SORRY I Reposted this in here. I couldn't find a mod to move the other one. Any input is apprecated.

So I dropped off the S on monday (1/30) to Autopower for them to fab up a Roll bar (and cage) for the S2K. Gave them pics from all the roll bars I could find and a service manual. They have looked at a S2000 before but didn't like it and didn't like the fact that there was no place to Bolt It to the floor. Well with some push from Charlie from a Safe Drives, They agreed to look at it again with a fresh open mind.

Well after looking at it yesterday and this morning they said there was no way to do it without affecting seat travel and they aren't interested in building a product that not 100% of customers would like.

So Charlie calls them again and talks to them, then me, I print out full threads of peoples bars and tried to so them full travel and placement of where I thought (I am no bar builder or anything close) the bar could go. So after about 10 mins they agree to really get into it and do some more investgation into it.

They where really skeptical about it, which is understandable. If you've looked in to it once why spend more R&D time and money. But I think they appreciated the fresh look and information that I could give them, which wasn't much really.

Anyways, I told them they can have my car until Feb 17th to work on it and fab something up. They really want to produce something for the S2K as long as it won't interfear with seat travel and placement (to avoid angry customers). Hopefully in a week or two we will have a full bar and what not for the S2000 again! Though it may completely replace (remove) the stock bars and some new plastic may be needed. I did tell them that I really wanted to keep the glove box as it is the only place we have to keep stuff.

I have to say the Rick and Don @ Autopower are great guys. They are super nice and very professional.

 

New update.

I went down to autopower to talk to them some more and see what they could do. Well what it came down to was an interesting design and implementation. Basically the bar that they will build has sacrifices, many of them. The stock roll hoops have to go as well as quite a few pieces of plastic that covers them and some others. Now the stock seat belt stays, however in the autopower method you have to cut off the stock seatbelt pivot bolt hole (with welded nut) and move it to the roll bar. Now with that in mind conceivably everything else would fit in and what not. But you might still lose some seat travel.

They are going to jig one up and put the car together and see what it comes out as.

Here is the hitch though. They are not sure they will sell it. And if they do then the customer MUST understand and recognize that they will be losing some of the interior and that the bar must be welded in at the front as it is the ONLY option to install it (after looking at the other designs they deemed the "bolt-in" not a safe method and will not offer it).

More fun. They can offer the bolt-in diagonal cross brace and harness bar. The harness bar is no problem. The diagonal will make the passengar seat lose about 2 inch of rear seat travel (either back or recline, not sure which yet).

 

If they're going to do it making it run to the floor is a bad idea. It should stop on the shelf.

-Rylan

 

It would be on the shelf. Never the floor.


If anyone has ideas or picks I'm going back in tomorrow.

 

welded or bolted are basicly the same.

if they're concerned about that they need to make the backing plates bigger. There is no reason they can't do a bolt in.

 

There is no place on the shelf to bolt it in. You would have to drill 4 holes to mount it and so far they can't find the bottom where you would put the nut on the bolt. I will ask again though.

 

With the elda bar, you have to cut a slit in the rear wheel well area to install the backing plate, but you can indeed do a bolt-in at all 4 feet.

 

Here's how the Bitterbar does it.

Bolted to the shelf:


Vertical and horizontal backing plates:


Overall bar:

 

Regarding the Elda bar,
yes, it is a boxed-in area under the shelf where the front legs attach, so you have to cut an opening that is about 5 inches wide and <1 inch tall so you can insert the large backing plate (holes with nuts already welded in place) in there and then bolt in from on top. Unfortunately this pic I have is of the hole already taped over with aluminum tape, but you can get an idea of where the slot is cut in the anterior-top of the wheel well (I believe this is the driver-side; look closely and you can see the recessed area of the tape). The backing plate doesn't actually go all the way in, so you can see one of the bolts extending through the backing plate.

 

John, do you know if Aaron is still taking special orders on those? I'm intrested.

That is of course there's any other current worthy bar on the market??