| These pics show various details of the rollcage
preparation. Every change and addition we made was in the
interest of safety. The first batch of kits did not have very
good rollcages. In fact, ours wasn't NASA or SCCA legal in
the stock configuration. The diagonal support in the plane
of the main hoop was also in backwards on ours, but this has
been corrected in newer kits. Newer kits also have more tubing
in other areas. |
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The door bars as they came in the kit are shown
here on the passenger side (the two upper bars). We added
a third bar at the bottom on each side, as well as vertical
bars between these horizontal bars for more strength. |
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Here is the main roll hoop as it came in the
kit. It also had diagonal bars from the main hoop to the dash
bar. We cut those off since they wouldn't be compatible with
the halo section we would be adding. The diagonal bar in the
plane of the main hoop is also backwards. It should go from
the driver head down to the other side. We ended up correcting
this by just adding another diagonal to form an x. |
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We added support bars from the dash bar down
to the front shock towers. This adds a good deal of strength
to the dash hoop to keep it from trying to fold towards the
main frame rails in a crash. The L shaped bar in the footbox
is also shown here as it comes in the kit. |
| The footbox was severely lacking protection,
so we added two bars. This addition could keep you from losing
your feet or lower legs in a crash, especially a side impact. |
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This bar was added from the lowest door bar to the left
frame rail. It adds support to the door bars and adds some
protection to the driver's floor area. The X in the floor
is only 3/4" square tubing, so it's not very substantial. |
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We added a "halo" to the cage. The tubing was
bent to approximate the shape and angle of the full size windshields
used on these cars. The angled side bars were added because
the door bars were too low and still didn't provide complete
side protection. They are angled because that turned out to
be the best compromise between side protection and the ability
to enter and exit through the side. |
| Several sections of the frame using rectangular
tubing would potentially bear stress from the the roll cage
in a crash. To strengthen these areas we used endcaps on the
tubing. The dashbar also had an internal plate tacked in place
to help support the front down tubes. |
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Several of the joints in the rollcage were strengthened
with gussets. A small bit of triangulation can go a long way. |
| The completed cage is shown below. A diagonal
bar in the top of the cage has been added, as well as another
diagonal in the plane of the main roll hoop. |
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| The cage didn't turn out bad considering we
reused part of what was already there. I think it would have
been better and required less tubing if we had been able to
start with none of the factory cage in place. In the interest
of time, we simply added to the factory cage for the most
part. The result is a car that I feel safe driving on the
track. |
