Cages that do not cut the door
 

What cages (if any OTS ones are avail) are there that don't involve cutting the door and making the window inoperable?

I kind of like this design...

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...rhead2/sm1.jpg

Now that I'm getting a lot more involved with motorsports I don't feel that my HD roll bar is adiquite anymore. And for next season I want to go to a full cage. But since my car will be a street driven car (to/from track and for fun once in a while) I can't loose the operation of the side windows.

As it stands now, there is more than enough space for door bars next to my seat. What should be the min space from the door bar to the seat in a fully caged car?

will you be wearing a helmet whenever driving the car?

This is a good point. You do not want to get into an accident in a car with a cage without a helmet. Smacking the cage with an unprotected head could cause death in an accident that otherwise would not result in death.

At minimum you would need to wrap the bars in high density impact foam. It's hard to the touch, but gives when hit hard. I've got it on my hard dog bar just in case....

No, but I will be in a bucket seat wearing a harness and there is no way my head will come close to any bars.

I do everything I can to resist caging my turbo car.

You should rivet HANS anchors to your skull. I'm willing to do this for you.

The convertible top skeleton has metal bars above my head and on top of the side windows, plus protruding metal parts on the folding mechanism (again above the side windows) that are infinitely more capable of hurting my head in case of an accident.

No one ever complained for those?

Btw, I have OMP HTE seats that have protective side tabs, no matter how hard I try to bash my head against them, it doesn't even hurt. So I think a cage wouldn't be a problem without a helmet in in these seats.

The "my head will never touch" argument is bad enough, but seriously? Do you really think you can "bash you head against them" with the same force that an 80-90 MPH collision will cause?

This thread wasn't made to discuss the consequences of driving in a caged car without a helmet. All I want is a fucking cage that doesn't cut the doors. :jerkit:

I'll drive my car the way I feel like it.

My head, when strapped into the seat is 5+ inches away from anything other than the headrest. If I rolled in a stock 3 pt. I would understand the argument but with my 6pt. I'm no going to worry about it. Chances are, if I'm in an accident at 90MPH in a Miata I'll be dead either way.

My head is literally less than 2 inches away from the tabs. 2 inches. If my head can accelerate within 2 inches quick enough to hit the soft tabs and cause anything more than light bruising, then I think that my spinal cord would have already snapped before my head even hit the tabs.

Very true.

I am unaware of any prebuilt cages that allow for the doors to remain stock. I think this is because it offers less protection than getting the door bars a little farther away from the driver/passenger.

That being said, I don't think there is anything stopping someone from having the "door bar" portion of the cage custom built to fit your needs. Check the racing regulations to see if they regulate how a cage is built.

While it is probably not optimal for crash protection as a cage built into a gutted door. It has to be better than a door alone. :2cents:

You can always go to a cage builder and tell him you want "baby" door bars that go into the door but don't restrict the window.

Harness (and seat belt) straps are designed to stretch in an accident to spread out the change in velocity over more time, to reduce the peak gees. Ever seen crash test footage? They stretch a lot.

--Ian

Not with a 6pt.

Fully operational stock windows with door bars. Custom build by TC design locally.

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Then i decided not to be retarded and drive a caged car on the street:

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Disagree. I'm sure there have been many 90mph miata accidents on the track with full cages where the driver walked away. And they were probably wearing a helmet.

Why even fucking bother putting in a cage to pretend that you give a shit about safety?

Because a cage will give the illusion that he is safe. I think it's a really and truly stupid idea, but that isn't what was asked, so I will save myself to time and stop here.

^ That green cage is always amazing. The gutted doors are sexy too. No idea a door shell could be so good looking.

+1 The contrast is tits with the painted interior. :bigtu:

Shit then someone please buy my style bar because it impressed all the `dumbassess much more than my real roll bar ever has.

Right now black jesus is speaking to me and commanding me to drop my car off in Cali with TC Designs. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

So I can pass tech... DURH!

Hey dumbass, respond to PM's

Well, then why not just make one out of styrofoam or better yet PVC and spray paint it?

