Roll-over hoop, braced or unbraced?

[aerosam]

Hi guys,

I recently installed the roll-over hoop onto my chassis (welded rather than bolted on) and I'm wondering if there is much benefit from bracing it to the rear. Just having a quick flick throught the classifieds it struck me that most of the major manufacturers don't use any. Dax, pilgrim, wesfield, tiger, sylva, vidicator, mk, none i saw had braced hoops.

It looks good without them and unless it would seriously compromise the strength of the chassis I'd like to leave them out.

[Chris Gibbs]

It's personal choice really. If you were to have a roll over accident the back stays would help to prevent the roll bar folding but in the end it's your car.

Cheers

Chris

[HandyAndy]

apart from as Chris has said, when i,ve been building my car, i have the back stays going all the way down to the bottom corners of the chassis which in my opinion looks like it would also give a bracing support to the tank area in the event of a rear end shunt,
tho that is my thoughts only but seems logical.

cheers
andy

[aerosam]

Chris, sorry, I didn't mean to question your design, I'm sure the backstays make the car safer in an accident.

Andy, bracing all the way to the floor is also a great idea, but TBH the fuel tank area in mine is already very strong by vitue of the fact that it contains a honking great big chunk of BMW rear axle carrier in it.

As long as omitting the backstays does not make a hige difference to the overall strength of the chassis I think I'll go without.

[davidimurray]

Personally, I wouldn't remove them. Think when your car is upside down sliding down the tarmac (or even worse a field) on the hoop. There will be a huge bending moment applied at the base of the hoop. There are 3 likely scenarios that could lead to failure, 1) the bolts shear - unlikely, 2) your weld to the plate fails - unlikely, 3) the suspension mount plate deforms - possible.

The brace basically allow the load into the hoop to be better distributed t other parts of the car - and that includes slidin forward and backwards as well as the triangulation providing stiffness.

[raceral]

I took mine down to the outer lower corners for the same reason Andy mentioned, extra roll over support and fuel tank protection in case of a rear ender, or if I was foolish and spun the car around in a 360 and banged something.
Al