New Sports Sedans

[Abuilder]

Schedule J
6. CERTIFICATION BY CAMS

"6.1 A certified safety cage structure is one which has been approved by CAMS for a specific vehicle,
notwithstanding that it may not comply in all respects with the specifications of this Schedule.

Important Note: The certification process does not provide for ‘free design’ safety cage structures. It is intended
primarily to prove that the manufacturer has met the strength criteria through engineering calculation
despite the use of material to alternate specifications. A safety cage structure must still comply with the
design criteria detailed in the applicable regulations to be eligible for certification by CAMS."

Hey, I don’t mind phoning CAMS, but I would have thought that being it’s you lot who are trying to sell yourselves as a truly professional organisation that one of you would have jumped straight on the phone to CAMS and clarified the legality of both the BMW and ASTON and the use of the Larry bar, the moment one of your members brought it up.

[Esse,s]

does CAMS have a "duty of care " ie safety of all competitors policy ??
if so a larry bar has been clearly demonstrated as a safety device for drivers
just look at craig lowndes incedent at bathurst stopping a stray wheel ??
the argument of extracting a driver out through the front windscreen holds no merit
in my opinion , the governing body should be held accountable if a death or injury occurs
due to the fact that a car did not have one .
the small cost of this device is surely cheaper than funeral costs etc

feedback apreciated ?

[drewowner13]

it is cams duty of care, but i think that if any extra bars are in place for saftey measures and is not a device that enhances performance than it should be legal, sports sedans are far bit quicker than v8 supercars, so if an accident like lowndes ever did happen in sport sedans if would be a terrible sight

[MrBoost]

sports sedans arent really much quicker these days, but regardless. if a wheel hits your windscreen at 100km/h - your f*%t

[profi]

Boy oh boy, how people assume things. Larry bars, Safety bars and Gary bars.

The bar you are talking about is a safety bar. The BMW as well as every other car/ chassis we build is inspected on a regular basis throughout the build to ensure our cars are legal.

During the build process of the BMW, we encountered a safety problem. The size of the hole between the top of the windscreen to the rocker covers on a Chev engine (the alloy injection would do very little to stop something coming through the windscreen), this was caused by the unusually high roof of the BMW 3 series and the set back of the Chev engine. We thought this hole caused a safety problem for the driver so we decided to pursue what we could do to rectify the issue. We started off the process with our cams rep, and summed up our options, running a Larry bar which goes from corner to corner of the windscreen, this would have been great but extracting the driver out of the car would become very difficult in a bad accident. The next option was the trans-am style diagonals in the corner, we came to the conclusion that they would obstruct the drives vision too much and still not provide the safety we were after. We then moved onto a V brace down the windscreen which would have been great for rigidity but once again left us with no hope of pulling the driver out of the windscreen hole.

After many visits, phone calls and other options, we finally found a viable option which cams named the safety bar, a bar that runs from the base of the passenger A pillar to the top of the diagonal that connect the a pillar bar to the roof bar, this left us with a greatly reduced hole and the option to still pull the driver out of the screen.
Our proposal is still within cams, it hasn’t been accepted yet, though it’s looking good enough for our cams rep to tell us to weld the bar in which we have obviously done.

In the future, and if not now you guys are more than welcome to give us a call instead of going to cams about our cars, we’re more than happy to tell you why we have done things, show you how we have done them and copy it if you like.

Our number is (03) 9974 0920


Thanks,


Gary Gunn and Liam Hill

Riverside Racing

[MrBoost]

where do u hit a 'like' button in here?

[Phast Phil]

Well done Gary & Liam.

The problem that some people have is they are too worried about what others are doing. If something does something non compliant and you decide to follow suit as "someone else has done it" then you may suffer the same fate as they may.

I say time and time again, read the rules and make your interpretation. If you cannot interprete ask CAMS however if the rule is vague or poorly worded bring it to the attention of your state association or NASSA if you are a NASSA member as we meet nearly every year to improve the rules.

There is a set of tech reg improvements put forward by the NSSC (National SS comittee) with CAMS now (since late February actually) awaiting their seal of approval.

[Corolla52]

Whats the plans stefan?????, what are you building??, what running gear...

We are building a RX7 Series 5. It will be a spaceframe chassis running a 13B and 5 speed Needham box, wishbone suspension front and rear. At the end of last year I pulled the Corolla apart to make a few changes but what we found was quite horrifying. I don't know how the car ever passed scrutineering since it was built. Basicly it was a death trap, bar work poorly fitted and only welded on one side,no support or strength where the cage was bolted and the list went on. It was that bad that I have scrapped the car. To say I was gutted would be an understatment. I was looking forward to this year as I had planned to run the Vic Championship. It has been a very expensive exercise. The only things that we are using from the Corolla are the engine, gearbox, Ecu and fuel tank. We have already changed ideas a few times as I want to do it right. The rails have been laid and we have collected alot of parts, body, wheels, shocks etc.
So roll on next year .

[Nadz44]

Cool sounds good Stefan, don't forget to update us with pics...

[Ricey88]

1st Upload pic's to photobucket.
2nd . hover over the pic and 4 options should come up, pick the 4th option.
IMG click on it and then past that to you forum post.
best of luck