I always wondered why cages couldn't be pushed out and up more? Get them tight to the A pillar, B pillar, and roof. If it's tight to the B pillar, the ZOMG you'll die with out a helmet cry looses some credibility. If you smack the main hoop in that scenario, you'd probably hit the stock B pillar too.
I understand that sometimes it packaging. If you want it that tight, cut the roof of and re-weld later.
93EXCivic wrote: I still don't understand why harnesses are illegal on the road if the car has a roll bar. Government stupidity FTW.
Well, there's that the belts are usually not DOT rated, and if it's not DOT then it's not legal.
The other factor is, say a first responder has to cut you out of the car. You have a cage, so they can't just Sawzall the pillars and peel the roof off. You have a 5 point harness, so they can't just cut the shoulder belt and pull you out. The "Golden Hour" is not the time to be trying to figure out some non-factory method of driver retention.
mazdeuce wrote: If you're worried primarily about street safety then it seems like you'd be looking at a roll bar with some door bars. Unless you need the halo, I wouldn't put it in as it's the most dangerous part of the cage from a non helmet standpoint. From there, just make sure the main uprights are back far enough and run stock-ish belts assuming that the car has 3 point belts. I've seen more than a few examples of cages like this on street driven drag cars. In their case the function of the door bars was to tie the front of the car to the back so the beasts wouldn't twist themselves apart, but they would also work well to prevent intrusion to some extent. Certainly better than stock.
+1 Pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Rollbar and door bars.
SlickDizzy wrote:Adrian_Thompson wrote: I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal! I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.It is an OEM-vs-non thing. Wranger bars are HEAVILY padded and pretty far away from passengers, relatively speaking. Think about something like an E30 that doesn't have a whole ton of room to start with. I breifly drove a friend's E30 drift car last summer, I had to wear a helmet because at 6'3" my head would graze the cage if I bent my neck the right way.
Sorry, I don't buy that...my co-worker has a 2012 Wrangler and the bars are NOT that far from your head and I don't really consider the "padding" over the bars to be any better than what's considered "legal" rollbar padding for a racecar.
Wranglers are also among the least safe vehicles on sale.
Knurled wrote:93EXCivic wrote: I still don't understand why harnesses are illegal on the road if the car has a roll bar. Government stupidity FTW.Well, there's that the belts are usually not DOT rated, and if it's not DOT then it's not legal. The other factor is, say a first responder has to cut you out of the car. You have a cage, so they can't just Sawzall the pillars and peel the roof off. You have a 5 point harness, so they can't just cut the shoulder belt and pull you out. The "Golden Hour" is not the time to be trying to figure out some non-factory method of driver retention.
You know... Reading all this makes it seem like it would be much safer staying home and watching TV.
Nobody has to cut you out of your Lazyboy.
BobOfTheFuture wrote: Nobody has to cut you out of your Lazyboy.
Depends on how fat you get.
Knurled wrote:93EXCivic wrote: I still don't understand why harnesses are illegal on the road if the car has a roll bar. Government stupidity FTW.Well, there's that the belts are usually not DOT rated, and if it's not DOT then it's not legal. The other factor is, say a first responder has to cut you out of the car. You have a cage, so they can't just Sawzall the pillars and peel the roof off. You have a 5 point harness, so they can't just cut the shoulder belt and pull you out. The "Golden Hour" is not the time to be trying to figure out some non-factory method of driver retention.
The Jaws of Life was developed by Hurst specifically to cut roll cages open, it's pretty standard issue for fire departments now.
http://www.jawsoflife.com/
Not terribly long back, Subaru started adding a reinforcement rod to the B pillars in their cars to resist side impact intrusion which makes them very hard to cut even with the Jaws. So they just cut the A pillars and fold the roof back. I've seen that on cars which don't have the Subaru reinforcement also.
http://drive2.subaru.com/Sum06_WhatsInside.htm
So the 'harder to cut' thing is sort of a non issue.
On the belts: if they can't get to the buckle quick they just cut the belts, the webbing in a five point isn't that much different from a 3 point DOT belt. But now they have 5 to cut instead of just 1. So that I can understand.
marks93cobra wrote:SlickDizzy wrote:Sorry, I don't buy that...my co-worker has a 2012 Wrangler and the bars are NOT that far from your head and I don't really consider the "padding" over the bars to be any better than what's considered "legal" rollbar padding for a racecar.Adrian_Thompson wrote: I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal! I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.It is an OEM-vs-non thing. Wranger bars are HEAVILY padded and pretty far away from passengers, relatively speaking. Think about something like an E30 that doesn't have a whole ton of room to start with. I breifly drove a friend's E30 drift car last summer, I had to wear a helmet because at 6'3" my head would graze the cage if I bent my neck the right way.
I totaly agree with this. The padding I've seen on Wranglers is fairly soft, no where near up to the standard of SFI stuff, but SFI padding is supposed to be used in conjunction with a helmet.
If I wanted to build a race car with a cage that made some concessions to allow me to drive it to/from the track for say... spec 944 or spec3 I'm reasonably certain I could make it safer to some extent by just considering an unhelmeted head and locating the seat/pipes and padding accordingly. As long as you understand the concessions you make and that it is only safer than it would be if you hadn't considered it at all - and that you could get pulverized anyway... sure. Fine. You are a big boy. Key points to consider:
You are probably no worse off than in a 70's muscle car with lap belts or any LBC with a roof... but you are exposing yourself to risk of liquified bones so do take care.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker:
How do you recommend safety-ifying knee/ankle/etc contacts? Is it just a matter of padding? Door bars, it seems, are almost by definition near knees and ankles. I ask because I see a lot of racecar crashes on TV and not a lot of leg injuries anymore.