AFAIK X style door bars are still legal for most sanctioning bodies. I Wouldn't exactly feel safe with them, but it's not like you'd think about it while driving.

Also, With NASCAR bars, put them high up. It makes getting in and out a pain, but look at the other cars on track and see where their bumper meets your door. A Bumper punch from a VW GTI is the exact opposite of my idea of fun.

Why the hate for X-style doorbars? AFAIK all the dutch spec miatas run them.

Pretty sure most of the cars locally run X-bars. I see a ton of cages with them. Rules for what I'm doing just state one solid cross bar (VS. two with nascar style bars).

+1

X-style doorbars are much more rigid. If you are keeping the windows operational, and not going into the door panel, then x-style is the way to go.

I had a custom cage built a few years back for a track Miata that I drove to-and-from the track. The cage allowed full use of a '99 glass-window soft top and the power windows, all in my NA Miata.

To answer the original question, I am not aware of any off-the-shelf cages that allow the use of both windows. For a while, Spec Miata required you to keep the factory door panel on the passenger side, so most cages had an x-style door bar on the passenger side. MiataCages and others may still do this. I suppose you could call them and ask if they would make you a cage with x-bars on both sides.

That said, find reputable local builder and go that route. You'll have more control over what you get, and this is particularly important to you, since your request (a roll cage built for a daily-driver) is rare.

IMHO, custom weld-in > bolt-in.

I think most people here are mis-understanding what I am going to do with the car. It will be a full tits out track car within a year, trailered to/from the track. But for now I have to drive it to the track on the street. Because of that I want to keep my windows operational. I also want a cage that is built really tight to the roof (Like this... http://store.awrracing.com/products/...005-Miata.html).

Our racecar has an older miatacage.com cage in it and it fits pretty tight to the roof. I can't grab the topside of the bar which makes egress more difficult. I have to grab onto the roof, uncomfortable but not that big of a deal.

Dislike for x-bars is simple mechanics. Hitting the x only loads those two tubes and it loads them in bending. They will yield right into your side. Nascar bars put more load onto the main hoops and the door bars are already bent the other way. It'll take a harder hit to make the bars bend back at you and even then the're far away. I'd be willing to bet the main/front hoops would pretzel before the bar hits you

If you know you're always going to have the windows down when driving you can make lexan travel windows to keep the rain out when parked or on the trailer

I'm assuming those X-bars are basically straight and do not interfere with the doors. The cage in our racecar has fully gutted doors and a good part of the X-bars are actually bent outwards enough to go inside the door for the whole length.

I believe that's what we're calling nascar bars.

I see. I'm not that familiar with NASCAR terminology, mainly because I'm a firm believer of right-hand turns every now and then.

nascar redneck is not amused

http://theangryt.com/wp-content/gall...scar-fan-1.jpg

They're called "NASCAR" bars because that's where they originated. They provide significantly more side impact protection vs. an X-brace door bar, and they are usually easier to get in and out of as well.

Why would you half-ass a cage for a car that will become a full on track-super-star within a year?

The main reason is I will for the most part be driving it to->from the track. I don't have a tow vehicle. Our local track is 30mins from my house and Seattle/Portland/ORP are a few hours. I live in a condo, and can't have a full on car trailer and I can't really afford a tow vehicle right now.

So I want the windows operational.

Again... this thread was purely to find out if they exist. Not to start an argument. I may end up taking a road trip to LA and have TC designs build me a cage. Or find someone a bit closer than can replicate it from photos.

I would be more than happy with bars like these...

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y23...r/IMG_1271.jpg

Two pages of crap and not a single person suggested a Hard Dog "street" cage?

http://www.bethania-garage.com/images/cage1.jpg

Its in the bay area, about 6 hours north of LA. Any competent cage builder should be able to keep the windows working fine. You can even zip tie the windows in the up right positions like i do now. I do it to wash the car and keep dust out of it while its parked.

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As you can see, window is in and up with no mechanism holding it there, when i get to the track i snap the zip ties and yank the windows out. Zip tie them back in when i go home.

I would NOT want to have a side impact with that cage.

Agreed fully on this aspect... Have a local-ish guy just build you one to your sanctioning body specs with some of your own provisions in place...

