Okay, i've done lots of searching on the net and such. It basically comes down to the fact that I need an NHRA legal cage, but I need a bolt-in because I absolutely will not weld anything in my FD. I really like the M2 roll bar, but it's lacking the door bar that would make it a 5 point.

Can anyone provide me with good info and places to find something like this? I've e-mailed M2 to see if they might be able to do a door bar and I'm waiting to hear back from Kirk Racing to see what they have to offer.

 

why not weld in?

 

Autopower makes a bolt in 4-point bar but sadly it does not have the door bar like you're looking for. You might be able to have something custom fabbed and then bolted in. Seems to me like your best bet would be to find a shop local to yourself that specializes in building cages and such. They should be able to make something that meets your needs.

One thing I'd be a little concerned with is whether or not the door bar will fit with the stock door panels. They're curved quite a bit and stick into the cockpit in places so I'm not sure if they'd interfere with a door bar.

 

I have the Cusco 7 point. Not that great on a US car due to the left side it would be hard to get your legs in the car. 12 point is my next jungle gym.....

 

SCCA may allow bolt-in roll bars because of the relatively low speeds involved, but NHRA does not allow bolt-in bars to my knowledge. You may get away with it at some tracks where tech is lax, especially if you cover the joints with padding, but strictly speaking, it's not legal. Art Morrison even calls their bolt-in kits their "image series", and the weld-in kits the "competition series".

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However, for the speeds which require a 5-pt. roll bar, I'd think your sense of self-preservation would make welding an attractive option. Resale value is sort of irrelevant if you die in the car because you chose to sabotage the required safety equipment.
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0.120" mild steel tubing is the minimum required by NHRA regulations, but most 1020 roll cage tubing is 1-3/4" x 0.134". 1-3/4" x 0.083" 4130 Chromemoly may be used since it is the same strength, but about 1/3 of the weight, and 2-3 times the cost. The bars must be welded to 6" x 6" plates welded to the floorpan or to the frame of the vehicle.

Lessons learned... if you do get a 5-pt. roll bar fabricated, make sure the door bar is at least a swing-out type, or removable if possible. Repeatedly crawling into the car over a fixed door bar of legal height is a royal pain in the ***.

My custom 4130 monkey bars...

 

That cage looks really nice, I would like to do something like that to my car after I install my single setup. But i hear that in an accident It will do more harm than good if your not wearing a helmit

 

A full cage with a "halo" would, since your head is very close to the upper side bars. In my case, my head would have to be shoved back over the top of the seats to come into contact with my main hoop, and at that point, I've probably got more to worry about than hitting the bar.

 

Is that cage all custom or did you order it? if so where from?

 

Custom. Built by Streetworks in Auburn, WA in 1998.

 

Heres a pretty one

 

for NHRA you need a 4 point for 11.99 or faster, 6 point for 10.99 or faster. If you eventually plan on running 10s then a 4 point would be a waste.

If I remember correctly, the 6 point has to be welded in but not the 4.

That purple cage is BADASS!!!!!11, yours is nice too Jim

 

I think you'd better double check your rule book. 4-pt. bars are not legal in any class of NHRA competition requiring a roll bar, and bars and cages must be welded.

Per NHRA rules...
A roll bar* is required on all convertibles running 11.00-13.99 and all cars running 11.00-11.99. Full bodied cars with unaltered firewalls, floor, and body running 10.00-10.99 only require a roll bar*. All other cars running 10.99 or faster than 135 mph require a roll cage**. Cars faster than 9.99 require a chassis sticker and inspection every three years.

*6-pt. bar required, with door bars passing between the driver's elbow and shoulder.



**6-pt. or better depending on class, dash bar required (not shown).



Some tracks will let you get away with a 5-pt. roll bar, which only has one door bar on the driver's side for small events and test and tune. Seattle International Raceway/Pacific Raceway happens to be one of those tracks, but forget about it at an official NHRA sanctioned event.

Thanks... I think. Would mine have been badass if it had been painted purple?

 

Try here for frequently asked NHRA questions

http://www.nhra.com/contacts/tech_faq.html

Basically, you need a bar beginning at 11.99 or less. That's what the rules say, but I've seen people running mid 11 second passes with no roll bar and the track doesn't say anything to them.

