[Marc W]

Has anybody on here either had a 6 point roll bar or full cage installed in there hellcats yet? I am looking to do one or the other and would like to see pics if this has been done before.

Thank you in advance!

A rollbar won’t allow you to legally run any faster on an NHRA track than doing nothing. The cars are allowed down to 10.00 without it. 9.99 and faster requires a full cage.

 

[Marc W]

Ok. I see. Unfortunately the NHRA suffers from this disfunctional nonsense when it comes to rules concerning these cars. Somehow these modern day vehicles with all of their government mandated safety equipment and design can run unmodified at a “street legal” event and are safe down to 10.00. But if you run brackets or some other category of racing then they have to meet the same roll bar requirements as any old piece of junk that never heard of a airbag. If a 6 point bar will get you down 10.00 then I would go with that. A cage is going to be heavier and also not safe on the street where a unhelmeted head could be exposed to the overhead bars. You could always extend the bar into a cage later if needed.

 

[Marc W]

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That is a beautifully done cage! Where was that done and what do they charge?

 

[Marc W]

Demon Performance had Jeff Miller (Jeffmillerperformance.com) lay it out and build it. After bars enter the dash they head for the floorboard and meet the door bars. He did a great job. Everything in the dash still works, didn't even lose a speaker. As regards the angle.... they've put together a few cages in their time. I'm comfortable with their design. This is tight enough to strike a balance between accessibility and both adequate protection and the ability to get a sub 9.99 sec NHRA certification. Plus, a cage that turned and went vertical at the a pillar of junction would end up about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way from the back of the door opening. Might make it a little tough for those of us that could stand to lose a few pounds to get in and out.

I think that once some of the Demons start getting tired of shutting off or getting kicked out, you’ll start seeing these. Tight fitting with removable door bars. Why not. If I had a Demon it would be the first thing I did. I have little doubt that my Cat will get one at some point.

 

[Marc W]

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A question for the DMNKILR..... did you get a NHRA cert for this (I assume so but don't see a sticker in the pics) and with that...... what are they requiring for a window net? I would be hoping that with functioning side airbags in these new cars they would wave that. Thanks.

 

[Marc W]

Do you guys with the cages have any data on how much extra weight got put back into the cars?

Nobody knows...lol. I can guess though. I have the Speedlogix harness bar and it weighs 35 lbs. It is chromoly so it's as light as it can be. A cage like this is going to be about double that or slightly more using the same material. So.... I would guess about 70/75 lbs.

I like the tight fit on the one shown by DMNKILER and the way it follows the pillers through the dash. I would go about bracing overhead and in the rear a little differently, but that is super nice in a minimal design. If it serves the purpose of getting to run sub 10 seconds at the tracks then it's a hot setup for somebody not wanting to fill the car full of tubes to crawl through.

The only thing that concerns me about doing one of these is removing the dash if that is required to get it done. Unless somebody has experience with doing that and getting it back in place without breaking anything.... I don't know. I wouldn't want to have the rattles from hell to live with on the street as a result of not being able to get it back right. Full on race cars it isn't really a concern but for a nice street car (mine).....

I say that because nothing I take out ever goes back right when it comes to this plastic stuff in cars. It's like they are designed to snap together once at the factory and never are the same again once taken apart.

I built a cage for my Mustang a while back and didn't go through the dash. But.... it wasn't something that was used as a street car anymore so the gymnastics of getting in and out weren't a consideration. Not something I would want to do with my HC.

 

[Marc W]

Yes... definitely a very high level of expertise going on there. I can only imaging the amount of work involved in removing the interior, windshield, steering, etc and then fabricate it to those tolerances. You are definitely getting what you pay for but has to be !!!! Thanks for the pics. Always nice to see artist at work.

 

[Marc W]

Can you take a pic of the harness bar in your car?

Sure.... I did a post on the install and how that went with lots of pictures. I don't know how to link anything but it's back there a month or so ago. It's a quality setup to allow harness' as long as you stay above 10.00.

 

[Marc W]

Is it weird to get sexually aroused by a cage???

No. Just don’t try to sleep with it. Very uncomfortable!

 

[Marc W]

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Man!! What are those door panels doing in there?

 

[Marc W]

Man, they did do an amazing job fitting that cage in along the top of the roof and down the a-pillars, the windshield removed pics really show the quality job they did getting it to fit right. The dash work they did to make it fit and work right - top notch! Good to know the bars drop down to the foot plates for the door bars.

Did you have to remove the parking brake for this to work or is it still functioning and accessible?

The mustang cage pics shows what I was talking about perfectly - much stronger support for the a-pillar and front part of the roof in a roll. Given the speeds these cars see, if it rolls over, it's gonna be a multi-roll and the roof will likely take a beating, not just roll onto it's roof once and be done.

I have lots of experience in the off road rock crawling aspect of cages and those are built for a low speed roll situation and aren't generally built to the high speed requirement level. Off road cages for crawlers just need to support the weight of the rig, but not necessarily built to withstand severe impacts, multiple times.....and yes, I'm well aware there are exceptions to this..... like those lunatics running LS engine powered, rockwell axle sportin' 42" stickies at full throttle attack monsters.......

Yes the Mustang cage was much more ‘braced’ than the one in the HC. I personally built that and designed it that way because it needed to be. That Mustang was a tin can compared to these new cars. Those are poor pictures that dont really show the structure of that thing. It had horizontal bars running the from the rear to the front at the floor under the door bars and also crossed bars from the top of the roll bar tied into a strut tower bar in the rear to stiffen everything. That was because the car was such a Twizler when it came to chassis rigidity that it needed to be tied together way beyond the “subframe connectors” of the day. Anyway... today’s cars like the HC have built in roof and door protection (along with a million airbags) that are so much safer then the cars of that Mustangs era. I wish the NHRA would have someone with automotive engineering knowledge rethink the roll bar requirements for these things. That whole door bar requirement is completely unnecessary with the doors on these cars today.