The car is a dd for Dad that we built to race too. Now it's too fast to run without a roll bar. I don't know whether to slow the car down or put a roll bar in. I'm also unsure of how much weight it will add but it seems like it would be a hassle for my 62 yr old Dad to deal with regularly.
Ideas?

 

Swing-out bar that can be removed for DD duty. Will meet the requirements at the track but not get in the way when on the street.

Not sure about weight, sure someone else can chime in.

 

Swing out arm is definately the best choice. I have said it many times before, the more safety equipment the better. The weight of the roll bar all depends on what kind you chose (8pt, 10pt) as well as if it is mild steel or moly

 

Dads 62 and racing??. I'm 65.I'm quite sure Dad knows the right answer when it comes to safety.

 

Considering how much my prior-drag raced 83 Z28 creaks and groans just driving on the street (even with 1 1/2" subframe connectors), I'ld say put it in if nothing else the added structural reinforcement. Things like the wonderbar were developed for the 3rd gen because it was already somewhat structurally weak from the factory, and the age of our cars isn't helping much either. From a racing aspect, anything that both improves safety AND reduces body flex for better translation of power to the ground is always a net plus, weight increase aside.

 

IDK,...ive seen a few people mention roll bars can be a bad thing for a DD cause its something to potentially hit your head on in an accident, when not wearing a helmet. im sure this has been discussed before, but thought id mention it.

 

You mean you DON'T drive around dressed like the Stig everyday??

 

I have always wanted to do that. But only if I had someone taking pics of people's reactions.

 

A basic 1-3/4" tube 6 point roll bar will add approximately 70 pounds to the car.

 

Personally, I don't recommend store-bought kits or even "lesser talented" chassis shops roll bars/cages for this very reason.

In the even of an accident you don't want your head bouncing off steel tubing, the results often aren't good. - In racing, a helmet is required in any car with a roll bar/cage no matter how fast or slow it is.


In my opinion, the only good way to have one in a street car is with a well tucked main hoop & swing-out/removable door bars. When I say "tucked in" -

 

My car still needs to be tuned and then after that's done out I'll be ready to start looking at a 100-150 nitrous shot for track use so I do plan on going fast enough eventually.

I'm 6'4 in height. To get the seat to go all the way back with the proper recline angle I use I had to cut and move the main hoop to on top of the rear seat "hump". It's still a secure anchor point for the hoop as I hammered the steel plates to fit the contour of the sheet metal.

I also use double swing outs (one on each side) as it's still a street toy. I also bought the clearanced door bars so they move inward to keep the factory arm rests. Usually my passenger side pin stays in all the time and my driver side is never in unless I have to jack the car up to work on it.

I used the additional straight door bars and had them cut into an X brace for the rear supports.

Driverside cup holder cleared okay but I had to put a small notch in the passenger side one. I probably could have mounted the side bar differently but I didn't take the cup holders to the shop with me.

I wrapped the main hoop and side bars in the cheap padding from JEGs. It's not SFI approved but I got tired of whacking my knee and elbow off the uncovered door bar.

I could see some concern for hitting the main hoop during an accident depending on where you mount the main hoop. My main hoop like stated is all the way on the rear seats mounted and it touches the roof liner. I had to trim some interior panels too.





Other things to consider: harness mounts and installation costs.

While doing the roll bar you should try to sort out what harness types you plan on using and get the mounting points for those laid out. Might as well get those firmly attached to the roll bar at the same time before you paint it all.

Installation costs usually is what freaks people out after they buy the kits. Mine was $300 but I worked side by side with the welder in his shop every weekday for basically 2 weeks after college courses. I've heard prices all the way up to $100 per point aren't too uncommon.

 

i have an 8pt bar in my car with swing outs, and could drive it daily if i wanted. it's like the bar isn't there with the swingouts pulled out, and i have the safety of it being there when the door bar is in. i highly recommend doing it with as fast as the car is.

 

In a race only, drag race car, sure. Roll bars will kill you in a heartbeat if your head hits them with any kind of force in an accident. That goes for passengers too. You got a tilting seat taht could possibly break and allow your head to smash like a watermelon? Better put that racing seat in. Lets just throw in a harness because that's the only way to ensure you keep your head away from a roll bar in an accident - a harness and a race seat. Then what happens when you get in your 50 mph wreck because some idiot runs over you on the road? Your neck takes all the strain, and without a helmet/collar/Hans etc that will kill you just as quickly.

Ive seen some guys here running roll bars that are a good 4-8 inches behind their head, but Ive seen some where the roll bar is literaly barely behind the headrest at all. Do you really trust that 20 year old tilt seat mechanism not to break if you get rear ended at 30+ mph, and throw your head straight into that bar? Even if its padded, the padding only adds at most an extra inch of deceleration room. Not nearly enough to save your life. Shagwell is completely right on that.

