Anyone has done that? Any tips? My car has a full roll cage and I'm trying to lose some weight. The driver's side door is already cut open to fit the roll cage, so I was thinking it would be a good idea to remove the horizontal crash bar. I also want to remove the one on the passenger's door. Any help/input would be greatly appreciated!

 

Assuming the rules you are racing under allow this (some rule sets do not like SCCA Improved Touring) I found that I had to remove all of the inner door panel to get to where the crash bar attaches.

This us how both of my doors look. I later rigged up a cable for an inner door release.

 

Thanks Scott. Good point, I should make sure the rules allow the doors to be gutted. I like how clean your look! Did you just cut the bars at the ends, or removed the pinch welds?

 

Thanks, I just cut them as close to the ends as I could. Found out it is easy to go through the outer door skin too so a deft touch is needed.

My class - STU - allows the door to be gutted to this extent as long as the "NASCAR style" door bars protrude into the door cavity. I took a looser interpretation on the passenger side regarding door bar style but what I have there does get into the door cavity. In SCCA Production (E Production) guys are cutting off the window frame as well.

I also lightened the hinges a little by removing one of the three mounting holes from each one. The door hinges on these car are heavy.

 

One thing to keep in mind is just how much of a pain it is to remove the crash bars. The flange on the end of the bars fits between the inner and outer skin, and is spot welded in place. You can see from this picture where I ground the spot welds away. Once the bar is free of the spot welds the best way I found was to cut the bars almost all the way through with an angle grinder which allows you to fold them outward to get the flanges out from between the inner and outer skin.



Scott is also right about how heavy the hinges are. I go a step further and cut away about 80% of the hinge so I am only left with 2 pins mounted to the car, and 2 brackets with holes on the doors. You can open the doors halfway, pull up and the doors come right off, it is an old drag racer trick. Being able to easily remove the doors makes working on the car much easier, and once the doors are closed and latched, they can’t come loose.


Scott did get me thinking, and looking at the hinges on the car there is probably a few pounds left I could cut away and every bit helps.

 

Thanks for the insight and photos!