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Old 11-05-2009, 07:06 AM
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HoodPin HoodPin is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicegrip View Post
I am not an ingen-eer by any measure.

Poor Geometry. Cage was touted as being built by an ace cage builder yet it looks like it has some beginner type issues. Poor form to not have tubes meet in the same place and form self reinforcing nodes. Near each other is same weight not as rigid. The knee bar has bends in it which is a FAIL in some racing rules. (see harness bar issues below)
BTW not circled but also a big fail is the bends in the harness bar behind the driver. This weakens it and reduces it ability to to transfer impact energy around the driver.
The bars behind the driver that meet near each other in the center of the hoop bar should have formed an X and not an inverted V. The X has great geometric strength the V has much less. Same weight same build effort, less strong. The tube between the two legs of the inverted V takes all the stress in one concentrated area. The diagonal in the main hoop is attached a bit far from the corner behind the driver. Some race rules set a max distance. It is had to tell how far but it is close to too far.

A clumsy busy looking thing to some people.
I agree there are a lot of strange features about that cage. I agree that an X construction would be more effective behind the seats, but I wonder if the inverted V was intentional to improve access to the top of the engine. You would think with a convertible based car (IOW, no additional potential support/protection from a roof) the cage would be more rigidly designed, rather than less.
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