On a side note, that rule kind of sucks for anyone with a lightly modified viper, Z06, 911TT, etc. You can't mod much before you're "required" to have a cage. Now, I don't mind having a rollcage in the car, but I think the wife would frown on it. Though, purple is her favorite color.

 

This of course is not a full bar/cage and is only a rear stabilizing kit, sort of like an overdone strut bar IMO. NeXT in Japan makes something almost exactly the same, if that isn't in fact the NeXT one.


www.swracecars.com (which has great pricing on roll bars IMO) makes a 8 point bar for the FD that should be legal for NHRA pending you weld it in but I guarentee you that it's not going to be as "pretty" as jimlab's bar setup or a M2 road type setup and not sure which interior peices you'd be able to keep and which ones would obstruct the bar. They even have bar for a geo storm if anyone should need one...

 

Good link. I'd forgotten that you could bolt the floor plates in (but not the bars) if you used a plate above and below the floor pan, and the diagram shows a 5-pt. bar being legal, which I thought was track specific. Art Morrison's site shows a 6-pt. roll bar as being the minimum to be NHRA legal.

 

Someone asked if my roll bar was powdercoated. Bolt-in bars could be powdercoated after fabrication and then bolted into place, but welding requires bare metal, obviously. I suppose you could powdercoat the bars prior to installation, assuming you had all the fabrication work done, and just grind the coating off small areas to expose metal for welding, but once the roll bar is in the car, how would you touch up the powdercoating?

Instead, my bar is painted, and here's how it was done. First the entire outside and inside of the car were masked off with plastic and/or masking paper.

 

Second, the bar was sanded with ScotchBrite pads, cleaned with Sherwin Williams wax/adhesive remover (we call it ****-Sher-Will, because it "sure will" remove almost any kind of goo from a surface), then the bar was coated with primer/sealer. After that dried, it got the same treatment the outside of a car gets; several coats of black basecoat followed by several coats of clear. The finish is very durable, although not as durable as powdercoat, obviously.

 

And finally, you can see in this picture how my 5-pt. harnesses were mounted. I had harness loops added to the cross bar to keep them from sliding around, and had them do both sides of the car while I was at it.

I no longer have the blue harnesses shown, I sold them before their "freshness date" expired, and now I just have the stock belts and a single black Simpson 5-pt. harness (long since expired) for the driver's side.

 

Jim, any reason why you welded the rear diagonal bar from passenger side to driver side...I usually see it the other way around for US FD's for visibility I guess. Also, if you notice the picture above with the purple roll bar...he has it like yours...and his is RHD...

 

Thanks Jim. After you mentioned it I kind of slapped myself in the forehead and said "Duh, they're welded in" in regards to my powdercoating question. For some reason I was thinking get the whole thing assembled and powdercoated and then weld the bottoms into place. Guess I should think next time before I open my mouth.

Thanks for the pics.

 

That's funny, every other FD with a roll bar that I have pictures of has a more invasive bar configuration than I do. I barely notice the diagonal bar in the rear view mirror, and it certainly doesn't block my vision. Maybe it's because of my height? *shrug*

It's also purple and badass.

 

Maybe it's because you never drive your friggin' car. Just kidding, I couldn't resist

 

so how much could i expect to pay for an 11 sec bar put in like Jim's? with removeable side bars. 2k? :|

 

I've sat in the car and backed it off a couple flatbed wreckers. Does that count?

 

the reason i won't weld a cage in my car is just due to the fact that i don't like anything that cannot be changed easily. i don't want to risk any damage to my interior by any welding, which shouldn't be an issue with a good welder, but if i need to do some interior panel replacement, i don't want to cut and re-weld.

bolt-in cages are allowed by nhra and idra and only need to be a 5 point roll-bar style until 9.99 as long as the floor and firewall are still factory. i am already below 11.99 and have to be caged if i want to compete anymore. i'm upgrading to a t78 in about 2 weeks and should net me some easy 10 second slips, but no track will allow it without a cage.

i know all the rulings. what i asked was where i can get info on cages