Am I the only one to have noticed the new ruling on fitting cages, as described in the last Motorsport UK magazine? Any cage certified after 2008 must be fitted by an "approved installer" (approved by the manufacturer).
This means that anyone building a modern car for racing, stage or endurance rallying, or any other discipline that requires a cage, will no longer be allowed to fit it him/herself, but will have to pay someone else to do it. You can be sure that this will not be cheap; the "approved installers" are bound to be extremely grateful and will demonstrate that gratitude by bending the customer over and taking them roughly from behind. Kiss goodbye to at least £1000 - probably a lot more - for the privilege of watching someone else mash up your pride and joy for you.
How many clubman competitors can afford that? It will just make it harder still for people to make the commitment into motorsport, which will really encourage the grass roots. No, hang on, it won't. So much for entry level motorsport, is that what they really want to happen? Do they want to do to the rest of rallying what they did to the RAC Rally and make it the sole and exclusive preserve of the monied VERY few?
And of course the delicious irony - the same magazine issue devoted its back page to "budget motorsport" - hah!!!
I guess that's me out of the running for building my mini into a tight budget endurance car then!
It keeps looking more and more likely that NiKoLas will only be used for 12cars and gymkhanas in standard trim.
Hi Matt,
if it really is only for weld-in cages then that's fair enough, and I'll get back in my box :-) I didn't read that in the article in the Motorsport UK magazine.
Don't worry.
Yes this does apply to all certified cages, but not all cages need to be certified. For instance for stage rallying, your cage only needs to be certified for FIA events (eg Rally GB). If your cage otherwise meets the spec shown in the Blue Book, certification isn't required for anything of Nat B / Nat A level.
In my opinion it's a good move. It's designed to stop WRC speed cars running about with cages attached by pigeon sh*t welding. Can't be a bad thing.
So hopefully us clubman competitors should be ok then? I don't think I'll be entering RallyGB any time soon! Seems a shame that there's all those abandoned cages out there that need a new home.....
To anyone whom may be able to answer!
I understand that the FIA roll cage design has changed and that a straight link bar now has to be welded onto an otherwise bent front cage leg.
Does this still apply for national B events like The Hutton and enduro's or can the old design of cage still be used (still in production by safety devices)
Not that i'm hurrying to build nikolas into a stage demon but was wondering what cage I could fit if I wished to? looking at the front/rear fixed diagonal standard cage at the mo.
Any help on the matter will be most appreciated.
Darryl.
As far as I'm aware, there are two different things here:
1. Extra member required to make the front leg triangulated. Not sure what this applies to, but it might well be just things conforming to WRC regs (IRC etc) or infact all FIA as you stated. In any case, it really only makes sense in cars with a steeply raked A pillar. I'm talking about the tube clearly visible behind the steering wheel in this photo: http://www.rallye-info.com/images/photos/peugeot/307creation/740/200604P...
2. Clarification of regs to disallow more than one bend in the front leg. This is in the Blue Book and therefore applies to all cages used in UK motorsport (where a cage is actually required) - not just those that have to comply to FIA regs. This is to fix a relatively modern problem where manufacturers such as Cusco had been producing cages that were little more than show cages but were making their way into rallying etc. A front rollcage leg with two opposed bends in it (ie a Z shape) effectively has a buckling failure mode that it wouldn't have if it only had one bend in it. The likes of Safety Devices will have never produced cages with Z shaped front legs (irrespective of whether they're homologated) as it's engineering nonsense. I'm talking about the front leg style in this photo: http://image.hondatuningmagazine.com/f/10469855/htup_0808_08_z+honda_s20...
Do you see what I mean?
Hi Rob, I can fully understand the take on the honda cage as that is just daft!
The front cage i'm looking at is this one, http://www.minisport.com/mini-spare-parts/SAFRBN003SSS.jpg
Obviously it would be paired with an appropriate rear cage and door bars if needed, surely it has only the one bend on the front leg or do you count the roof bend too?
If it is deemed to have two bends, then you would have to weld in the pillar support as per the blue book 2012.
Just interested as to the outcome as Safety Devices still state it as being FIA approved!!!
Many thanks,
Darryl.
No I'm sure that's fine - and as earlier up the thread you don't need a certified / approved cage anyway unless you're doing something relatively high up the motorsport heiracy (int'l stage rally?).
You may well need door bars though - not sure what it says in the blue book currently. Even if you don't "have" to have them, it's a very very wise choice. Even bolt in door bars are much better than nothing.
Just checked - you need to have door bars.
Cheers Rob,
Your wealth of knowledge and understanding is much appreciated.
Hopefully work will begin on Nikolas in the not too distant future.
Thanks again,
Darryl.