Jay Wicks said:
The fact remains (safety or not) thatany car has been fundamentally changed with a bar, any bar. If you don't get this simple fact you need to explain to me how that is NOT a change from the "Real Street" version of our cars.
NOTHING is the answer, You cannot say say it's "a Street Car" if it has a bar.
TurboTGuy, please define what a street car is?
I bet that besides Nick and Grumpy, and maybe a few others, most on here have absolutely no idea the reason a cage is installed in a car. I have built sooo many Pro Street cars over the last 20 years, that I got tired of explaining WHY you actually install a cage. After you sit down with a customer and go over the engineering involved and how it has to work...it totally changes their knowledge level.
I will say this and mean every word. I have seen dozens and dozens of cages in these cars, and only 2 were actually installed using a direct engineering aspect of the function. Swing outs, curved bars thru the rear dash so the backseat can be used, bending the front bars so they look great around the dash...and so on...are not real cages. Sorry.
My car needs caged. My car being low miles dictates why I will not do it. If I ever do...it will have a correctly engineered cage and there will be no swing outs or backseat being used.
I'm not trashing the guys who installed those features, but that is being used as a safety feature more then an all out chassis design. If your car is fast enough, those features will still get you kick out of the track. That's why you hear about the 25.xx type cages and certified testing. That's overkill for most, but it's the correct way to install one.
Is it still a "street car"...well...if you can drive it, and it doesn't heat up, and it passes all the state requirements for road use...it's a STREET CAR...no arguing.
If you get your ass whipped by a 9 sec car without a cage or a 10 sec car with a cage...you still got your ass kicked...right?!?!