Another Weekend Update (and S & W Roll Bar)

[pparaska]

Andy, thanks for that post. I read it and picked up the phone and called Chad back at S&W to order my 8-point!

 

Where did the rear bars meet the back of the car? I guess I need to pull teh gas tank?

 

Any room to put the interior panels back after adding padding to the roll bar?

 

Very surprised that you felt no difference with the door bar.

 

Great war story!

[Andrew Bayley]

Well, I didn’t exactly make it out to the track this weekend.

I was really pulling for Friday night, but my S&W 8-point took a little longer to install than I had thought. Regardless, I got everything welded in place and cleaned up by about 10pm. Roll bar looks WAY cool, I’m hoping to get some pictures that I can send out soon (I’m too lame to set up my own web page). I still need to paint the bars, but that’s just minor details for now. I am very impressed with the new found rigidity of the Z with the roll bar. However, the items that I thought would help the most (door / side bars) seemed to do little, in comparison to the main hoop and back supports. I put a good amount of miles on the car with both configurations and the side bars really didn’t help as much as I thought. Compared to the car without a bar, the ride is world’s better. My advice to all potential half-asser’s out there… if you are going to skimp on the roll bar, skimp out on the side bars. Main hoop and back supports made the biggest difference. I know that sounds weird, but it’s what I observed. It could also be the fact that I have hard time telling the difference between a rough ride and a knife in my back… who knows.

 

But enough about the roll bar, on to the cruising.

Got the Z together about 10pm Friday night. Took it to the quarter blaster and hosed the bugs off the front air damn and etc. Made it over to Gratiot by 11pm. To those who don’t know (probably most of the readers), Gratiot is popular place for younger punks to display their newly financed F-bodies or Rustanks. I’ve got nothing against either of these two cars (hey, gotta love them V8’s), but their numbers just saturate the streets. Anyway, got into three races. One 98 Firebird, a 99 Z28 and an older Regal with a 455cid mill. Now before everyone starts ragging on me for “street racingâ€, keep in mind that my idea of “street racing†is dropping down to 35 mph then nailing it up to about 60 mph. The only time I accelerate quicker than 60 mph is when I’m either alone or at the track. I figure that by 60 mph, a winner is usually determined. If not… well that’s when it’s time to find an empty alley somewhere 

 

All three cars I went against I beat pretty badly. The Regal was the closest, but even by 60 mph, I had at least 3 car lengths on him. I was glad that he was the closest, he seemed pretty cool about getting beat by a jap car (really bad thing in Detroit). We talked a bit at a stop light where I told him the low down. The F-body punks, on the other hand, I wasn’t so kind to. The guy in the Firebird gave me a real mean look afterwards and asked me what I had done to my “thingâ€.

 

Me: “Uh, just a K & N filter with a flowmaster exhaust… nothing else.â€

 

F-bod: “Bull$%it!!! What size motor you got in that thing!?!â€

 

Me: “Stock Four-Cylinder, dude!â€

 

He was confused, and I loved it. I know, I know, I’m a jerk. But the way I look at it, all the skinned knuckles, oiled hair, grimy fingernails, ex-girlfriends, etc… earns me at least one night a month where I’m “allowed†to be a jerk. Every other time I’m usually a nice guy. No, really!!!

 

Well, just thought I’d share my adventure. I enjoy reading everyone else’s “war storiesâ€, I figured it was my turn to contribute. I WILL be going racing this week some time to do a bench mark before I put the long tube S&S headers on. I’ll post results.

 

Happy motoring

-Andy

[Andrew Bayley]

Pete,

The roll bar legs meet at the base of the shock towers just in front of the tire well. I was thinking about putting in a fuel cell some time down the road, but I wasn’t ready to cut up the tire well quite yet. The NHRA rule book calls out for at least 30 degrees from vertical… this is close, but it should be OK. The back supports that came with the S&W kit had to be shortened by about 3 or 4 inches. This turned out convenient because those smaller sections are what I used to set back the cross bar on the main hoop. I don’t see any other way that this specific bar will work in a Z… unless the driver is 4 foot 9. Just be prepared with a 2 inch hole saw and a decent drill press.

 

As for the interior panels, I am still running all the original door trim (arm rests and all). During normal driving, my arm sits on top of the side bar. For racing, the arm is supposed to be between the driver and the bar. I can wedge it in there, but it’s not too comfortable. It will pass tech, and that’s all I was really concerned about. There is not much room inside these cars once cages and such start going in. Being 6 foot 3 doesn’t make things much better either.

