I will be building my internal cage for the XJ this weekend and I am trying to finalize the design a bit. The only area that I am running into a bit of a snag on is incorporating the the front seats into the cage. The seats are so damned close to the tranny tunnel, it will be difficult to run tube up and over the tunnel and then back down on the floor and still have the clearance for the seats, al la the traditional method. What I was thinking was to have the hoop at the B pillar braced at the bottom with a horizontal tube and then bend 180* tubes under the driver and passenger seats, weld on a 3/8" plate, and then mount the seat to that. It would raise the seats about 2 inches or so, but it should be liveable. The main concern that I have with that is that the seats would be mounted to a fairly long lever arm acting on the lower brace, which in a violent rollover may cause the 180s to separate from the brace. Follow? Is my concern valid, or will this work? I had planned on heavy gussets where the two join.

Any other sugguestions regarding the seat tie-ins?

For the harnesses, I've been hearing mixed opinions and "facts" as I recall, NASCAR says mount the shoulder bar 1-4" below the driver's shoulder line and attach the harness to that. Then I catch the people who say just mount it to the top of the hoop at the B pillar. Still others say mount it to the bar at the driver's waist. Yes I have searched and like I said, I find conflicting info.

I really like the design of Syko's harness mounts. For those that don't remember, the harnesses were attached to a tab welded to a 180 coming off vertically from the lower brace on the hoop behind the driver's seat. IMHO, this should be just fine seeing as how any rollovers would more than likely be the slow speed flops that aren't overly likely to compress the spine. But then again, what do I know :D

So, throw me some input on what YOU would do and why. Thanks

Your B pillar idea sounds right on. However, I would also make a bar that goes right on the floor to link the A & B pillars together. I would then tie this bar into the seat mount like you described.

Thanks Rob, I forgot to mention that. I had planned on tieing the A and B pillars together at the bottom with a section of tube that also attached to the lower stock seat belt mount to tie into the sturdier section of the "frame"

A design that I just saw today was pretty slick. It used a 90* bend connecting the side tube to the lower B pillar's tube. Seats then mounted to that. and thus avoided the whole tranny tunnel. Same idea, but without the 180* bend and it looks like it would also add some strength to the lower portion of the cage.

Now my main concern is the harnesses. Like I said, Syko's harness mounts look extremely clean and they free up some of the room that a shoulder bar would kill. My XJ is a two door so I do have some concern for the passengers in the rear getting in and out.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=571394

Any reason you couldn't bolt in another "floor plate" near the tranny tunnel? The sucker's unibody anyway.....

Originally posted by Josh 89XJ
I will be building my internal cage for the XJ this weekend and I am trying to finalize the design a bit. The only area that I am running into a bit of a snag on is incorporating the the front seats into the cage. The seats are so damned close to the tranny tunnel, it will be difficult to run tube up and over the tunnel and then back down on the floor and still have the clearance for the seats, al la the traditional method. What I was thinking was to have the hoop at the B pillar braced at the bottom with a horizontal tube and then bend 180* tubes under the driver and passenger seats, weld on a 3/8" plate, and then mount the seat to that. It would raise the seats about 2 inches or so, but it should be liveable. The main concern that I have with that is that the seats would be mounted to a fairly long lever arm acting on the lower brace, which in a violent rollover may cause the 180s to separate from the brace. Follow? Is my concern valid, or will this work? I had planned on heavy gussets where the two join.

Any other sugguestions regarding the seat tie-ins?

For the harnesses, I've been hearing mixed opinions and "facts" as I recall, NASCAR says mount the shoulder bar 1-4" below the driver's shoulder line and attach the harness to that. Then I catch the people who say just mount it to the top of the hoop at the B pillar. Still others say mount it to the bar at the driver's waist. Yes I have searched and like I said, I find conflicting info.

I really like the design of Syko's harness mounts. For those that don't remember, the harnesses were attached to a tab welded to a 180 coming off vertically from the lower brace on the hoop behind the driver's seat. IMHO, this should be just fine seeing as how any rollovers would more than likely be the slow speed flops that aren't overly likely to compress the spine. But then again, what do I know :D

So, throw me some input on what YOU would do and why. Thanks
Thanks for the complements:D

Give use a picture to draw on/look at of the inside of your XJ.

SAE rules for both our Mini Baja and Mini Indy racing mandate that the harness mounting needs to be 1-4" below the shoulders. We also have to run 4-5 point harness so that's what I would use.

I would not raise the seating surface 2" unless the cage is correspondingly taller.

My cage and seats are/were stock height- had a busy saturday a few wks ago and rolled 4 times, one of which turtled (3/4 roll)- I was wearing a helmet that made plenty of contact with the upper cage and my wife says she saw the helmet on the rocks too.

Your cage looks great- I'm about to redo mine- something about kinked tubes!

Have you considered getting some of the cheapie racing seats from Summit? It looks like they may have a lower profile at the seat cushion and may save on some headroom. My nugget comes pretty close to the A/B pillar stringers with the seats in the stock location.
-Jon

I bent the tube for it this last weekend and started all of the fitment last night. For my first cage, everything was DEAD ON, which really surprised me to say the least. No kinked tubing, nothing. Anyway, for the time being (read: I'm broke so this will have to do for right now) I will be beefing the stock seat mounts and connecting them with some plate to the cage. In the near future, I'll do a more elegant solution of a tube frame for the seat.

The harnesses are will be 5pt and mounted to the shoulder bar 2" below my shoulder.

The cheapy summit seats are what I had planned on simply for the sake of a "hose out" interior and provisions for the harnesses to come through.

Thanks again. I will have some pics up before the weekend.

I was going to bend up some tube to go in between the A/B pillar lower connectors. The plan is to cut out the sheetmetal where the tubes would go and then weld the tubes to the body. I'm throwing in the first couple hoops of my cage this weekend. Wish I had some money for some comfortable race seats though.

Easy

Actually Sean, those cheapy Summit seats are only $40, and the seat covers for them are $35 and they are quite comfortable. A friend of mine put them in his Nova and I really didn't mind cruising around in those. They really cup you into the seat nicely. Take the cover off though, and in a few hours your ass would probably be more sore than Richard Simmons' after picking up the soap in a prison shower. :flipoff2:

You should plop your ass in the corbeau seats that I just dumped into the race car. Talk about long term comfy. I need to find someone locally that has the platic seats with the covers so that I can see for myself if I like them.

Easy