Carter,
Tasmania (My home state) will not allow a car with a full cage to have full road registration.
A full cage can stiffen a car body which may help to offset the weight dissadvantage a half cage will not aid in stiffening the body but will increase the cars weight.
When the Italian Job movie was made a roll over hoop with single rear support was the standard for the time, that was nearly 50 years ago. I love the look of those cars but would not race with one.
In 1991 while stationary at a red traffic light my Moke was hit from behind by an old lady in a Meteor which pushed my car into a laser in front, from the impact I slid up under the seat belt and over the 'high back' seat smashing my head into the roll bar resulting in a trip to hospital no one else was hurt. Roll bars need the right seats and harnesses to be totally effective.
The people that I refered to as 'doof doof' are the posers that fit sub-standard low quality bolt together alloy half cages generally combined with Super cheap seats into crappy cars that blow smoke and have miss-mached wheels not motorkhana competitors and I think that the majority of amatuer racers in Australia either have a full cage or no cage at all
If you want a race car then buy or build it.
If you want a cage then do it properly not by halves.
And finally if you want to wear a cap the peak goes to the front.
CARTER_GT wrote:
tasti wrote:
Full roll cages are great when used in conjunction with a quality non-reclining race seat and a quality race harness and an approved helmet assuming everything is fitted correctly and the harness is super tight. However this is illegal for the road.
A half cage alone will offer little in the way of increased safety in a road car and may well decrease the safety level of a standard car. All roll cages have a negative effect on a cars performance as you are adding weight. In the past occupants of cars have been injured and killed when roll cages have failed.
I suggest that you spend your money refining your car with improvements like quality tyres, shocks and maybe adjustable suspension and front end, but this is assuming that your car is allready in good condition if it has rust, blows smoke, cunches in gear changes then that is where your money should be going.
If you want a race car then buy or build a race car.
If you want a road car that you can do the occasional hill climb in you should make sure that your car is in excellent order and then drive it with respect (smoothe, fast and safe) You have to have a safety margin.
In my opinion half cages should be left to the 'Doof Doof' brigade.
Oh my god are you people blind. First off a full cage in a road car is not illegal, do some research first. Secondly you are saying that a roll cage has a negative affect on performance also partly wrong because a properly installed cage will stiffen up the body and improve handling. Thirdly you are saying people have been killed by roll cages yes this is true but you look at the amount of people killed in minis that have been in rollovers and it will by far exceed the amount killed by a roll cage. Fourthly matts car is undergoing a full resto so it will be in tip top order when he is finished. And finnaly your last point is the most absurd remark in your whole response telling someone that if they want to hillclimb they should not install a cage and just drive with respect. What a load of cr*p accidents happen on a race track even if you are driving slowly you can have an off. If you want to drive a mini fast or even remotly fast you have to commit to the corners you cant just back off half way around a corner. Sure you can aim to have a safety margin but there are all soughts of things in hillclimbs that can send you off the Bitumen, you dont get to warm your car up so you go out there in a car that is cold and you get one run up or down the hill. Alot of Hillclimb tracks are public roads so there is oil and gravel on the surface of the bitumen. To finish my rant, your comment about half cages being for the so called "doof doof" brigade is so far wrong it does not even make sense. How is putting a half cage in your mini make you "doof doof" so most of the minis in the italian job belong to the doof doof brigade do they. Does the 2010 Hay mini nationals champion in his moke belong to the doof doof brigade. Do nearly all club level race cars be it mini or not belong to this "doof doof" brigade aswell? I think not....
Steve,
