Got some more done today, not as much as I'd hoped, late start but it's getting there

The main cage is in, just gotta wait for my brother to get back from the subshine coast so he can weld it up nicely for me and then I'll bend up the front legs

Edited December 29, 201411 yr by Tough_little_ke20

Are you going to fix it to the B pillar? I reckon it adds a lot of grunt to the roof if you do.

 

Can you eliminate the bend in the top diagonals? That reduces their ability to keep the top of the cage square a lot. I'll have to put ours onto the front cross bar or Steve won't have enough room in the little triangle for his helmet. That was what we found with the Celica cage, a problem of being over 6 foot tall.

 

Maybe we can start off in the front corner like you have and take it straight across to intersect with the passenger's diagonal instead of the main hoop. Not as good, but it would help.

 

When you roll those top front corners get really pounded.

The b pillar will be connected, you keep saying my head needs to fit in the triangle, that's rediculus, if your head is that close to the roof the bars are pointless, I'm 5'10" and once my seat is mounted I'll have 3" clearance on the cage with my helmet on. The bend in the roof bar is not a weak point in any way, it's stronger as far as I'm concerned, its 20° and gives a preload for any impact on the roof, because of the angle of the join to the half lateral it has twice the surface area welded, the majority of cages are being done like this now, lighter and proven to be just as effective as the full cross, and just about all the crosses I've seen have a bent also. I'm sure everyone remembers jack monkhouses crash? Well his windscreen and roof bars were rolled the entire length and the windscreen bar has a sharper bend on each end, so your theory would say it's a week point, we all saw how well that cage held up, not a single issue.

Edited December 30, 201411 yr by Tough_little_ke20

Well, I don't know what clearance we will have with the KE70, but the Celica was a low sports car and Steve's helmet sat against the roof a lot of the time. We cut the diagonal out of the cage to give him some room.

 

I'll chase up the cage design, I was thinking of the old system where a straight bar was used to throw the corner force onto the main hoop, sort of like this..

 

 

From what I've generally seen the cages are usually so strong the interior suffers very little deformation, but the shape of cars has changed & cage design has changed to accomodate that. The extreme rake on car windscreens now has made the door 'hole' quite a different shape.

Edited December 30, 201411 yr by altezzaclub

Hey Justin, Looking good. Starting to look like a race car.

One question, and I maybe wrong.

Are the main hoop x brace joins to far in from the top roof bends?

I remember reading some thing in the cams manual about braces being not farther than 100mm from a bend.

 

I like the side intrusion bars. Are you going to plate over the join?

Hey Craig, I looked in the manual it states as follows: For drawing J-5 the upper end of the diagonal member shall join the main roll bar no further than 100mm from it's junction with the backstay. And yes plate each end in the same way that Jack's Silvia is done in the above photo, unsure if I'll be plating along the whole length or not as it is a slightly different design, I have build it the same as in the manual, so I may just plate it the same as shown in drawing J-59

Edited December 31, 201411 yr by Tough_little_ke20

Can you eliminate the bend in the top diagonals? That reduces their ability to keep the top of the cage square a lot. I'll have to put ours onto the front cross bar or Steve won't have enough room in the little triangle for his helmet. That was what we found with the Celica cage, a problem of being over 6 foot tall.

 

Maybe we can start off in the front corner like you have and take it straight across to intersect with the passenger's diagonal instead of the main hoop. Not as good, but it would help.

 

When you roll those top front corners get really pounded.

 

Just saw the picture you drew again, my photo might have given you the wrong view of the bend, virtically it's straight it only bends horizontally

Edited December 31, 201411 yr by Tough_little_ke20

Anyone want ke26 parts? Doors still available, hatch and tow bar possibly sold, driveline I'm keeping aswell as all front panels/sedan compatible, rear side glass and some other bits sold, scrapping this weekend so if you want something speak up

Been a while since anything has happened, I went camping on the murray for the long weekend while my brother did some welding on my cage haha, been a mixture of lazy and busy recently and now I've got some last minute things to do to my 20 before the test and tune next Sunday but after that I'll get stuck back into it

Borrowed a seat from autobarn today, test fitted it and it's all good, I'll go order another one tomorrow, suppose I should pay for this one too haha

I have been looking at that exact seat from shep autobarn for a while now haha! cars looking good!

Yeh this is possibly the one, I had one in my ke20 but it blocked the doorway a lot and I sold it to a mate who then bought one from Gerrad (shepp autobarn) then my neighbor bought one for his race car, Gerrad bought himself one for his vk then I bought this one and he's ordered one for the passanger side, great seat

Not much had been happening on the 30 lately, my 2tg threw a timing chain (or so I believe, have only pulled the cam cover off so far) because of that I decided I best rebuild my dusted 4age in the 20 and touch up the gearbox then I found I was missing a tooth on the pinion gear, I'll hopefully have the new diff in this weekend then put my 2tg on the stand and have a quick look at it then back into the 30 and get this cage finished finally, then I can make a steering column, pedal box, repair the rust in the rear mud guards and the interior is finished minus paint and assembly

Yeah i remember Gerrad said he was going to get it for himself haha, i need some good seats in my VT so if you think they are good i might look at getting a couple, car looks great!