all the way to the door sills, 600 hp w 3800 converter, 4.30 gearset, its a handful.....i wud say in the high 10 range, weighs 2200 w me in it....need a cage really, but its mostly street driven Only 2 times down a 1/8, 6.80 w little traction, 6.40 w adjusted ladder bars, better tires....so its stout Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Boys at the local strip allowed a few passes but said i gotta have a bar or two mext time Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Moheadl wrote - Thats all nice and fancy and for full drag cars, lets see one inna 29-32 5-window coupe that is street/strip and where you can get in and out of the car without being an acrobat....car is full 2×4 tube frame w rear kick only No problem. There's (was) a really nice 32 Ford three window near my area, fully street legal, full cage, that ran in the high 9's, low 10's. I watched the driver get in and out more than once, with it seemed little difficulty. Then after many years of racing, he crashed it. The chassis, cage held up well, not so much the fenders, cowl, etc. Last I heard, the car was under rebuild. And yea, the driver...though highly pissed, was basically ok. Mike
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