 

Last thing to consider, the dead pedal on the floor needs to be removed for the side bar to fit correctly. I run an automatic, so I just rest my left foot on the old clutch pedal stop. I’m sure the side bar could be shortened to fit underneath the dead pedal, but I’m not sure how accessible it would then be.

 

Yeah, I was surprised as well about not feeling much difference with the side bars at normal driving speeds. However, I did take a very-high-speed run last night (don’t worry, I live out in BFE) and the car felt much more stable in the triple digits. Before the bar, it would shake like a son of a you know what.

 

Good luck

-Andy

[pparaska]

Andy, I got my 8 pt kit today. A few questions on how you fit it in.

 

The roll bar: Where did you connect it to the floor? It seems that to make it parallel with the leading edge angle of the quarter window, you'd have to shorten the legs and have it land just behind the top of the seat belt retractor pocket, in front of the wheel well on the raised portion of the floor behind the seat. I'd like to keep the seat belts if possible (although I'll probably replace the webbing), so this would work well. The way it comes, it's about 3 or 4 inches too high to fit up on that raised portion of the floor. If you mount it down on the lowest portion of the floor, in front of the seat belt retractor pocket, then it's too short by a few inches, and would be in front of the quarter window by a few inches. The seat wouldn't go back far enough either.

 

The rear bars: I think I will run them to the front/top of the strut towers to tie in that area, and then go from the back of the strut tower top to the floor rails that go for/aft. I can use the door bar material for that, since I'm leaving those out. If I ever want door bars, I'll do it the way John Washington has the VR kit done, with a low, kinked door bar and a tie in to the back of the rocker box area.

 

Thanks,

Pete

 

P.S. Anyone mind if I move this thread to the Chassis Forum?

 

[This message has been edited by pparaska (edited June 28, 2000).]

[Andrew Bayley]

Pete,

When I mounted the Main Hoop, I indeed had to cut about 2 or 3 inches off the legs. This was needed in order to mount the hoop on the smaller 3 inch wide section above the floor and above the seat belt retractors. Also, I had to put about a 5 degree or so angle on the leg cut. I’m not sure if this was necessary, but my welding skills were (still are) less than par so I wanted to make things as simple as possible (less gap between bar and plate). Cutting the legs shorter makes it possible to use both seat belts. However, I never bothered putting the plastic cover (99% cosmetic, 1% dust cover) back on the retractor so I can’t guarantee this will fit once the bar is in. I never put the driver side three point back in so I can’t say much about this, but it “looks†like it would fit back in without any problems.

 

Another very important item that must not be over looked;

Make sure the belts are routed EXACTLY where you want them to be before welding the bars together. I made the mistake of welding in the side bar without pulling the belt to the center and latching it. Now, the lap bar has to go OVER the side bar then down to the center latch. Not the safest setup, but it “should†still prevent someone from going through the windshield. The only options I now have, is to either get a swing out bar or go with a 5-point for the passenger side.

 

If the main hoop is welded in at the location just above the belts, it will tuck nicely behind the B-pillars. However, I still had to modify the rear cross bar so I could slide the seat back. Unless you’re under 5 feet tall, this needs to be done. Basically, I took the extra pipe that I cut off the main hoop (about 3 inches) and welded it to the cross bar (perpendicularly) before I attached it to the main hoop. By the time I notched the extra three inch pipe, I only had about two inches set back on the cross bar. Doing it over again, I would have gone for at least three inches (starting with a four inch section before notching).

 

As for my rear bars, I shortened them so they would fit on the floor just next to the base of the strut towers before the spare tire well. The pre-cut length of these bars puts them right smack dab in the middle of the spare tire well. I was weary about shortening the bars and still maintaining a 30º angle, from vertical, that NHRA requires. With the bars going to the base of the strut towers, the angle is something like 29º. So unless the track inspector is totally anal, there shouldn’t be any problems. If so, just slam your front suspension and crank those rear coilovers as far as they will go. I was debating mounting the rear bars to the strut towers, but I decided to go with the floor. Can’t say if one is stronger than the other, but I just wanted to play it safe with “regulationsâ€.