Ahh, they are even closer than I thought. That's only about 13 hrs away. I've done that in a day before from Vancouver to San Fran.

I wouldn't want to be in a side impact with that cage either. If I went with something like that I definatley wouldn't use the supplied door bars.

Guys, THIS thread is about door bars, any other bickering or bitching can go in the B.S. section. Keep it on topic please.

just thought i'd mention that i have a tcdesign cage with nascar style door bars same as tsb's and i have fully functional windows. the only catch is that the door needs to be open to open and close the windows (the winder hits the cage if door is closed). wouldn't this work fine for u?

for folks who don't want to keep the window (specmiata), tcdesign makes the cage slightly different by moving the nascar bars a little more away from the driver. i dont' think its a huge difference tho.

If you are within driving distance of the SF Bay Area, I cannot fathom why you would considering using anyone except Tony at TC to do your cage.

Trubo not hit block?

http://japanparts.com/images/ImageFr...base=1&no=5346

Mazda speed roll cage from japan. If I could find one stateside I would probably buy it.

Yup, that will be just fine. Because I have electric window switches sitting in my garage waiting to go in.

Well would you consider 12hrs driving distance? :laugh:

Depending on the work being done and who is doing it 12 hours is definitely driving distance.

I did the drive to Sacramento in 11 hrs once. Straight driving, no stops from Vancouver, BC. For a quality cage I would be willing to do the drive. You only get a cage once. I just need to figure out what to do for the few days they would have the car.... I'll pull my trailer down with me and bring my R6... :D

Hard dog bolt ins are a death trap, you're going to be hurting in any impact situation, unless if you are a super short. Miatacage.com kits can be built with non-nascar door bars retaining full window control. If you have crank windows you might have to open the door to roll the window up or down. :2cents:

With my bucket seat my head is over 5 inches from the bar.

The Miatacage one looks nice but they don't use all the head-room possible. If you look at the upper bars. And for the $1200 it will cost to get sent to me I would rather spend an extra $600 and get a custom cage.

Sucks to be Canadian! Even their $85 shipping deal isn't as good as I've seen. They've had free shipping before, so $965 to your door (well, my door at least).

They have one of the best kits I've ever seen. I'm curious to hear some more explanation as to how they're not using all the head room available.
http://www.miatacage.com/images/Righ...0View%20XL.jpg
All bars are pushed up into the hardtop, not straight.

If you need a cage built locally, you should go see Peter VanBogart at cascade autosports. http://www.cascadeautosport.com/

Peter has built cages for rally cars for years. He has seen his cages go through catastrophic accidents while in cars that were wadded up in the forest. He definitely knows how to build a cage. He built my friend's Pro3 (spec e30) cage and also used to build tons of spec miata cages. I have personally never seen a cage of his quality in person, even TC Motorsports cages aren't near as nice.

They are fucking expensive though.

Curly... see the side upper bars? Every spec miata I've sat in my head has been banging all over those. The TC cage I saw has those two bars on the upper outer section bent upwards.

And I'm not going to pay $1000+ for a cage I will only use half of the supplied parts.

You mean like Snowboarder's? They're flat
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I thought the bends nessecary to get the door bar up through the dash and bent to go towards the rear main hoop took up all the legal bends that can be in that particular hoop. I could be wrong though. We're getting off topic.

Hmm... that's odd. It must have been another cage I saw like that.

In that case... a miatacage.com cage with different door bars would be what I'm looking for.

Ahhh.. found it. It was an AWR cage. But now that I'm looking at it closer it dosen't seem like it would make much of a difference because the bend is further forward and not where your seat/head is...

http://www.awrracing.com/pages/miata...ges/image2.jpg

They used to have pics up on their website with the old style non nascar door bars. You have to ask for them when you order though.

Also, I really don't have much information on this for you, but I have seen a few East Street Racing cars with "miatacage.com" cages that are NOT like what MC sells on their website. Their front down tubes have more bends in it, similar to that AWR cage. Tons of head room. I don't even have any pics to show you what I am talking about, but you might want to give them a call.