Quote:
Originally Posted by sjracer26
I am not totally sure on the reasons why the back is higher than the front beyond the obvious additional head clearance where the driver will be and where the A frame is supporting the structure.
As far as the additional support to the mid sections of the halo, I think there are a few concerns.
One would be stiffening. That bar would stiffen the chassis significantly and change the handling characteristics. I had a "shoulder" bar on the right side of my dirt midget once. It went from the tube near the steering rack straight back to the the rear down tube on the right side of the A frame. My brothers midget, same chassis, did not have this. With the same setups he would pick the left front up and drive hard off the right rear whereas I would just end up pulling a full on wheelie. I always assumed the cause was that bar stiffened the car and prevented flex.
The second concern maybe is having less access to get in as a safety member or out as a driver of the car after a wreck or in a fire. In the same breath the bar during an impact could bend/snap and collapse into the driver. However full containment seats are getting better and better so this may be less of a concern.
All of that said I am in favor of changing the designs of these cars to improve safety and would love to see a fully funded effort with proper engineering and testing. If anyone wants to work on it let me know, I'll happily spend time on it. My brother and I both are engineers and actually have worked on a few concepts in the past. My brothers senior design project was a redesigned midget chassis to improve safety in halo first crashes. The results were good, but the changes needed were drastic and would drastically change the appearance and handling of the cars.
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I was curious, I come from a DLM background and in recent years we've adopted a bar that starts at the back of driver door(think above left shoulder) and angles forward and up supporting the halo above the drivers head better.