 

A final word to anyone considering doing a S&W 8 or 10 point cage/bar:

This is not a bolt in kit that can just be “welded†in place. The reason the kit is so cheap (just over $100 on sale) is because you, the owner, are doing the majority of the work. Most (if not all) of the parts need to trimmed for proper fitting. I needed to use a circular cutting saw, a drill press with hole saw bit, and of course, a nice healthy welder. It would have been very difficult for me to do this without any one of these tools. However, I was able to manage and make myself a fairly nice 8 point bar setup. I never thought I was very good at metal working, but the job I did keeps impressing me day by day. S&W provided a nice startup kit to get the project rolling. When I talked to the gentleman over the phone, he was very friendly and explained to me exactly how much work was going to be involved. I like professional people 

 

-Andy

 

P.S. Go ahead and move this to the Chassis forum, I’m fine with it.

[Mike kZ]

Pete, I think I made S&W a lot of money, I was the one that found their bar, and started telling everyone about it back at zcar.com. I took out the retractable belts from their pocket and fit the hoop in the pockets. All I had to cut was the angle to lay it back with the leading edge angle of the quarter glass. First I cut fit and welded the supplied plate steel in the pocket. The only thing is, I had to notch back the cross over bar(shoulder harness bar)about 3 inches towards the back of the car so I could move my seat all the way back.If you put yours above the seat belt pockets you might not have to do that.

[Andrew Bayley]

Never would have bought the S&W if I hadn't seen it on Mikes web page...

Behold, the power of the internet.

 

-Andy

[Guest Frank280z]

Just ordered my 8 point today. I was going to get the 10.But I think I would be hitting my knees off that cross bar. Anyway. Yeah. My decision was based upon seeing MikeKZ kit installed.

 

Frank

 

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Build it. Drive it. Improve it.

[BLKMGK]

Can you guys give me some idea as to how much these bars weigh? They're mild steel according to their site - is this DOM pipe or does it have a seam in it? I'm talking to someone about having a cro-mo 8+point cage builtinstalled and it's running just over a grand (ouch). If this is DOM pipe I might just be better off starting with this and skipping the cro-mo weight savings.

 

Sale is almost over so I'll have to figure this one out in a hurry Thanks!

 

P.S. Side bars in my case will be used simply because the 240 has ZERO side impact protection. I'll be running a roof bar along the windshield too but not the knee bar.

 

[This message has been edited by BLKMGK (edited June 29, 2000).]

[pparaska]

Andy, Mike, thanks for all the feed back. I will install the roll bar the way Andy did, as that makes the most sense to me structurally and room-wise. If you mount it on the 3" wide shelf like Andy did, it ties well to the cross brace under the floor directly beneath where the shortened bar lands. I've decided to take the 6"x6" plates they send and trim them to sit on that raised area, and meet up with the curve that is the intersction of the inner fender and the raised shelf. About 6 inches inboard of that point is where my subframe connectors weld to the raised shelf and that frame member. I will have to trim the frame support bars that angle toward the center of the car at the shoulder bend of the roll bar so that they land on top of that subframe connector.

 

I will take pictures of all this and put it on my site. Of course, Dan is free to link to it so it can be a tech article.

 

I plan on doing the hard part of this project myself and getting every thing tacked in and hire a professional welder to do the real welding. My 110V MIG welder and I aren't up to the task.

 

Mike Kelly you interested in being my professional welder? Come visit, weld, drink beer, bench race?

 

Did I mention lately that this is one kick a$$ forum? I love all the expertise around here!

[Guest Locutus]

There is only one thing I can say about welding a roll cage in. If you are willing to risk someones life on your welding get a professional to do it. When I first started racing I learned to weld at the same time cause there is lots of welding to do. Fortunately the cage inside the truck was professionally welded, I owe him my life. My very first race I rolled that truck and his cage held strong and true, didn't even bend. the nerf bars I welded on got tore off like they were sheet metal. That was a roll over at 60 mph. The truck roof was completely crushed down onto the roll cage. If you conisder how much yout life is worth, 27 dollars per hour is not much, and for a good welder he can make short order of it if you have done all the fabrication and tacked it together. It took the guy who did my cage about 10 hours and that included fabrication as well. my cage was 14pt with 3 door bars on each side and several cross braces. Do yourself a favor get it done professionally. I did and I can still walk thanks to my welder.

 

 

Mike

 

 

Mike