ok, thanks Dave.

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1600 with FJ20 & Simmons. something different.

Good discussion above.

I occasionally navigate in rallys, and we always travel with the helmets on during the event.

IMHO, without the appropriate seat and harness, a cage is a leathal weapon in the cabin.

I wouldn't get into a car fitted with any cage unless it also has race approved seats properly fitted to the floor, and race approved 5 point full harness belts running correctly through the seat and bolted at the correct locations using substantial anchorage mountings. This setup holds you in the seat, not floating upwards/downwards(?) towards the cage. Proper seat bolsters stop the body moving sideways to avoid impacts with the vertical bars, diagonals, and the side impact bars running beside the seat.

If you must fit a cage to a car used regularly on the road, I would fit the appropriate seats and full harnesses, to keep heads well away from the (padded) cage in an impact. So, add about another $2500 minimum to the price of any cage, and a further $1200 each five years, to replace the belts on their "useby" date.

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RichardC
SSS016

I have a 4point alloy half cage in my street rego 1600, not sure how one could hit their head on it in an accident... Has never been an issue in 2 years, always passed rego, never been pulled over and always been fine at scrutineering for speed events (since they don't require a cage, if a cage is fitted it doesn't have to comply with cage regs). Sure they might not be as good as a steel cage, but in a rollover I would prefer my alloy cage to no cage any day!

Also pretty sure you don't have to replace harnesses on their useby date unless you are using them for international competition. For national or lower level competition you have 5 years AFTER the use by date, no?

^ can you use sections of the cage (eg taxi bar) as an anchor point for harness?

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1600 with FJ20 & Simmons. something different.

I can see the half cage argument, it would be pretty hard to go backward into the hoop. But I'm not sure a half cage provides sufficient protection- where the competitors are seated.

The full cage is what I was discussing. These are mandatory for rallying at clubman level or above. A four point hoop doesn't provide protection at the front end of a rally car . I have seen a couple of rally cars wrapped up like balls around their roll cage after "end to ending" - no serious injuries inside.

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RichardC
SSS016

Sorry Spandex, i dont have any pics of my mates cage but he had around 220kw in his 1600 and rolled in on the street one night after someone stopping on an orange light and he was doing about 200k/hr when he lost control trying to pull the car up... ended up rolling it into a red light camera and knocked it down and ended up on the roof... came out completely unscathed, the cage saved not only his skin but the also saved the car from having to be scrapped. This was a car that was fully engineered with the cage so 100% legal. So yeah definitely not dangerous having one and well worth the investment.

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