Dry Lakes Racers Australia

What Gaz said. Also bring a photo file to scrutineering. That will avoid having to pull the body off to prove your mounts are OK.
Head side restraints must come to the forward point of the helmet.
What Gaz said about controls in reach. There is no other motorsport where the startline staff give your belts the last tweak before you leave the line and believe me you are then bolted to the seat and in a very restrictive suit and helmet.
Keep going with diagonal bracing, your basic design and workmanship is looking good..
Quick release wheel kits are cheap. Speedway supply guys are the go.
Oh, and don't grind welds on the cage. Scruit want to see them bareback.

And bring a sample of your cage tube also. Its proof of wall thickness.

I have a 36 grill with most if not all the chrome.

Wow really Jeff? whats it going to cost me?

And thanks Chris and Gaz, all good info once again.

$350 i can send you photos if you like

Jeff i sent you a PM.

cheers

At work again on nightshift, Thought i'd post a couple of the final progress pics that i never got around to doing. Had to outsource most of our bends so that slowed us down on the cage. Our bender does a good job to 45 degrees but that's it. Found a chinese man down the road from our workshop who was more than happy to take 15 dollars for every bend. 5 lengths of tube in it so far and I can see at least one more to go yet. Our designs probably not the most streamlined we tend to do first and think later as we need to keep pushing if we are going to make the next speed week. So our solution is to keep putting more tubes in. Then the gussets. Spent a bit of time on the engine on my last couple days home, got a new (second hand) set of pistons and valve springs for a bit more compression and a few more RPM's And just placed an order for the new camshaft that should in theory suit the type of racing were doing with it. It also suits the nitrous a little better than the one i had in it. Spent a half day porting the manifold, need to do a little more work on the exhaust ports as well. Fingers crossed when we put it on the dyno it will make close to 600hp without the nitrous.

Had a couple questions for the more experienced drivers out there. What sort of basic instrumentation do you use and is needed apart from oil pressure, temp and a tacho. Is there much point in a speedo wheel driven or GPS?

And another question how thick lexan/ polycarbonate windows do most people use? After the roof chop our windows are now less than 300mm high.

I think we will be going on to the boot next time back and the pedal box. We threw our key components in and had a beer and that's where we called it for the day. The rear firewall isn't welded in yet either.

I'll let others comment on what instrumentation you will need, but I will tell you that there is a licencing system.
As a rookie you are speed limited to some incremental thresholds as your experience grows.
You will be observed by officials to ensure you are doing the right thing and in control of the car.
AND that you have attained the appropriate speed for your licence.
So you will need either an accurate and easy to read speedo, or an accurate and easy to read tacho or an accurate and easy to read GPS.
Or any combination of the above.
You would be amazed how many guys turn up and can't get the correct speed for their licence because their instruments shake or the needle goes all over the place, or they just don't have instruments or can't see it because of the glare or just plain forget.

Looks great. You guys don't muck around!
A couple of things. I cant see the bottom seat mount properly but it looks like 3mm flat which would not be strong enough. The top seat mount could bolt into the taxi/shoulder bar. I notice the unwelded vertical bar behind the LHS of the seat- I imagine you will put one on the RHS as well and use that to mount the head restraints similar to the Shaguar.
Fuel lines need to run under the car and not through the cabin.
The door net needs to cover the entire door opening, even that triangular space under the door intrusion bar. SCTA would say that even if you leg or arm is broken at right angles it must not be able to exit the outer plane of the cage structure.
All harness mounts need to be inline with the direction of pull so the lap belt mounts could be on the bar on the rearmost part of the seat. Shoulder mounts must be no more than 2" above or below the shoulder with your HANS on. You may need to open up the hole in the seat for the belt to pass through.
The position of the fire bottle is ok as long as you can easy reach the button/cable/switch from the drivers position. I put all activations under the left hand and leave the right hand just for steering.
The detail in the rule book for gussets in the cage are terrible. You will need to do what is obvious but definitely top of hoop and taxi bar are a start.
I hope I am not telling you how to suck eggs but better to be sure than sorry.
GAZ

Make sure the shoulder straps fit over the HANS device as intended. Do this before you weld in the mounts. Check it for everyone who may drive the car. When you build the top restraint for the door net make sure it can only fit in the right place. We once had an excited crew member put the back of the round bar next to the hole rather than in it. Fortunately we spotted it at the check. Don't put the net up before we've checked everything. Don't get excited and rush through the most important job, there's plenty of time to get the driver strapped in properly when you're in the start line queue. Get the crew to check all the harness straps too, we've found shoulder straps that are in the buckle but not "clicked". I also need to see all fire bottle and parachute pins in a crew member's hand.

