JMortensen Posted April 5, 2007 Author Share Posted April 5, 2007 Halo is bent. Came out nice vs the template, I haven't tried to put it in the car yet. I spent at least 5x as much time looking at the stupid thing making sure I was bending in the right place as I did actually bending it, but without actually testing I think I got it right the first time. We'll see tomorrow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 I had a local cage builder bend all my tubes, In fact I am taking the car back to him in the next week or so to bend my door bars. I have been waiting on my custom seat for WEEKS in order to mount it first. I distinctly remember him telling me that he could not put more than 2 bends in the A-Pillar bars for the design we have chosen. I didn't source this information myself. I also remember that many aspects the design came from a blend of different classes. We tried to incorporate the cage into the unibody to maximize chassis stiffness. We also tried to stay as light as possible. I originally thought I would use a halo roof bar that was a U-shaped piece literally halo'ing the roof. The A-pillars would have been shorter and straighter, but the design didn't seem to fit the interior of the car very well. I am tying my dash bar into the Torque box/Wiper tray of the unibody with 16g. steel. I'll get some pics up as soon as possible. I have also tied the A-pillar bars into the A-pillars. I am also considering doing this to the roof front and rear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 Roof bars and such here... Main hoop configuration Side view front corner Halo bar Halo bar profile Hoop to roof clearance Hoop setback A-pillar gusset details Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 5, 2007 Author Share Posted April 5, 2007 Wow... that oughta do it... Thanks for the pics. Looks like I'm headed the halo bar route but I do appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 I spent at least 5x as much time looking at the stupid thing making sure I was bending in the right place as I did actually bending it, but without actually testing I think I got it right the first time. Smart man. Doesn't cost anything to think. I distinctly remember him telling me that he could not put more than 2 bends in the A-Pillar bars for the design we have chosen. SCCA roll cage rules (18.1.6.C) only allow two bends in the side bars. No bend limits on a halo bar. That's a stout roll cage in your car BJ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 5, 2007 Share Posted April 5, 2007 The dash bar has been a challenge all the way. I had to cut up a spare dashboard to test fitment throughout the process. It fits without issues. I can use everything in the dash except the Defroster Diffusers(I can still get hot air on the windshield), and the side vents(I can use the left one for a guage and the other for whatever. The only other issue is that the Main Harness connectors are right where the A-pillar and dashbar join. They can be moved out of the way if I modify the glovebox inner. Here are some pics of the Dashbar. This last pic shows the underside center gusset. I am adding plates to continue down to the firewall. I can still fit the original airbox assembly. Remember I am putting this vvv back in the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 Holy crap what a day! First thing I did was figure out that the halo was not bent correctly. Turns out the Z roof is narrower in the front than in the back. I had measured the back of my template and made my halo that width, which was about an inch and a half too wide at the front, but fine in the back. So first thing I did was to make the bends in the halo closest to the center a little tighter. Then this moved the ends in REALLY close together. I think they were at something like 36" apart, need to be 41 to fit my hoop. So then I spent hours spreading the ends apart with a portapower. Finally I got it to where it looked like it would work. The bent ends that connected to the hoop were too long (purposely left them long) so I took a couple inches off there, then went to fit the thing. Turns out the ends were still about an inch and a half too close together. I tried some more with the portapower and found that when I spread them apart the front spread enough that it was a real problem. SOOO.... I broke out the bender again and tried my damndest to put a little flare on the ends of the tube to bend them out. This did not work very nicely and I ended up having to use a hodgepodge of parts from my HF bender and the new one, but I got it fairly close. Then started to notch the tubes. Got everything notched and figured I had it pretty well finished, only to learn that my notching had shortened the tubes and they were too close together at the ends again. So out came the portapower and I had to spread the halo while tacking it in. First attempt at that went poorly and the front of the halo was hanging down too low. Took it back off, fixed the notches a bit and tacked it in again, and this is what I was left with. Not the tightest to the roof that I've ever seen, but I think this is pretty close to as tight as you can get with the 1.75" tubing. Also the 1.75 tubing makes it really hard to get the tube above the door frame. I managed to do it, but just barely. With this tacked in place I did find that the drivers side is contacting the roof (first picture shows this). I don't know if this really matters too much, but I kinda figured on taking a hammer to the inside of the roof there after I cut it off to do the tops of the welds, since you won't see that part anyway once I get roll bar tubing on there. Moral of the story: Measure your hoops and halos all the way down, don't just measure at the end. Oh... and buy a portapower... