has anyone had or heard of anyone having safty issues with bolt in bars and/or cages as in the unit failing in some way or punching through the floor?

-spenc

 

even super cheap 4 point autopower bars should work. If it punches through the floor either plates were too small or there was some kind of rust or body damage

For anyother reason and your most likely dead anyway, IE falling off a cliff and landing on the roof.

 

I've seen one cage punch through, and heard from a reliable source about another. The one I saw was a bolt in that was just welded to the floor, nothing attached to the rocker boxes or anything else of any strength. The other was a bolt in. The one I saw was only puched through on the passengers side. It was a very minimal cage, one door bar on the left , no door bars on the right. It was a bad wreck. The driver was loopy and scared but ok.
Don't do a cheap cage. It will be something that will always limit you.

 

friends of mine that are more experienced than I have mentioned that since I have a bolt in Autopower rollbar that I should add larger basepltes to it to create a larger footprint to prevent it from punching thru the floow. They have seen it happen before in person and I plan on adding bigger plates before I track the caar again.

Ive never seen it happen or heard too much about it but it could be a scary thing to be a part of. Making the bases larger is very very simple and I'll definitely do it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by owen_the_soyboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Making the bases larger is very very simple and I'll definitely do it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's what we did:

 

pic doesnt work travis

 

This is an issue that pops up everyonce in a while- I have heard about some Autopower cages punching through the floor but wonder if there was rust in the floors. On my first CRX (ITC car), the shop that installed the Autopower cage replaced a couple large sections of the front floors that were not safe due to the rust resulting from 9 years of street driving in WI.

If you make sure the unibody is not rusty and add larger base plates, you should be fine. My current CRX (another ITC car) also has an Autopower cage in it so I believe they are fine. A properly designed, mfg, and installed custom cage can provide more benefits but will cost over twice that of an Autopower...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Lo-Buck EF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">pic doesnt work travis</TD></TR></TABLE>
No? Might be a we-todd-did-racing thing. I'm seeing it at work and at home so maybe it's working now.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ITC Racer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you make sure the unibody is not rusty and add larger base plates, you should be fine.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Definetly the larger base plates, inside and out. On the inside, give thought to building the base plate to pick up the some of the vertical portions of the rockers and weld them in.

I have seen both bolt in and weld in cages punch through the floor sheet metal. It all depends on how you install. Nobody wants to test their safety equipment but if you should ever have the need, you will want it to perform its function. Which is to keep the box shape around the driver boxed shaped.

Cars are cheap (relatively), medical expenses are not.

Rick

 

i had one in my car, i bought used. it served its pupose for racing...but if u were gonan drive it on the road forget it. it was up againt the seat, so u couldnt ove it back at all to be comfortable, nor could the passenger