18 replies to this topic

[merther]

Hi im preping a mini for the hrcr championship and looking at fitting a front and rear safety devices bolt in cage. Does anyone have any experience with this cage, are they a good fit, do the feet need to have plates either side of the shell and if so how difficult is it to fit in the rear bins? Thanks

[keefr22]

I've not actually fitted one to a Mini myself, but when we bought ours it had one already fitted & it was obvious that they'd put it in without removing the bins - & it was a total botch job - it only had two bolts in the main feet instead of the mininimum 3 & one of those on each side hadn't been tightened properly, probably because they couldn't access them properly. To be honest I really can't see how a cage could be fitted properly with the bins in place as it looked to be near impossible to get a drill in there to drill the right number of holes - maybe there are those who have done it & can tell us how though?!I had an old Mini mag issue where they cut away the bins to fit the cage properly & then welded the bins back in afterwards to keep the car legal for road events. We've now cut away the bins in ours but won't be putting them back in as it'll be prepared to stage rally specs.

According to the Blue Book you only need reinforcing plates on the inside of the shell - & that's something else we couldn't figure out how to do with the bins in place!

The required mounting plates are shown in drawings K14-18 on pages 176/7 here;

http://www.msauk.org...or_Competitors_(Safety)_(K).pdf

But as I say, someone may well know the trick of how to do it....!!

Keith

Edit; for some reason the link won't copy properly, but it's in section K of the Blue Book;

http://www.msauk.org...sp?article=1158

Edited by keefr22, 16 May 2013 - 10:24 PM.

[miniweights]

Hi im preping a mini for the hrcr championship and looking at fitting a front and rear safety devices bolt in cage. Does anyone have any experience with this cage, are they a good fit, do the feet need to have plates either side of the shell and if so how difficult is it to fit in the rear bins? Thanks

I have fitted a Safety Devices to mine. The fit is good, I needed a ractchet strap to pull the legs of the main centre hoop in. I have fitted floor plates both inside and outside. The plates on the outside are the same size as the foot plates on the cage, though the inside plates should be larger (see Keiths links), can't think of the size right now, but make it as an "L" shape so that it is attached to the inner sill as well as the floor. The plate on the rear arches for the back legs of the cage I added a bit more steel to the sides to give it more strength (see picture below)

 

As you can see this is before I welded the plates.

 

 

As for the floor plates inside the rear bins, they are a right pain. In the end I decided to cut a section out of the bin. This gave me access to the cage foot location, and it made welding the plate in a doddle. I then welded a inner lip to enable the piece I cut out to be screwed back in position. This makes things easy to get to at any time and retains the bins. Have a look at the pic below, you will see the what I have done.

 

 

Hope this helps

[iTomKart]

I found it was near impossible to do all the welding, drilling and bolting with the bins in place so I did this:

 

 

 

 

You could weld the bins back in after, but I think you will really struggle to fit it properly with good welds etc with the bins in place

 

Handy hint: we also needed to spread the rear legs out with this invention to get them to sit on the rear wheel arches:

 

Edited by iTomKart, 18 May 2013 - 12:09 AM.

[rally1380]

Hi.

 

Have prepped my car to do HRCR events and have fitted the cage you are talking about. Check out my build below, and if you've got any questions, just ask.

 

http://www.theminifo...lubman-project/

 

Intend on doing the full championship next year, so see you around.

[minisi35]

Couple of pics from my build
Made the plates bigger than the ones with the cage

Then welded in


I also tied in the rear door pillar to the sill

Hope this helps

[keefr22]

Have prepped my car to do HRCR events and have fitted the cage you are talking about.

It's good to know that HRCR don't require you to keep the bins - I did worry as to whether we'd have to weld new ones back in to comply with the regs.

[merther]

Thankyou all for the help, much appreciated!

 

Hi.

 

Have prepped my car to do HRCR events and have fitted the cage you are talking about. Check out my build below, and if you've got any questions, just ask.

 

http://www.theminifo...lubman-project/

 

Intend on doing the full championship next year, so see you around.

Great, yes im hoping to do some rounds next and hopefully the vale clwyd rally later this year as its local to me :)

[rally1380]

Thankyou all for the help, much appreciated!

 

Hi.

 

Have prepped my car to do HRCR events and have fitted the cage you are talking about. Check out my build below, and if you've got any questions, just ask.

 

http://www.theminifo...lubman-project/

 

Intend on doing the full championship next year, so see you around.

Great, yes im hoping to do some rounds next and hopefully the vale clwyd rally later this year as its local to me :)

 

See you there.....local for me too...i'm from the mold area originally.

[Awamckay]

Couple of pics from my build
Made the plates bigger than the ones with the cage

Then welded in


I also tied in the rear door pillar to the sill

Hope this helps

 are you using the bar between the arches for you harnesses??

[Scoop77]

My god what a performance. I was thinking of putting a rear half cage in for safety for a couple of track days but this is putting me off.
What are you bolting into underneath the front legs please as having a look you obviously have the sills?
Cheers.

[rally1380]

My god what a performance. I was thinking of putting a rear half cage in for safety for a couple of track days but this is putting me off.
What are you bolting into underneath the front legs please as having a look you obviously have the sills?
Cheers.

 

Fronts bolt through floor and sill panel.

 

It does look like its alot of work, but done right it will (a) be safer and (b) add structural rigidity to your car = better handling.

 

Without the spreader plates, if all does go wrong, you are only relying on thin steel to stop the cage feet from punching through the panels.  Always better to be safe than sorry in my eyes....especially as mini's can fold into horrible shapes after a high speed impact!!!!

 

Your call.

[Scoop77]

Anyone got any pics of the underneath then please?
Cheers

[minispaniard]

I've finally managed to get hold of a used SD 6 point cage with removable diagonal, the ones with removable diagonal don't come up very often and this one is the complete package with even the door bars included... I was about to bite the bullet and go for a brand new one when I finally saw an advert on the classifieds section here! 

 

All the bolts are included but no spreader plates and I don't really fancy parting with much more dosh for the fitting kit from Safety Devices.

 

So, will anyone be kind to give me the measures for the spreader plates to weld in? I know some of you have gone over the minimum MSA requirements, every advice appreciated.

 

Also, the type of events I'm doing by now don't require an homologated cage but you'll never know in the future... Unfortunately the cage has been painted and had lost its homologation stickers. I read on the SD website that if you send pictures of the numbers on the feet and pictures of the cage itslef to show that it hasn't been modified they'll send the stickers to you (after a small fee, that is!). Has anyone done that?

 

Thanks

 

[rally1380]

Good buy...did spot it, and was a good price too.  Removable diagonal will help fitting too.

 

 

My plates measure (all 3mm) -

 

rear arch plate -  16cm  x   7.5cm =  120cm²  (formed mine to copy curves of arch)

 

rear bin plate -    17cm  x  14cm = 238cm²  (bent to inner sill profile)

 

front leg plates -   24cm  x  16.5cm  (not fitted yet)

 

The front leg plates ain't been fitted yet (waiting for me to do some welding near by!) so this is an oversize flat plate size that will need cutting and bending.  Have cut it large to allow me to lap a decent amount up the inner sill and inner arch.

 

As for getting stickers.....did think about doing it, but as of yet not done anything about it.  Get a good pic of the letters and numbers stamped into the feet and then you can send them off to SD 'as and when' you get round to it...thats what i've done anyway.

 

All my plates are way over MSA reg sizes, but give you a rough idea of what to order from your local metal supplier.

 

Hope this helps.