Ideas about my caged FC, how streetable..?
 

Alright, so I am not going to bore you with a long drawn out self indulgent explanation to how I got where I am with this.. But I am starting to get a little nervous.. I am finishing up a mixed use street and autox car.. The car came to me with race seats, and a kirk racing bolt in cage installed.. It looks like it was so difficult I am scared to even try to take it out.. But after properly installing the race seats and harnesses at 6.0 ft tall my head is stupid close to the rollcage when seated and strapped in the nuetral position. I always wrap my rollbars where my head could meet it, but my concern is that with the rollcage that close to my head with appropriate padding my head will be resting on the rollcage even without my helmet on..

What sucks is I was hoping to have the car as a mixed use car, drive around town, to work occasionally, to and from the track.. But I have kids, and don't feel like permenantly drooling because of a small fender bender..

Does anyone street use thier caged FC? How tall are you? How thick of padding did you use? With the harnesses how are you able to sit safetly without getting a crick in your neck..

Need some advice, encouragement... I just impulsively sold my secondary/occasional daily thinking I could use this as that...

Is it a roll bar? Or actually a bolt in cage? I would take it out... If you want some protection put a roll bar in. Mine is no where near my 6' head. You might be able to cut the forward bars off the cage and make it into a roll bar...

In general cages are a no go for any street driving...

i cut the front of the cage out of peepers for this reason. no downsides, harness still fits, there is room for the driver to have a head, you can get in and out like its a normal car.

It is the full bolt in Kirk Racing cage. The issue with removing the front and not the rear is the cage would need some rear support at that point.. Also the car will be used for events byond autocross at some point, if I am successful in XP.

I wonder if there is a way I can remove the cross bar that goes over the window area for street use, then bolt in when heading to the track...

you wouldn't want to get into an accident driving on the street with a cage close to your head.

depending on where it attaches to the car, you might as well just pull it out. the autopower cages bolt to a freeze plug in the floor, so if you flip the car the cage just goes through the floor.

I started with the same cage in my car and yes I have the exact same issue. What I did was change the seating position in the car. I use a Kirkey Road race seat, so your situation may be different. What I ended up doing is denting the trans tunnel a bit so that I could move the seat more to the center of the car. Making new mounts that basically mount the seat on to the floor and then changing the rake of the seat so that I am more horizontal. That meant adding a spacer to the steering wheel to move it closer to me.

All of these were done in small increments, but in the end without a helmet I am completely below the upper bar and about 3 inches away from it. Originally, with a helmet on my head was pressed against the bar and I couldn't really even turn my head to the left to look that way with the harness on.

Fiddle with the seat mounting. It will work and as a side benefit you get really close to the shifter and you look all cool reclined in the car that way, LOL.

Eric