• Mulry
  • Mulry
  • Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah
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  • From: Dallas, TX
  • Registered: 2009-05-01
  • Posts: 4,607

Topic: Roll Cage for Topless Cars

Not to belabor the roll cage questions at this point or get into the everloving angels-on-pinheads debate, but would it be fair to say that the roll cage requirements are identical for convertibles and fixed-roof vehicles? I know that there's an arm-restraint requirement for convertibles, but what I'm talking about here is just the cage.

The reason this is coming up is that there are photos of convertibles and roadsters from recent past races that had just the main hoop but no front hoop running along the front of the car and/or the bars that go from the a-pillar back to the main hoop. If one were to totally roadster-ize a car -- i.e. take a sawz-all to the entire topside and remove the a-pillars, windshield, roof, and b-pillars -- would that vehicle then require the full roll cage treatment too? Or is it different for roadsters (besides the arm-restraint requirement)? Thanks.

Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67

Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.
  • RobL
  • RobL
  • Lemons Staff Stalker
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  • From: Philly area
  • Registered: 2009-04-30
  • Posts: 2,721

Re: Roll Cage for Topless Cars

We did such a thing, but did take out the a-pillars and windshield.  There are arm restraint requirements but the cage requirement was the same.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

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  • From: Long Beach
  • Registered: 2009-04-30
  • Posts: 232

Re: Roll Cage for Topless Cars

This doesn't answer your question, but it should be pointed out:

Putting custom cages in convertibles is MUCH cheaper than in roofed cars. Tell your cage builder they can go as high as they want and encourage them to use rejects from other cage projects.

We saved on material cost and bending labor for our cage because we used a malformed Mazda3 main hoop (tweaked slightly to fit inside our car) connected to incorrectly bent Boxster A-pillar bars, and encouraged him to use a large hammer on the car any time things didn't fit the way he wanted. Custom cage was done 4 days after we dropped the car off.

Our cage is at least 6 inches higher than the windshield, but that just gives us more headroom.

  • fabtoys
  • Lemons Staff Stalker
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  • Registered: 2009-04-30
  • Posts: 1,845

Re: Roll Cage for Topless Cars

On a lot of our desert racers we cut the roof and built cage and then weld roof back on .
Makes it a lot easier maybe a convertable civic coupe .

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