[rr97cmaross]

I decided, after watching some in-car video and seeing a bunch of flex between the a-pillar and a-pillar downtube, that it was time to put a cage in the car that was "proper" and would be something I wouldn't rip out again. This being the 3rd rebuild of it, I had some serious learning points from the first two times and wanted to implement ALOT of changes. With that being said, my goals were:
1. Enhance safety
2. Enhance torsional and longitudinal stiffness
3. Build the car in a way which would fit rule sets to keep my idea of a "play toy"
4. Attempt to build a tube frame within the factory sheet metal without doing a full conversion.

With that in mind, I'd always liked the idea of creating a truss structure since it seemed to offer the solutions to #'s 1 & 2, and seemed to more closely mimick a full tube framed car. I figured if I could get the design and stiffness out of the tube structure, I could get rid of alot of the factory sheet metal and get the cars weight down. I had played around with many different designs (modeled on FEA software) and found one which I really liked but ran into problems with packaging.

The solution came from some pictures I found of some of Alans work. He built a cage in a Black camaro which was just what I was looking for. Many thanks to Alan, his great work, and willingness to post pictures and help everyone out as he was a huge help in this build.

On to the pics (some of these were taken with a phone, apologies)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/IMG00082.jpg)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/IMG00083.jpg)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/IMG00085.jpg)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/P1010004.jpg)

[rr97cmaross]

Thanks! The interior was grey before and me no likey. The white should be cooler in summer and I really like the look of it.

As far as the brake mounting. I went with simple, although I really couldn't figure out a better way to do it. I guess someone could mount a similar setup to the underside of the dash/ firewall thing, but I think there'd be alot of flex without significant reinforcement of the top. I made a frame out of .120 wall 1" square tube in order to put up with the bending stresses a bit better (rather than going lighter with a .095 or .060 tube) and simply angled the "drop" section (from the dash bar) back for knee clearance and secured the opposite end to the factory brake booster holes. Thinking here was, the most rigidity I could get from the thin metal was to put it in shear so I went with it. 4 5/16 button head bolts with washers and nyloc nuts with loc tite hold it to the firewall through a 1/8" plate, then welded to the dash bar on the other side. A small 1/8 tab was welded to the pass side of the mount to clear the steering and mount the pass side of the pedal assembly. The throttle cable is a 48" lokar piece secured in another tab, and the pedal is the factory one mounted to 1" x .120 wall tube. Now the part I didnt think of was compensating for the factory brake pedal offset. The whole assembly is approx 1.5- 2" left of where it is standard. I didn't notice it once driving, but felt weird until then.........

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/s5.jpg)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/BrakeBracket.jpg)

(IMG:http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/zz195/silentmover1/BrakeBracket4.jpg)

Oh, and the AL tape is going away and replaced with proper AL patches.

This post has been edited by rr97cmaross: Feb 13 2011, 09:17 PM