Takis, talk this evening
I purchased my Southern GT basically unstarted from its 3rd owner and it had a SGT roll cage installed. So, I had the same conversation with Mick following concerns after later reading Frank's article in the club magazine. Ideally, I would have liked not to have had a roll cage but for what I am going to be using the car for, I felt reassured by what Mick told me.Well, I had a nice chat with Mick at Southern GT two years ago and he showed us the remains of a red GT40 (GTD) that crashed hard at Spa Francorchamps, september 2017 (by coincidense, we saw that crash).
He was at the point to start the rebuild of that GT.
Nothing major drama with that chassis.
He confinced us not to put a cage in our KVA B and he pointed out on that chassis why and how.
If they’re not paying attention, they may pay the ultimate price of ignorance...785 views ! I am so pleased that you guys are reading this post and hopefully reacting to my concerns for safety in these cars. Frank
Tom, you’ve done a pretty nice bit of work there, but have you thought about a side impact? I’m no safety expert off the track, but I think there may be some room for improvement on your design!Don't have a GT40, but do have a T70 spider with head in close proximity to the main roll hoop. Thinking about ways to prevent a point impact with the bar from rear/quarter impact, one thought is run 1/8" aluminum sheet from center of headrest support out to the roll bar, then cover all of it with confor foam and upholstery. Seats have not been padded yet, so that will create more distance from seatback to headrest. In effect, the sheet acts as a bridge so my skull can't get the point load. Duplicate the same effect in the horizontal plane. Thoughts?
Sorry Tom - My Speed-reading got the best of me... You're on the case and I think your planning is solid..yeah, the last line of my post references that - def need to have some kind of horizontal restraint there. All standalone race seats seem to have rigid fencing around the head/neck area. I could do the same by welding a tab projecting forward from the vertical portion of roll bar, and then padding it. but without a helmet that feature could be deadly. Wondering about just repeating the effort of bridging with another sheet of aluminum to serve as a deflector. Geometry is a little difficult, but worth the effort I think. Given all that, I think I am intent on finding a helmet I can wear while street driving - maybe a motorcycle "polo" helmet. Not great protection against a roll bar strike, but better than a bare head.
The main one is that there is very little strength in the A pillar and the car itself being very low any impact into a high vehicle (or unfortunately with the rise of Crossovers, SUV's etc "average" cars) could see an impact to the front of the car causing the other car to ride up, over and then crushing the passenger compartment. A front cage would add significant strength and (hopefully) prevent that.Are there any positive reasons why a front cage can be a good idea?
It might be a much shorter topic!