Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Looking to see if any one is running a Autopower race roll bar. If so how does it mount to the car? Can you post a few pictures. That would help in my deciding to buy one or have one made. Not wanting the full cage.
Thanks

High or low windshield? I sold a low windshield to a buddy here in town and it even has the original Autopower sticker on it! If it is a low windshield I will get some pics for you.

Oops Sorry
it's a high windshield. One of my concerns is being 6'2" and having room for the seat and keeping my head/Helmet away from the bar.
I can move the new seat around a little that is why a few pictures would help
Thanks

silvertiger wrote:Oops Sorry
it's a high windshield. One of my concerns is being 6'2" and having room for the seat and keeping my head/Helmet away from the bar.
I can move the new seat around a little that is why a few pictures would help
Thanks

I run a modified Autopower roll bar, I'm about 6'2". Its close, and I have the seat bolted to the floor with no sliders.





HSR-West and VSCCA didn't question me. If I sit up really tall, yeah I'm above the bar, but if I slouch down and tighten the belts down I'm not going anywhere and for a half hour race, I'm good to go.

Will

Will

Could you post or send me a few pictures where the bar mounts? Thanks a lot

Trevor

Its kinda hard to see where it sits, but hopefully this will help. The underside has 1/4 inch thick steel plates that the bolts pass thorugh


Here are a few shots of the bar itself.





I hope those help.

Will

Will
Thanks it does help as I did not know if it mounted on the floor or as your does on the slope. Looking at your picture you started with a street bar then added the other bars.
Ok that gets me thinking I will get an Autopower bar.

Your bar bolts onto and through the package shelf Will? We did one like that for my car but I am not happy with how it bolts across the front. It needs to be redone. It is also not tall enough. Put a helmut on me and my head is close to six inches above the existing bar. I am going to need to get a hoop welded on so I will be below it with helmut so I can autocross. But I do like the idea of its being easy to unbolt and remove so I can put the top up if necessary when the wife is with me.

Yes, my bar started as a Autopower Street bar for a tall windshield car. I added the diagonal and harness bars. When the SCCA tech inspector looked at the thickness of the bars he was surprised by how thick they were.

The feet of the main hoop do attach to the sloping section of the floor just behind the seats. There are 1/4 thick plates that mount from the bottom, the same with the ones that mount through the package shelf.

Oddly enough this is not a fast item to remove. Both seats must come out, then it still takes a good 3 hours to unbolt everything. Reinstalling it is an even larger nightmare. When I added the cross bars the whole thing shifted a little bit and none of the mounting holes willingly line up now. It becomes a bit of a wrestling match to push/move everything the 1/4 inch or so its off. I will say that the revised bar did stiffen the car noticeably. I did place the bar as far back as it would go, that way it sits as high as possible.

To get below the bar with a helmet, I had to find a set of seats that mounted directly to the floor, with a minimal amount of padding (hence the reason it becomes very uncomfortable to drive on a long trip since the exhaust runs right under the drivers seat.) Even so, I need to slouch down a little bit to clear. If I sit up straight, the top of my helmet might be above the bar, or even with the top of it. The soft top just fits over the bar.

Will

So you do use the stock mount points. That is not an option for me since my seat has been remounted so there is no longer enough room for a bar to go behind the driver's seat to the stock mount point. Hence the modded bar that bolts entirely to the package shelf. I know a guy so can "finish" my roll bar by adding a hoop for the helmet and bar for a harness. I just hope being bolted to the package shelf will pass tech when I start to autocross.

tputland wrote:So you do use the stock mount points. That is not an option for me since my seat has been remounted so there is no longer enough room for a bar to go behind the driver's seat to the stock mount point. Hence the modded bar that bolts entirely to the package shelf. I know a guy so can "finish" my roll bar by adding a hoop for the helmet and bar for a harness. I just hope being bolted to the package shelf will pass tech when I start to autocross.

No, I didn't use the factory Nissan mounting points. My seat is back far enough that the roll bar supports the back of the seat. I was told I didn't need a seat support because of how close the harness bar sat to the back of the seat. (Hence the reason the seats need to be removed in order to remove the bar. They are a little bit of a pain to re-install because of this. I have to get the angle just right for the bolts to drop through the holes. It took me 3 hours or something to install the passenger seat when I was putting the car back together last year.

When I mounted the roll bar I dropped it in and pushed it up and back as far as it would go before contacting something. I marked it, drilled the holes, and hoped the frame didn't get in the way. As it turned out, it did, so I had to run a couple short bolts and I have to use braille to fit the lower plates.

Will

Will-

I read it that you have your bar mounted through the body with backing plates instead of to the frame itself. That's a load off my mind as nobody (SCCA) here would take a look at my roll bar before I started autocrossing (still not there). That makes me feel better about my design and installation. I used 1.75" OD and .120" wall and went bigger bolts and higher grade than the Solo rules specified for this weight of car.

DatsunBucky wrote:Will-

I read it that you have your bar mounted through the body with backing plates instead of to the frame itself. That's a load off my mind as nobody (SCCA) here would take a look at my roll bar before I started autocrossing (still not there). That makes me feel better about my design and installation. I used 1.75" OD and .120" wall and went bigger bolts and higher grade than the Solo rules specified for this weight of car.

If I remember correctly, your roll bar is pretty heavy duty. That is assuming you are planning to use the one you got from me.

Honestly, I think it would take a huge amount of talent to put a roadster on its top or even on its side in an autocross. Sure, some of the crazy modified cars that have very little Datsun roadster left might be about to do it, but still. All the groups I've run with here don't care about a roll bar for autoX. Track yes, autoX, no.

Will

Where I want to run autoX they specify roll bars for convertibles so I know going in I need one. But it is a road coarse not a cone field so I wonder if that has something to do with it?

My "starting point" roll bar should be thick enough tubing to pass that part of the test. (yea, I'll verify before I do any more to it).

SLOroadster wrote:
Honestly, I think it would take a huge amount of talent to put a roadster on its top or even on its side.

I would tend to agree with this statement.
On the 405 freeway in SoCal, I lost a rear wheel in my 67.5. This resulted in getting hit by the car next to me and being spun around a time or two finally coming to rest by hitting the center divider. All three wheels that were left, never left the ground.
So yeah, I imagine it would be pretty hard to roll or flip a roadster on an autocross course.