DaewooOfDeath wrote: Giant Purple Snorklewacker: How do you recommend safety-ifying knee/ankle/etc contacts? Is it just a matter of padding? Door bars, it seems, are almost by definition near knees and ankles.
I'd say lot's of SFI padding. If you really want to go to extreames, bond foam between the door bars and wrap in fiberglass on the inside so they are part of a crush structure. Similar to modern WRC cars.
Adrian_Thompson wrote:marks93cobra wrote:I totaly agree with this. The padding I've seen on Wranglers is fairly soft, no where near up to the standard of SFI stuff, but SFI padding is supposed to be used in conjunction with a helmet.SlickDizzy wrote:Sorry, I don't buy that...my co-worker has a 2012 Wrangler and the bars are NOT that far from your head and I don't really consider the "padding" over the bars to be any better than what's considered "legal" rollbar padding for a racecar.Adrian_Thompson wrote: I don't see how a roll cage can be illigal in any state. Either that or all Jeep Wranglers are illigal! I also don't buy the 'you will die upon entering any car with a cage but no helmet' argument as ditto Jeeps all have coverd cages. Also our old Geo Tracker has totaly bare metal A amd B pillars, not the same, but those things are supposed to fall over in a stiff breeze giving plenty of oportunity for head cracking.It is an OEM-vs-non thing. Wranger bars are HEAVILY padded and pretty far away from passengers, relatively speaking. Think about something like an E30 that doesn't have a whole ton of room to start with. I breifly drove a friend's E30 drift car last summer, I had to wear a helmet because at 6'3" my head would graze the cage if I bent my neck the right way.
The big difference here is the fact that the Wrangler was crash-tested with the roll bars in place. We've all seen the horror pictures/stories about some of the cages that get built. There's no FMVSS or NHTSA criteria that I'm aware of to cover roll cages because there's not enough of a draw for them to study them. If Jeep offered 5-point harnesses from the factory they'd be DOT-approved because they'd be what was used in the crash tests. Cages being illegal for the street isn't so much a statement as to how unsafe they are as much as a simple 'they've not been tested by us' statement.
DaewooOfDeath wrote: Giant Purple Snorklewacker: How do you recommend safety-ifying knee/ankle/etc contacts? Is it just a matter of padding? Door bars, it seems, are almost by definition near knees and ankles. I ask because I see a lot of racecar crashes on TV and not a lot of leg injuries anymore.
I use the high density stuff all over and where my soft bits touch, like ankles and thighs... I put the fireproof regular soft nerfy stuff over that.
BobOfTheFuture wrote: You know... Reading all this makes it seem like it would be much safer staying home and watching TV. Nobody has to cut you out of your Lazyboy.
Well, they do if you sit in it for 10-15 years...
BobOfTheFuture wrote: Nobody has to cut you out of your Lazyboy.
I accidentally closed my dog up in one once. He was laying across it under my legs on the "web" between the foot rest and seat cushion and I started awake and flopped up. The chair got kinda stuck so I couldn't open it and for a brief minute I considered flipping it over and cutting the web from the back. Then I just sat back down and flopped it open using my weight. The dog never made a sound.
No dogs were harmed in the making of this story but he never slept on it again
There's no way I could put a roll cage in my 944. My head would be way too close to the upper cross over bar for comfort on the street. Depends on where/how you sit in the seat more than where the bar is.
I'm also not keen on wearing my 6 point harnesses on the street, they constrict you too much, you can't turn and look over your shoulder, etc, etc.
DOT approved three point belts are also designed to yank the occupant back against the seat in a crash, that's what all those pretensioners etc are for. They are meant to work in conjunction with airbags (and yes I still I have complete and utter disdain for airbags).
DrBoost wrote: The big difference here is the fact that the Wrangler was crash-tested with the roll bars in place. We've all seen the horror pictures/stories about some of the cages that get built. There's no FMVSS or NHTSA criteria that I'm aware of to cover roll cages because there's not enough of a draw for them to study them. If Jeep offered 5-point harnesses from the factory they'd be DOT-approved because they'd be what was used in the crash tests. Cages being illegal for the street isn't so much a statement as to how unsafe they are as much as a simple 'they've not been tested by us' statement.
Yep, and although you can have a cage that makes the car safer for the street, you can just as easily have a cage that makes it more hazardous. They'd have to be able to test every cage setup to certify them.
Curmudgeon wrote: DOT approved three point belts are also designed to yank the occupant back against the seat in a crash, that's what all those pretensioners etc are for. They are meant to work in conjunction with airbags (and yes I still I have complete and utter disdain for airbags).
It's a good point, but also makes the point that the considerations vary a lot depending on the age of the car. IIRC, the OP is pondering with an eye towards something that wouldn't have pretensioners. Certainly my 2002 doesn't have pretensioners; the three-points aren't even retractable. And my Ranchero only has lap belts (it won't get a cage, but it will get a three-point retrofit).
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