This safety equipment thing gets you into dangerous territory in a HURRY if you're street driving your car a lot. Plus race harnesses arent DOT approved usually. So to keep it street legal you need the stock belt.. and those dont work well with race seats, ... its an endless loop.

I know a lot of you guys are race car guys and nothing gets in the way of you having your 10-11-12 second street cars and you see your roll bars as a point of pride, but in a street accident they WILL kill you if your head hits them and without a good seat holding you in place the side bars may well break your ribs.

In a racing accident at 100+ mph at the track, you want that helmet and roll bar setup, and harness to keep you in the car and to make sure the car doesn't crush you inside of it. The helmet is what makes the difference, and the rest of that stuff makes sure you can survive. Its more than worth it and it's great to have it. Even a moderately serious neck injury is preferable to death, although the HANS device has even put an end to that. But on the street when youre not wearing a helmet it's far more dangerous than it is beneficial.

If the OP's father is racing at the strip a lot, then sure, maybe the bar is unavoidable, and they definitely have their place and have saved many, many, many lives. But dont just act like it's a great thing from all angles. The factory seat belt setup intentionally lets your body move in certain controlled directions based on years of crash test research and NHTSA overzealousness. In a street accident without a helmet there's no safer way to go than factory. (Most street accidents dont involve rollovers either. In the case of a rollover things are a little more skewed) But if you have to roll with a 6 or 8 point, I wouldnt do it on the street without a harness to make sure my head didnt move around too much in the event of an accident. As much as we all think we are invincible... the head vs steel bar has a clear winner every time. But harnesses are such a pain in the butt.... ugh.

So then... are you more likely to have an accident on the street, or at the races?

 

i do recommend a rigid mounted high back seat with a roll bar in a street car.

 

a swingout is the best bet, and im not sure what you guys talked about doing for a harness or belts... but ill say a harness would get old pretty quick if you had to go several places in one day. i also wouldnt enjoy my kirkey everyday along with not being able to lean foward due to a harness.

 

my kirkey is pretty comfortable. i would like a regular seat belt again though, lol

 

I thought the placement of the roll bar behind the driver was rigidly controlled by NHRA/IHRA rules, and it won't past tech if it's even a tiny bit out of place?

 

Man, out here, as long as you have the required equipment, you are good to go. Unless you are getting cert to run really fast. But a street car does not get looked at twice.

 

There is much that is said when you say there is race cars and then there are street cars once you get to a certain point of how fast the car is.

 

It sounds like lax enforcement is the problem, not the bars themselves. If you follow the rulebook it states exactly where the bar must be in relation to the head, specifically for safety reasons.

But I do understand the argument about it also not being intended for street use, and certainly not without also a full rigid racing seat, harness, extinguishing system, etc. But, you can install lesser cages that still stiffen the body and provide some degree of protection without having a full cage, and that aren't a safety risk on a street car.

 

One more thing that I hadn't really considered is the harness/rigid seat. Just so we are all on the same page...Dad had his right arm removed when he was 19 years old. The car is a street driver 99% of the time, where we usually don't push it harder than a full throttle blast to 70 or a 3 second kick down when messing around on the highway. It almost sounds like the bar may not be worth the risk on the street as driving with a harness on isn't really an option for Dad. I guess we could get a little faster and just sit out on race days if we can find a track that will let us run 10's without the bar for test and tune.

 

I had a Competition Engineering 8 point in my 82 street strip car. Just depends on what you really want. As soon as I put a roll cage in my car, it really did become a "race car" that I drove on the street. No back seat, most of the interior I didn't bother putting back in, etc.

I do like the new rules a lot better now, when I put my cage in, I had a mild vortec 350 that ran 12.2 at 112 mph and was about 2 tenths from the old 11.99 limit.

Also, in the back of my mind, I always wondered what would happen if I got in an accident without a helmet on, as my head was close to the halo.

Just a thought, I am thinking about putting in a harness bar this time around, and running 11.50

 

I think this is accurate/current:



Sometimes the hoops are REALLY close to peoples heads. Makes me super nervous.

And then there's this:

http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/w...bar#Dimensions

For a lot of cars, including ours, having the hoop 3 inches above the driver's helmet is just not feasible. Not really an enforcement issue, just a fact of life with a low slung sports car. Maybe if you're short you can do it...

 

I haven't put one in a 3rd gen, just helped install in a Monte circle track car. What about a basic 6 point, if nothing else for structural reinforcement? 2 swing out side bars, a rear hood, and 2 rear bars to tie the entire front and rear subframe together? With proper seats (I.E. ditch the factory crumple buckets) it should be safe.

