Ed:
What's wrong with this design? The floor is not strong enough there
to support much of anything. The windshield frame is not strong
enough to keep the columns from folding in on you as the car rolls.
You really need a complete inverted "U" shape for stiffness. A
Diagonal brace would help stop it from "parallelograming", and some
additional bracing has to control fore/aft motion. All of this is
better behind you, rather than in front.
You have to be able to support a lot more that 2X to 3X car weight
when you start bouncing around. That bar would still be real close to
your head, so you could whack it in a frontal crash, even with
shoulder belts.
There may be some good points. Additional chassis stiffness could be
gained by welding the doors shut, since entry with these tubes in
place would probably be easier with the doors closed, in the
traditional sportscar manner.
Stu
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Subject: New roll bar concept
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How about mounting two vertical bars (which would act as columns) from the floor
to each of the upper corners of the front window frame? Each bar would have a
flange at the top which would be bolted to the upper window frame and of course
a flange for mounting at the floor near the sill. In this configuration, the
bars could be sized to withstand 2 or 3x the we
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