See you at the start line
Dave

Alright another good smattering of advice from the pros!!

DLRA bloke "whoever you are, guess ill find out on the salt", thanks good to know we will need some form of accurate speedo, that is readable. I'll look around and see what i can find even if its only good for the licensing passes.

Gaz
The seat mount, at the lower rear section its a chunk of 50X5mm flat bar stitched onto the tube the width of the seat with 2 3/8" bolts. The lower front piece you can see in the pics is another piece of 50X5mm that goes across the width of the seat as well, again 2 3/8" bolts. The back support which is not yet installed, was intended to be the same (as the back of the seat is about 40mm away from the taxi bar) another piece of 50X5mm flat bar and 2 more 3/8" bolts. I was thinking this would be adequate?

As for the little vertical bar yes there will be another on the other side and the intention was to have 4 horizontal pieces run into these from the driver's forward head protection hoop that will then have the foam stuck onto them.

The lap belt was intended to be wrap around style, I will take some pictures of the seat with a driver next time home and just confirm it looks right. The seat belt we've got can be wrap around or bolt in, so we have options.

Gussets in the rulebook do suck, We have basically decided "lots is better" and have started making cardboard templates and will be making them from 4mm sheet/plate. Its so easy to burn up time on all the little bits, and tube notching has knobs on it too. Those drill press notchers cant even do half of what you need them to do.

Dave/Gaz
As for the window net and side intrusions bar, there is another horizontal bar going in about a foot up from the floor leaving 600mm to the top bar and sheeted in below. Then the driver forward protection hoop will be 600mm back from the A pillar so if all goes to according to plan an off the shelf 600 square window net will do the job.(Will keep in mind the receiver hole for the top net mount) Were thinking the suicide doors will help us get in and out.... Don't worry we'll tack it all together and have a few practice runs, should be worth a few laughs. Throw a few beers in at the end of the day and then it will be a really good test.

The big bar sitting loose in the front is intended to go up under the dash as foot protection. And then there will be some sort of bar running from the center of the dash backwards to mount the controls within reach of the left hand (including the fire bottle button).

cheers guys keep it coming

A GPS unit will give you accurate speeds which will help for your licencing passes. Plus a GPS is much more useful than an ordinary speedo mounted in a car. Probably cheaper too. Handy if you get really lost and need to find the way back to where you should be. Ask me how I know. Mount it where you can see it without moving your head. Shroud or angle it so the sun never shines on the screen. Get one with big numbers. Put all your controls where they can be reached with arm restraints on. Make sure there are no uncovered bars inside the car that you might hit with an arm or leg when things get exciting. Don't just pad them, put padded panels anywhere you're likely to hit so the surface area increases to the point that breaking a bone is very unlikely. No sharp edges either. And don't forget the leg restraints. Google Erebus seat seat images for inspiration. Pay particular attention to the Shaguar's lateral head restraint bars. Some years ago we had a car get well out of shape and finish up sliding past the timers at 210 mph upside down. He really gave the head bars a workout.

DLRA is Greg "Whopper" Wapling. He runs this website and is a permanent fixture in the registration van in the pits. His advice is well worth heeding.

Cheers
Dave

Ok i need to know more about the leg restraint, is that another part of the seat belt/strap / harness or are we talking about a physical barrier to restrict the movement of legs in the car?

And cool between yourself Dave and Greg i now know to go for some sort of GPS speedo. If anyone has any recomendations on a cheap and cheerful speed only unit send them my way. Just put an iphone mount on the dash?

There should be a drawing of a lap belt system in the rule book. Basically it is a pair of lap belts that sit just behind the knees to stop legs flailing around. It is for Special Construction vehicles but I see no good reason to not use one in your car, another just above your ankles that still allowed full pedal operation wouldn't hurt either. I don't remember seeing any sedans using them but hey, why not? They're going to help. Make sure the seat comes down to your calves to support your legs properly. I can't get excited about vehicles that just make the bare minimum safety requirements. Go the whole hog, if a big one happens you'll have a much better chance of walking off to sit in the shade for a while.

I see no problem with an iPhone as long as it is very securely mounted. You don't want to have it come loose and start beating you up when you're trying to concentrate.

Cheers
Dave