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted April 6, 2007 Share Posted April 6, 2007 And people wonder why a custom roll cage costs so much money. And I apologize Jon for not mentioning the width differences on the Halo bar. When you posted the picture of the conduit template it looked like you had it figured out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 Not your fault. The conduit was right, I guess I just got excited and didn't do a good job measuring it when I did the actual halo. Good news is I was able to get it in there without wasting any material. I probably could have saved 2-3 hours if I had just bent up another piece of tube. I F'd around with that thing for a long time trying to make it work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 7, 2007 Author Share Posted April 7, 2007 More stuff. Did one A pillar today. It came out nice. Had to fiddle with it a bit but in the end it was good. Used Cary's 4x the pipe diameter area formula for the plate. That gave me roughly 7" squared, so my plate is 4.5 x 8. This was all just rough calculations, the plate is probably a bit bigger than absolutely necessary. I tacked the A pillar bar in, took a good look at the angles and everything, then welded the bar to the mounting plate. Then I welded the plate to the rocker, and then put about a 1" long weld on the A pillar to the halo, and also about a 1" weld on the halo to the main hoop. So... its officially in there. I did also lower the front of the halo down about 5/8" so that there is a small gap of maybe 3/8" between the side of the halo and the section of the roof where it was resting before. Hopefully that will elliviate any clearance issues when I weld the roof back on. I'm going to do the A pillar for the passenger's side tomorrow and then maybe I'll cut the roof off if I'm feeling spunky. So much progress after waiting so long! It's pretty damn cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjhines Posted April 7, 2007 Share Posted April 7, 2007 I did not cut the roof off... You might be surprised how much you can get that Mig around the backsides of those tubes. I cut 1.5" holes above the areas that I needed access to. It worked out VERY WELL... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted April 7, 2007 Share Posted April 7, 2007 I agree with BJ. If you're this far along you probably just need to cut a couple holes in the roof instead of removing the whole thing. If you do cut the roof off, remember that it can be slightly lower overall when reinstalled because of the width of the cuts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LLave Posted April 7, 2007 Share Posted April 7, 2007 fantastic thread... gives me some good stuff to copy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 OK, halo is welded in all the way around. A pillars are welded in all the way around. Dash bar is in, A pillar to halo gussets are in. I was able to bend the flange that the weatherstripping pushes onto out of the way enough to get the welder in there to weld the halo without cutting the roof off. Thanks guys for suggesting that, probably saved me a hell of a lot of time. Basically I now have a 6 point cage with the X and the rear strut brace. Thinking more about this dash to strut tower V, and what else to do up there. I'm really thinking about doing the V to the center of the dash bar, then going with an additional straight bar on each side from the strut tower straight back to the dash/A pillar bar connection. Also planning a dash bar to tunnel connection right on the bottom of the intersecting V. Any other suggestions welcome... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proxlamus© Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 did you guys use your own tubing bender for your cages?! I am very interested in building up my own cage after reading this thread, or at least a roll bar and maybe some door bars. Whats your recommendation on MIG or Flux?! otherwise its time for me to buy a nice bottle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 I bent the halo and the A pillar bars myself, and I kinda screwed it up a bit, but it was usable. The hoop I had bent by a guy who does rally car cages locally. He went off of the jpg template that 74_5.0_Z has in his gallery. The hoop is perfect. Definitely want gas shielded mig for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlalomz Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 BJ, how do bend these corner gussets? They look much stronger than straight ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 You can buy them from http://www.joesracing.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube80z Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 BJ, how do bend these corner gussets? They look much stronger than straight ones. You can buy them but they only come in a couple of sizes and aren't that cheap. To make them you cut out flat pieces then use a press the pushes these between two bars that have enough space for the thickness of the metal. It's not hard, just a little time consuming. I have a pattern for my plasma cutter that makes this easy. Cary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 11, 2007 Author Share Posted April 11, 2007 You can buy them but they only come in a couple of sizes and aren't that cheap. Joe's has them for $1.25 each for 1.5, 1.625, and 1.75" tube sizes. They fit 70-90 degree angles, so you might have to trim it to fit another angle, but I really can't imagine them being too much cheaper... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.