Roll cage vs interior

"Does anyone know which interior panels clash with an OMP roll cage? I'd like to keep as much of it as possible as mine will not be dedicated track car. I'm quite happy to chop and cut it as required. As I see it, these are the panels that are potentially affected.

Headliner & interior light / sun visor panel
A pillar
B & C pillar
Rear 'door cards'
Front door cards
Parcel shelf
Dash

That seems a brave decision, to install a roll cage in a car that will not be a dedicated track car? Is it a requirement for the events you plan to participate in, or just a desire to be more safe inside the car, should you be hit in the side, hit something at the side, or roll it?

I assume you will remove all seats apart from the driver's seat? Otherwise the rear seats will likely clash, even if only at the sides. The grab handles each side will likely clash also.

I have started a little project here and I have a vision. One of the criteria includes being able to close the door when it's jacked up. I know, I know, I am expecting too much.

I just want to make it handle like it goes. These things are so baggy and it's a shame. Rear seats are going. Grab handles - I took them out years ago. All they seem to do it squeak against the headrest.

I'll have two fixed back seats in the front. Think R26R but with a real roll cage. Not something in the rear that does sod all for torsional rigidity.

R26R? Never heard of it...oh, Renault Megane R26R? Good luck with that then, you might want to touch based with other Coopsters with roll cages fitted: magooagain, johnnyboy54321 and others, not sure what andps fitted if anything? I did find a mention of "Alfa beams" that Per has fitted

That's it, the Megane. I've gone through every video I can find of it on Youtube. And the 695 Biposto. And all of the GT3 / GT2 / GTS Porsches. And the Scuderia etc etc.

Haha, I've already snapped up a set of those Alfa braces too They're sat in a box waiting for powder coating.

The thing is, every 'Coopster' that has a cage seems to have left it stripped out...

I wouldn't want to drive a car fitted with a roll cage without wearing a safety helmet. That would be a recipe for a nasty head injury.

Presuming the Omp cage is in two parts. The rear section is easy enough.
What I found with the feet brackets was they were not made that well,so I welded them all over instead of just the tack welding.

The inside of the left hand side of the dash has more room behind the end panel than the driver's side end panel.

I learnt after doing mine that I could have done a much tighter/ neater job than I achieved. Easy to say in hindsight.

Remove and let hang down whatever is in the way behind end panels and refix after. You will have some warm air vent tube to re route aswell. It's worth doing due to misty screen etc.

I found when inserting the front half of the cage it seemed best to put the driver's side in the cutout slot first.

This is all from memory Trappy at the mo. I will look up what I did and check out my photos.

Have a gander at Begbies build thread,I gleaned some info from there but he had the full dash out and I seem to recall it tested him to get it back in.

I will post up anything I've got mate.

The last post on Begbies thread is all my photos.

https://www.fiatcoupeclub.org/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/132268/4

Pic's a crap due to photbucket all over em. I will see if I have any others.

This shows that I didn't need to cut so much out on the left,but you have to push cage to the right to get it round driver's side dash corner.

I read that in Begbie’s thread. I can’t weld and don’t have the equipment so I’ll get someone else to do that bit and pass that on.



I noticed this on my car a few years ago and assumed it was a ‘quirk’ of my car. Good to know and worth bearing in mind



Is this warm air venting behind the dash then? The OMP has a cross bar that passes underneath the dash right? I need to look up Begbie’s thread again as I’m sure he had an assembled out of the car photo…



Good to know, thanks.



I had always assumed you removed yours too. If it can be done without the aggro of removing it, then I’ll definitely take this route.

Thanks for the informative post Joe, top man

Sorry Trappy I got a bit mixed up about inserting the front part of the cage.

Because you have more room behind the left/passenger side of dash you therefor put that side in first. This enables the cage to move to the right and around and into the driver's side.

The trick is to get the measurement correct so there minimum cutting around those holes on top of each end of the dash.

I have no cross member linking the front cage legs across the dash area.

A lot of guys have modified/improved the Omp cage in order to pass the race regulations. Eg a rear harness bar and cross braces in the door area's.

It may be a benefit to you if you try a preserve the seat belts in place. This may be a problem due to the cage mounts as I think they use the same hole.
Something to check out mate.

I didn't remove my dash.

In hindsight, I'd have probably looked at doing something differently without having to remove the dash, as it never went back in correctly and the only way it looked feasible in doing so was to remove the windscreen.

The OMP cage is meant to be a bolt in, but when you line up the cage with where it's meant to bolt to, the front and centre would line up (with a bit of wiggling on the legs) but the rear was no where near fitting correctly, so the plates given were doubled up, hence taking the decision to weld the cage in.

I know someone else did a cage in their car, where they didn't need to trim the door cards, whereas I did. I think the reason for this, was where the cage rested when lined up with the plates, I left it like this, whereas the other person might have put some pressure on the centre legs to move them into the centre of the car allowing full use of the door cards

Yes I ended up welding mine in also ,all though I did get a few bolts in the middle feet. I think I had allready removed door cards so can't comment if they needed cutting.

Trappy I have loads of photos of cages in various coupes all lhd but fits the same. Some are upgraded Omp ones. Message me an email address if you need em.

I ended up trimming the edge of mine , you can close the door but it ends up putting pressure on the latch mechanism and popping off inside.
I ended up removing mine altogether for weight reduction.
Mine is a sunroof model so had to put a slimmer sunroof in lucky I had a spare one .