Something I've noticed more and more on drift cars are these tubular skeletons replacing the front and rear bumper structures:
I like the ingenuity behind them (even though I'm not a huge fan of drifting itself), including the built-in jacking pads. I know they are mainly for quick repair after the inevitable crashes with walls.
Do you think this sort of tube skeleton will find its way onto otherwise unibody road racing or time trial cars? I'm kind of interested if it would be OK to do this on my RX-7 Turbo's nose, since I discovered (to my dismay) that the main bumper beam is cracked. I'm leaning towards time attack or hillclimbing for it.
Nope. I doubt it. it is cheaper to stamp steel and weld it. Stamped steel is easier to make crumple zones in to the final welded box beam of a uni body / sub frame component. This is not as easy to do and more expensive to do tubing.
Looking at the photo you posted I am not sure I would want to drive that on the street. There seems to be very little there to protect you in a front impact.
It's really just for quick and easy repairs... Not street driving. 
I never said my Turbo would see any street driving, and it would be caged anyways if I went this route.
RexSeven wrote:
I never said my Turbo would see any street driving, and it would be caged anyways if I went this route.
You want to read the rule book fairly carefully, because most production based sedan race cars have rules about keeping factory crush zones. Often the rules state something along the lines of, "No roll cage mounting outside the wheelbase of the car." Even if that were not attatched directly to the cage, you are gonna irritate a tech inspector someplace.
RexSeven wrote:
Do you think this sort of tube skeleton will find its way onto otherwise unibody road racing or time trial cars? I'm kind of interested if it would be OK to do this on my RX-7 Turbo's nose, since I discovered (to my dismay) that the main bumper beam is cracked. I'm leaning towards time attack or hillclimbing for it.
That was actually quite common back when SCCA decided to make tube frame cars legal in all the "sedan" classes. Older tub cars were allowed to update to the new rules, but they had to run the tubes through the tub. Only pics with the skin off I can find at the moment are here:
http://www.thompson-machine.com/datsun_1200.html
A lot of the fabricators back then said it was like building a ship in a bottle.
That's what my old Datsun was built like, it met GTL specs last time it was run. Ship in a bottle was about right.
T.J.
UberDork
4/6/12 9:03 p.m.
I'd love to have a GTL car.
chandlerGTi wrote:
T.J. wrote:
I'd love to have a GTL car.
Heck yea.
Crazy thing..GTL at the Runoffs last year looked like a Real Life(tm) Forza 4 race. Some cars have downforce, some don't. Some are sedans, some are not. I really don't know what the rules are anymore, but I'll bet that car would be a lot of fun to get back up to spec.
2011 GTL National Championship:
http://www.speedcasttv.com/scca/#/races/201
It's such a hodgepodge now that the rules are for three classes. Makes for exciting racing though.
