i'm getting an autopower 4pt bar and i'm wonderin if a bar is worth having in a mostly autocross car with unknown ammounts of track duity (whatever i can afford to go to.) i'm gonna put it in anyway, but is it worth the extra weight to be prepared?

 

i'm not really that well-versed on autocross rules and whatnot, but i know that there are several benefits to a rollcage. besides the obvious increase in safety, you are also improving chassis rigidity which will result in a better handling car.

 

It's really not that heavy, the car will feel stiffer (mine sounds like a mercedes now going over bumps) ...and there's no price that can be put on the piece of mind you have at the track, even on the street. You can do harnesses too, and it makes a great camera mount...i'm delighted with mine. Even if you only got to the track once, you can't predict everything that will happen when you're driving at the limit, even when you're just going to 7-11. Now, i'm not about paranoia...but we all pay car insurance. think of it as pretty cheap YOU insurance.

 

yup. i know in stock we can run a bar, but i don't think we can run cages because of the ammount of chassis regidity they add.

 

For a street car, a full cage is a whole lot of hard metal near your soft, bare head.

 

IMHO, in a stock-class FWD car, the extra chassis stiffness gained from a 4-pt bar will far outweigh the slight addition of weight.

Hope that helps,

Jon

 

thanks everyone for ur input. from what i gather, it won't be that bad autocrossing with the bar in.

 

I won a state autocross championship in an Eclipse n/t with a roll bar. And I beat a future H-stock Prosolo national champion in the process. It's a legal way of stiffening the rear of a stock-classed car without installing illegal stuff, like a strut tower brace.

And cages are legal in stock class as long as they are bolted in. 4 pt. bars can be bolted or welded, I think.

 

yep welded 4-pt bars are legal, just checked it in the '02 SCCA GCR...

Chris, who will be going over rollbar design VERY carefully before welding a bar into his car

 

meet me at the nasa event, i'll show you a bar i put in someones autocross car. see ya there.

 

I agree, IF it is welded in. I put a bolt-in roll bar in my Prelude and it made some difference, though not a ton. To be fair, the Prelude VTEC is stiffer in stock form than most FF cars, but it wasn't a huge change. Likewise, I had a bolt in roll cage in my old CRX (I bought it with the cage already in the car, so I can't comment on the change from stock). However, after I totalled that car and moved the cage to my new CRX, I welded it in. THEN I could really feel the difference. Now these were two different CRXs, so it isn't a perfect comparison, but the welding makes a huge difference over bolting. JMO.

Matt

 

siffness and peice of mind - well worth it!!

 

I agree but soloef was only talking about a 4 point cage. In every 4 point I've ever seen all of the metal is behind you and should be safe for a street/auto-x vehicle.

 

I would still pad a 4 pt. bar very thoroughly. Even though all the metal is behind your head, in a frontal impact, the head still tends to whiplash way back. Any of you that have seen some of those IIHS crash barrier tests will know that those dummies sometimes impacted the B-pillar on the whiplash back, going right past the headrest.

 

I just figured that padding a cage was implied. I agree.

That seems to typically happen when the front end doesn't absorb the impact and the whole passenger compartment just starts to crumble. I know what you mean though.

 

i don't think my car will be on the road yet. still waitin on some paperwork (the dmv sucks large hairy ones)

 

i already have the padding. orderd it from racer wholesale when they were having there christmas sales. just waiting for the bar. another christmas presant but hasn't shown up yet. mom's slackin

 

the bars around your head aren't the only ones that need to be padded. a wreck is a very violent (obviously) and your arms and legs will fly around the cockpit as well. every bar that is near any part of the driver's body should be padded as well. when i wrecked last year at sear's point, the only injuries i sustained where from my left wrist hitting an un-padded bar. needless to say, it hurt like hell.

edit--i wanted to add a little more...

also, something about the head going through the head rest... that is precisely why it's important to :
1) always use a race seat with a roll bar.
2) always brace the seat properly.



[Modified by delinquent, 10:55 PM 3/7/2002]

 

 

haha...i'm sorry, i didn't mean to come across as being critical of you--i didn't mean that at all! i was just trying to further illustrate your point. sometimes the misconception that novices have is that the bars around your head are the only ones that need to be padded.

 

Oh dude..it's okay man! I'm a little "sensitive" today. Perhaps I'm having a bad day. Good info, for sure!

 

haha...okay. i just don't like stepping on anyone's toes!

 

I just padded the hell out of my bar before this month's NASA event. When I get around to it, I'll put a pic up to show exactly what I think is important to pad (for the roll bar only).

As for autocrossing with one, I agree with everything that has been said before. It's good for the chassis, good for your head, a good place to mount a harness/camera/extinguisher/etc. They're not that heavy.

 

so do most people go with a ready made cage or a custom fabricated one? A shop near me builds this type of stuff and says they can do it around 50lbs. of mild steel. Opinions?