Roll & Crash Protection

May 13, 2019

We plan to both street & track this car, so we wanted something that could do both w/o compromising the other.

  1. Fuel Tank: We opt’d for ATL fuel cells, which we custom ordered through Chris @ Active Power. Chris was great & coordinated much of the details (to ensure they fit into the Aluminum fuel tanks he provides).  These fuel cells both prevents punctures, and also has foam that helps to prevent the fuel from atomizing in the case they do rupture, which lessens the potential of an explosion.  Since the fuel tanks are outboard of the driver/passenger, this seems like a good idea!
Each Fuel cell has 2 access panels. The Fwd panel is the filler, the After provides the bulkhead for all of the fuel pump/return points. The Yellow foam is what’s stuffed inside the fuel cell.
All done and ready for install. Chris made this super easy for us, as the Aluminum panels had removeable sections Fwd & Aft…which let me cut them to size around ATL’s access panels.

2) Door Bar: We added door bars that are integrated w/ the fuel tank structure.  When the car is all buttoned up, it only looks like it’s 1 bar…but when the panels comes off, you can see it meets the standard door bar req’ts for most racing groups.  It also helps reinforce the fuel tank structure in case of a side impact.

The side panels covers all of the flat tubing…so you’ll only see the round tubing. the side benefit is that the round tubing provides a nice seat as you wedge yourself into the car.

3) Swing/vertical bars: We wanted some extra protection to prevent the front roll hoop from caving into the passenger compartment in a roll over…but still wanted a reasonably accessible entry. The hard part is that a normal car has the Front & rear hoops connected along the top of the door line…but a GT40’s doors include a portion of the roof; with such a low entry into the car, placing a longitudinal bar in that area would make it really hard to get in or out…bad for both racing (escaping a fire) and annoying for the street. We ended up with a somewhat novel idea…we’ve only see others use these for swing-out style door bars for drag racing…but we installed them vertical so that they are ~110 degrees from the front roll hoop; in the event of a roll over, they’ll remain in compression.

Up: When driving, there’s a pin that retains the top clevis in place. The rear hoop has a more traditional rear diagonal bar that goes to the chassis. And both hoops are connected in the center.
Down: Pull the pin and it drops down…easy access.

Why Roll over protection if this isn’t a full race car? I love driving, especially on the track…as I’ve aged, I’m more cautious in how I drive, but I still like to push the limits. When researching how others have installed roll cages into a GT40, I found this picture…