Quote:
Originally Posted by Turbo711
To the other guys, I know my chassis is still going to flex, I'm not a newb. I just wanted to limit this flex to the minimum amount with out going super overboard on the bars, which I obviously did (at first) anyway.
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But do you know what the minimum amount is? And how you can limit that? Are you going to model the unibody and the cage in a program a little more sophisticated than Paint? Do you even know what a good value for torsional rigidity for your chassis would be?
Until you can answer those questions, I wouldn't worry about adding tons of bars and connecting every possible piece of the car together with a 1.5" or 1.75" piece of steel tubing.
Like I said before, the key to a good cage design is to look at the loads and how they're transmitted through the chassis and the cage. And learn good structure design, learn what a node is, how bars are supposed to intersect, how to efficiently triangulate.
Like someone said above, when you go crazy with bars and don't really have a good reason for it, you're quickly approaching the limit of diminishing returns. You're adding more weight and you aren't adding any stiffness or safety. You need to look at the rulebooks and find out what you can and can't do. And the best mechanical design won't always work the best in the car, sometimes compromises need to be made for fitting components, one of which can be the driver.
So keep it simple and make it clean, make sure the bars are transmitting forces clearly and not adding bending moments to bars or any of that other shit that you see on more than half the cages out there.
By the way, are you going to try and make this cage yourself? If you aren't, the more extra worthless stuff you add, is just going to drive the price of the cage up. And even if you're doing it yourself, it's still going to add a decent amount to the cost.