tube80z

You have a few too many open ended questions to completely answer this one. I will offer that you don't want to mount the bar in needle bearings. As the car flexes they will bind as they are not designed to deal 2-axis misalignment. A better solution, commonly seen on Trans-Am cars these days is to hang the sway bar from two heim joints. This will allow for bending of the bar and mounts as well as rotation. Another option is the pillow ball mounts you can find for many of these bars. They have a spherical bearing the bar goes through. Coleman, SCP, speedway should have all these parts. Cary Cary

.095 1.5 inch tubing should be fine. I have seen many cars built that way at a shop near me that have won many championships. For your weight target be prepared to bolt in weight. My project is an EMOD V8 powered autoxer. All the pieces (complete frame) and everything else piled on the car weighs 1640 pounds. It is built with .095 for the outer sections and main cage tubes and a lot of .064 and .049 used as bracing for sections that showed low stress in simple FEA tests. You will need to check on materials if you plan to roadrace. I'm pretty sure all the tube needs to be the same thickness in GT and DOM. Cary

Is 90 degrees a misquote? Because if that's it I wouldn't bother. A fluid recirculator would be a much better option. Cary "had glowing red rotors on my autox car this past weekend :-)"

You all should really listen to Jon. There are two types of padding I see on cages all the time. The first, often called pool noodles, really should stay near the water. The second is SFI approved and is a more rigid foam. It, HOWEVER, is intended to be hit by your helmet, not your skull. I know of no foam that is designed to deal with your head hitting a bar. Cary

I need to read the rules again. I didn't realize you could get away with such a big doubler plate. I wonder if you can flange holes in it to help make it stiffer? Cary

Reading this I see that I told you a lie. I don't do area. I've been doing 4 times the size. So for a 1.5 inch tube I've been doing a 6x6 pad. You wouldn't know I had a math degree I'll plug weld those too to make the stick better.

yep, that makes sense. I would close the gap across the lateral tubes to the floor rather than just use a couple of stands. That makes the floor a shear panel as Jjohn mentions. It would seem like it would be harder to rip out too. Figure in a wreck (worst case) that you might see some rather large forces on those mounts. And having more area will lower the load, or some my feeble thinking goes. Cary

I'm not completey sure I follow. Are you putting this tube across the car or lengthwise? If across I would use sheet metal to hook to the floor just like the stock piece, similar to what John mentions above. But I'm may not be following what you're doing here. For the tubes I try and do 4 times the area of the tube. Not sure why but somewhere along the line I picked that up. At least one of us is out in the shop working Cary "stuck at work"