When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
So you want to save weight by reducing the safety of the cage
I recommend you build the cage to meet the absolute minimum requirements and take your chances. Minimum requirement must be good enough right? A HANS isn't "required" so there must be no good reason for having one so I suggest you not bother with that either.
you're making some big assumptions. You can not have Nascar bars and have a cage that is just as strong since the x is what is giving your cage most of the strength. You could have left the door bars in your doors and only used an X and had a crumple zone (door bars) and the hard protection of the X.
Your cage is imo (and I've told you this before) overkill in soooo many ways. It doesnt hurt to be overly safe, but its not always a case of more is better.
WTF are you talking about? have you looked at the picture posted and NOT seen the X AND the NASCAR bars? the only difference between the FIA mandated X in my cage and the one in yours is the gusseting which I don't require BECAUSE I have AI bars to absorb the impact of a T-bone collision.
On my home track when you go off on the SLOWEST corner it looks like this (taken in my race today)
Dave and I watched a two Formula Vee's go end over end in turn 10, both drivers were sent to hospital by ambulance and one had to be extracted with the jaws of life. You don't need much of a cage to rumble through a wheat field but on my home track when you go off track it rarely ends well. You can keep you cage, I'll keep mine.
FV's are death traps, thats not news nor is it relevant.
We're talking about side impact protection, not rolling/tumbling protection.
You implied that if someone doesn't do the same as you having both an X and a NASCAR brace that its automatically going to be less safe or they're being negligent. I call on that. An X with oem side protection is going to be just about as safe for less weight than what you have. Someone can have a VERY safe cage that weighs a lot less than yours. Lighter doesn't mean less safe.
If you really want safe and light side impact protection I suggested enclosed foam. I've heard numbers in the ~1500/door cost.
Well if that is what you read then than is not what I meant. It's not negligent but IMHO it's not where you want to cut corners looking for weight savings. However your conclusion that the two 3/4" tubes in the door are going to prevent intrusion from a side impact collision at any significant speed is naive IMHO.
You need to build the cage to survive ALL possible impacts or you are leaving yourself open. I spun in turn 9 at mosport in qualifying and ended up stopped mid-track with my driver side exposed to oncoming traffic. A subaru doing probably 70 MPH narrowly missed me. Had I been 6 feet further over I may have been collected at WAY over the 40MPH the stock side impact beams are rated for.