 

The main danger is your head hitting the hoop. Prevent that with a rigid seat + harness, and the danger becomes a serious neck injury in a hard collision. In a high speed environment the dangers of a neck injury are far outweighed by the dangers of being crushed and killed inside the car. In a street car that's gonna have to be up to you. Also understand that the cage rules for road race cars (where collisions with other cars are a serious concern) are far more strict. Most guys resort to NASCAR bars.

Here is BIG_MODS' car:



And another example with nascar bars: http://www.blainefabrication.com/pro...0/IMG_4065.JPG

Collisions with cars are a whole other story. You have to remember that in a collision your car's job is to absorb the impact, and also to allow your body parts to decelerate, if possible, slower than the car is. The farther your body can move around to absorb the impact in an accident the better, and the more the car can deform, the better, as long as it doesn't deform to the extent that the interior of the car is breached. When you put a 5 or 6 point in there, you're hardly doing anything for side impacts, and likely making them far worse. The bar will either deform into your space, or it will increase the rigidity of the door so much that your body is forced to absorb the impact instead of the door. But a 5 or 6 point roll bar is NOT designed or capable of preventing injuries in collisions with other cars.

In racing, the speeds are so high that a street car will likely just crumple and kill you in it completely, so they just give up on crumple zones and build a protective cage, harness, seat, etc, and just let your body take the licks it gets. As long as you come out in one piece, your survival odds at high speeds are greatly increased. But as Dale Earnhardt can attest, that isnt always enough.

In racing it's usually either the driver breaking free of the car (Gilles Villeneuve etc) or an extreme deceleration causing massive head injuries that kills drivers. In ye olde days fire was such a concern they didnt even want seatbelts, but they've gotten much better with that over the past 30 years. With seatbelts, modern seats, and airbags, the head injuries are rarely a huge concern in a street car, and neck injuries can be serious but not fatal. With a harness, a rigid seat, and a non-deforming roll bar setup that wont absorb the impact, you're just along for the ride and neck injuries and head injuries are far more likely because although you can strap yourself in, your head is free to move around.

I will probably have a 5 or 6 point in my car at some point (with a harness and fixed seat), but Im not going to kid myself to think taht it's safer on the street than the factory setup was. It's safer on the track, but not on the street.

 

Lots of good points in here.

NHRA/IHRA mandate roll bars/cages at cert ET's, but also note that regardless of speed you must use a full harness & helmet in any car with a bar/cage. Yes, there are specifics about the placement of several bars in relation to the driver(distance of main hoop from helmet as noted above as well as door bar "plane of travel" in relation to your shoulder & elbow height), and many cage specs also require SFI approved padding in certain locations.

As Infernal noted, if you wear a helmet you really should consider at least a horseshoe collar to help support your neck in the event that something happens. Neck injuries can happen easily enough w/o a helmet, add the weight of the helmet in & the chances of that go up exponentially.

As far as the seat goes, I have literally fallen asleep in my kirkey before.....lol. Mount them right and they are very comfortable, can't say the same for the cheapy poly "race" seats.






It is definitely a tough decision to make for an honest street car. Personally I'm all for adding it when the car is fast enough to need it, but as noted I'm very particular about bar placement & thus keeping it as safe as possible for everyday driving as well as racing.

When it comes to the race car, everything I run has a 25.x spec full cage.
blurry cell-phone shot of the mudstain while being built, 25.4 7.50/4.50 -

 

kirkeys are comfortable, but you sure can't slide in the car like you can with stock seats. that was my thought on the kirkey not being a good dd seat, especially for a 62y/o man. just don't think he would enjoy race stuff when he's trying to go to the store.

 

^ I'd agree with that. Since mine is in a 25.4 cage car that part makes no difference to me.

 

I'ld hate to slide in and out of a Kirkey for daily driver use. It was enough fun to get in and out of my friend's NASCAR late model with one!

Based on the above responses, I'ld say if you want the car to be usable as a daily driver, your best bet is to limit the power on it. I know that's heresy around here, but once you break a certain threshold, you're simply going to need a cage at the track. If you want it to be safe on the street, but not have to wear a helmet or climb in and out of a Kirkey or similar setup, then you can't have a cage. Your goals seem diametrically opposed, so you have a decision to make; Do you want a dedicated 10 second track car that is unstreetable, or do you want a fun daily driver that isn't as fast at the track?

 

X2

 

That sums it up. - Everyone has to assume their own level of risk; my happy medium is tucking the bar back/away as much as possible.


A few years back in a similar topic I posted an article about a guy who was killed in his Taurus when his head contacted the bolt for the seat belt shoulder strap during a side impact. - Point being, life is a calculated risk. It's up to each person to weigh their odds & decide what they feel is acceptable safety for them. (though many laws & lawsuits today seem to be all about protecting the ignorant from themselves.......)

