Is this a strick No No or has anyone come up with a safe compromise. I am looing to add some additional structural (a-pillar) support to my 930 in addition to the DAS Sport roll bar that I currently have installed but still want to be able to take the car out on the weekends (without tooling around town in my helmet).

Thanks guys.

 

i would not do a full cage for a street car.

cooz
aka
norm
94 968 street legal race/track car

 

A full cage will likely have door bars of some sort; these are a PITA to climb over in a street car.

 

Heck, I have been doing that for years. No issue, just hard core. But in my cars, it is damn near required.

 

Redline makes a bolt in roll bar that is about the best dual mode approach. Here is the link and info.

John Hajny
Central NY Region PCA Chief Instructor - PCA National Instructor/Mentor
REDLINE Rennsport Services Performance Driving Preparation & Education
www.redlinerennsport.com

 

I have a bolt in roll bar now but am concerned about some unforseen accident where I end up on the roof / a pillar

 

It's a trade-off. Obviously, a cage makes a car much safer if you're impacted from any direction or if you roll. If that wasn't the case, they wouldn't be required for racing. The danger comes from potential head injuries. But it always strikes me as a little funny that no one worries about padding their B-pillar, A-pillar or rolled roof edge (all potential skull-crackers in a wreck), but lots of guys will worry about a cage even when it's covered in high-density SFI-approved padding.

If roll bars and cages were as lethal as some people claim, the Jeep corporation would have been sued into oblivion decades ago. Have you seen the pathetic excuse for padding they use on their roll bars?

People will disagree with me, but I think a car is safer overall with a cage than it is without. Personally, I've never heard of anything worse than a broken leg inflicted by a cage. I've seen many, many rollovers (both on the track and off) where a cage would have made a significant difference in survivability.

 

I agree with Jack on this one. The Targa top on my car has a unpadded steel frame on the inside. With my race seat bolted to the floor, I'm no closer to the padded rollcage than I was to the unpadded steel targa frame.

 

If you have a 5/6 point harness and use it along with good SFI padding the risk of head injuries would be reduced but it is still a crap shoot. It would also depend on how tight the bars are fitted to the body. I've seen a few installs where you need to lean to the right to keep the bar from hitting your head.

 

Since you ARE NOT going to wear your 5-6-7 point harnesses while you drive on the street, make sure that you pad all of the cage that you can. Your movement in a crash is less retricted with OEM belts than race belts.

+1 for what Jack said.

Gratuitous pic of my daily driver sans padding (pic taken right after installation)



Bro

 

The proximity of the bars to the head strikes me as something that seems like an issue until you think about it a little. And by that, I don't mean the bars aren't dangerous. If you watch video of bodies in accidents, you'll see that any hard surfaces within a 4 foot radius of your head can easily crack it open. Bodies move around a lot in crashes. We're not talking about fender-benders where you hurt your wrist holding onto the steering wheel.

The annoyance of the nearby bars is going to be more of a factor when you bump your head leaning down to keep your coffee from spilling or something. But we should really be padding all hard surfaces in daily drivers.

Case in point: I would rather roll in Bruinbro's Boxster with a cage on it than without one. (But I'd still work out a different way to mount the net if that's a daily driver.)

 

For the umpteenth time, the net tabs are ground off. I'll be using the Schroth net setup that clamps to the bar.

Bro

 

If it's a street car I'm not sure you can have full door bars ala X or NASCAR. The ones I have in my cage are just above the door sill and are fairly unobtrusive.

Bro

 

I wouldn't run a cage on a street car at all. A roll bar, on the other hand, I would.

 

Also, visibility with a full cage is often limited to some extent when looking to the extreme left or right such as at intersections.