On my beater I was thinking of doing one of these..

Any comments to why or why not (excuse your thoughts on 'how it looks' please.)



or

 

i think it would weaken the rigidity of the car not to mention the doors will look retarded unless u chop those up too, then ur glass is gonna flop around and probably break

 

Ok, you're gonna have some issues you'll have to address if you do this.
As soon as you chop the roof, the side of the car will bow out. I'm not talking 1/16". I'm talking about a half inch in some cases. So, you need to address that, first and foremost. Welding in a couple cross braces will work so you can get the top off, and then weld in your roll bar properly. Then tie the rollbar into the B pillars. As long as you do some door bars (an X) and have it run through the firewall to the shock towers, and also do a bar under the dash, the middle of the car will be pretty well tied together. For the back, you'll need a couple bars running back to the shock towers/floor. But you may also have to tie those back in with the bottom of the main hoop to prevent flex.
Simply doing the single bar you have pictured would not work. The chassis would flex far too much.
This is all coming from someone that made a 4th gen civic into a pickup, and I currently have the roof off of an 82 civic, so we can get a cage done, and a motor in the back.

Honestly though, what do you plan for a roof? Always park it in the garage? Don't take it out when you have to park for more than a few minutes? Unless you sort out a top first, don't start cutting.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bakeoff &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
This is all coming from someone that made a 4th gen civic into a pickup

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i need to see a picture of that haha

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 97gsrki &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

i need to see a picture of that haha </TD></TR></TABLE>
I don't think I have any good ones. It was a project to see if we could do it. We got the car for free after the owner left it at a shop for years. They got a mechanics lein, but something got messed up with the title transfer, so the title never got transfered to me, and it was no longer titled to the shop.... It was no one's car.... lol
It ended up going to the junkyard cause I couldn't get it insured.
I'll see if I can find some pics and post em up.