 

I don't like race crash stories because in the end they are at the expense of someone else.If it benefits this O/P,then I guess it's ok.Good friend Mark in his "Time and Money" Vett while wearing his "lucky" snowmobile helmet,which isn't what he checked in with,had a bad rollover crash in the lights afew yrs ago at Cayuga.The helmet spit in two and he suffer a life threatening head injury.He lost a memory of a whole yr never to return.Head injuries like that are tough.As we found out,they are hard to treat and most are in God's hands for the end result.We ALL think it will never happen to us either in a crash on the street or at the track.For us our driver found out the hard way our policy is safety is number one.Tight belts and all the rest.He was getting lax in safety and we told him many times before no race won or lost is worth it.So we benched him and packed it up and went home.

When I was younger I went to a friends house and we worked all day in his Dad's shop welding a roll bar in a car for oval track racing.His Dad is a professional welder and got home from work.We where proud of what we did and his Dad told us that we where not going to race that thing.When to the tool box,took a hammer,hit the side bar,and it fell on the floor.Not fish mouth very well,poorly fitted seams.

My point is two fold.You need to have a well executed exactly to the race rules roll bar.Any thought of moving the bar back or anything else is foolish.Again,no race won or lost is worth it and in terms of the street,it is equally foolish to think a accident will never happen to you without being strapped in and without a helmet.

 

Thanks for all the input everyone. It looks like the safest thing to do is leave it alone and not aim to go faster so long as it's a regularly driven street car as it will likely always be. Dad put most of the first 160,000 miles on the car and he likely isn't ready to see it regulated to strip use only. He really enjoys hopping in it and running his errands now. Both he and my wonderful wife love racing it, as do I, but we don't have to run any faster. I just really wanted to hold that 10 second time slip in my hand, but knowing it is capable will have to be enough until and unless we 'accidentally' pull one out during test and tune.
Putting them at more risk on the street is not something I'm willing to gamble over bragging rights. With it being mostly street driven and most of the enjoyment coming from street use, it's better to leave her a street car.
As far as the track goes, we will all be content enough. The car should run regular low 11's to 11.6's depending upon da and track conditions. If we can't find a track that won't us run test and tune without throwing us out then I'll find a way to slow her down a little. Maybe it would be so simple as leaving the QA1's set for street use or running enough pressure in the rear tires to spin for a couple of feet off the line. Another option might be to lower the front tires' air pressure to about 30 to increase rolling resistance.
Either way, we know she's got 10 second potential and she's a blast to drive on the street, where there is almost nothing locally that can touch her. That'll do for now.
Thanks again for all the input.

 

Just for note(not directing this at 1gary, just pointing something out), I never said anything about moving the bar further away than what the associations consider to be "safe". As shown in the rule book pictures posted above, you're allowed 6" horizontally measured between the main hoop & helmet, which translates to roughly 8" between the main hoop bar & your bare head, plus the bar should be a good 2" or more over the top of your head/helmet. Measured in a straight line that puts the bar a solid 11"+ behind your head. - Any moderately decent seat/head rest & belt/harness should be able to keep your head from bouncing off it when set-up like that.

Usually the closest point ends up being the transition/vertical part of the main hoop going down to the floor, thus why I tuck them so tight to the body/interior panels to keep them as far away from your noggin as possible.

 

Sounds like you made the right decision for Dad in not doing it.


On adding weight.....its "good weight"

 

You would have to be incredibly short to have 2" or more from the top of a helmet to the bottom of a rollbar.

 

dont forget, any bar that the helmet will hit. should have sfi crt padding on it.
with the min and max distance. cuts down on the hit factor.

and its softer then a side piller or A piller in a street car,

 

Maybe with stock seats or the cheapy poly race seats if noted mounted low enough. - I'm 6'2" and have 2" between the top of my lid and the "x" pipes in the center of my funny-car cage, and my floor is flush/flat with the rocker sills, not dropped down 3-4" like factory.

No store-bought main hoop tucks up even remotely tightly to the roof like the pics I posted earlier of the 4th gen I did. - Same can be done with the 3rd gen.

 

Im 6'2 and there's barely an inch between my head and headliner. I dont doubt you, but there's no way I could pull that off.

 

i was driving around in my street car this weekend and noticed how close my head was to the bar...not at all. i do have a kirkey econo-drag seat in it, and it's mounted nearly on the floor, and i know that helps a bunch...

 

a kirkey can drop you down 3-4" over a stock seat. you can also lean it back to a certain degree if you'd like.

 

I'm no where near the height of my roll bar in my camaro either without a helmet. No way I'd hit the main hoop while driving around town, plus it's also padded "just in case".

 

Stock seats or poly race seats and what brackets? - Lots of room to move down in these cars, and if you're 6'2" you'll still have plenty of line-of-sight through the windshield.

 

he's got stock seats JP...

 

Time for some bracket mods then.

 

These are 4th gen seats, and they do sit noticeably lower than my stock seats. But they're still factory seats. I suppose that explains the difference.