Miata Mailing List: January 1996, Message #34
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   From: dherr@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Dennis J. HeRR)
Subject: Eunos Roadster roll over
   Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 00:56:50 -0500

G'Day!  It's been awfully quite last several days and made me wondering
whether the server is down.

Anyway, I just heard a sad news from my relatives in Japan.  Apparently one
of her mate rolled over his Eunos Roadster and it doesn't have the roll bar
- it did have the hard top at the time of roll over though.  Aside all
those money he spent on his car, the sight was not pretty and he's in the
hospital now.  The hard top was reduced almost in half of its original
height and the windshield was severely bent at one corner.  She told me he
was doing somewhere between 130 KPH when he lost the control and hit the
guard rail and rolled over - and it's raining!

This news prompted my decision to get a proper roll bar - there is a roll
bar which passed CAMS approval for use in the race - from local company.
It's not cheap - close A$400 without installation - but hey, my head is
worth a lot more than that.  Also I'm seriously considering about the
detachable roll cage layout - put front roll bar just below the windshield
and put two side bar at the corner, and use roll bar connection bracket
attach two bars that can be removed easily connecting front and rear roll
bar.  Also I think additional side bar will make rear roll bar more rigid
even without the front roll bar - guess it'll make the roll bar as 6-point
instead of 4-point type.

It's funny, in NSW no roll bar company will do the job in any of ragtop
while you can get CAMS approved roll bar for almost all ragtops available
in Australia from a company in Victoria. :)

One last thing.  I think with stock seat, the roll bar is about same height
as my head when I tried the setup in my club member's car with the same
roll bar.  Fortunately I do have the racing bucket seat with GAB low seat
rail which lowers about the half the height of the stock seat.  It'll make
things a bit more comfortable as the roll bar WILL be higher than my head.

 Dennis (^_^;

P.S. With low profile HL, MX-5 with roll bar and wider tyre does looks damn
aggressive! :)

---
       '89 RX-7 - Red.  Too many tickets to keep it.
       '92 MX-5 - Red.  Too much fun to worry 'bout tickets. :P
    /\_/\
   ( - - )  Dennis J. HeRR (dherr@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU)
   ==_Y_==  University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
     `-'    Momo chan '92 red with low profile headlight
     Neko   Team Voodoo
            Team DCuatro
            Member of MX-5 Club of NSW #309
            Member of Miata Club of America
            NIFTY-Serve: FAA00068