I signed up for a HPDE at Summit Point, and contacted the organizer since I have a convertible (the registration form says to do so). He replied that he can't find any information that the roll hoops on the roadster are designed to provide roll over protection, and that Nissan appears to say that they are not designed to provide roll over protection. Is that correct? If not, does anyone know where I can find information to show that they are acceptable?

Thanks!

 

should say in your owners manual, i thought.

 

iunno...are there any roll bars around you can install? moral of the story: dont buy a roadster for performance driving...lol

 

No, the stock hoops do not appear to poivide roll over protection. They sit too far down and do not meet the level of the windshield. They also don't have enough side protection.

This is just from looking at them though.

 

Even if they are made for roll-over protection, they weren't designed with a driver in mind... helmet or not, they aren't tall enough.

We looked as hard as we could without disassembling the rear of the car (at the last tech day we had in Wilmington), and it appears the tubing used is plenty beefy, but we could not see how it attaches to the car. If anyone has the time and guts involved to un cover the structure and take some pictures, we'd be very interested in them.

 

hey stacy, im the one whos car u looked at during tech day, and i actually have National speed's fabricator looking into it for me, talked to him today. i know it can be done because ive seen it, im looking for pics right now for him. and we also had an issue with my overall height which we will be trying to correct with different seats, otherwise im getting a hardtop! ill post the pics when i find them.

 

here is a video of bambam's car. has a roll cage and functioning top. looks like he had to mount/slide his seat all the way up for it to work. and the rear loop is simply welded to the factory loop. will that meet all standards? i dont quite understand why they couldnt have mounted the rear loop further back too?

 

video

http://www.forgedperformance.com/med...ltflatsrun.wmv

 

sorry i realize that vid didnt work. u can find it at post Forged Performance: Live Report from the Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Attempt**Live page 6/post 109

 

Without seeing the car in person, it's hard to say definitively, but we'd have a few concerns with that bar for our events. I know what some of you will say... if it's good enough for Bonneville, why not you? Well... here's why:

1. Bonneville is akin to a very long drag race with next to nothing to hit. You'll do more sliding than anything else if something brakes
2. Drag racing rules / specs in terms of roll bars are lax at best. The bends in the front down tubes would not pass any road-race tech (that I know of) but we see it all the time in drag cars
3. We would be very concerned with the proximity of the main hoops and halo bar to the driver's and passenger's head. They almost guarantee a hard hit in just about any conceivable impact
4. Again, we'd need to know how the factory hoops are structured to know if simply attaching to them is sufficient rear-ward bracing

Make sense?

Edit... see if this link for the vid works for anyone curious: http://www.forgedperformance.com/med...ltflatsrun.wmv

 

yea that makes complete sense to me. just had to make sure. i do have my car for sale and my phone wont stop ringing so it may be gone before u know it and then the new poject begins

 

which is sad since all the early motor racing sports almost all cars were roadsters, hell in order to be a classic sports car, it had to be a convertable back in the day