floor board reinforcement

[rage_racing]

okay how much reinforcement is allowed in floor boards? I have the interior out and much to my surprise only 2 spots of rust unfortunately its right where the main hoop welds in at..

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by rage_racing:
okay how much reinforcement is allowed in floor boards? I have the interior out and much to my surprise only 2 spots of rust unfortunately its right where the main hoop welds in at..

Pretty obvious answer...

You can repair the damaged area with "factory" approved or otherwise generally used repair methods. Otherwise... it doesn't say you can, so...

For the main hoop, you are allowed a 100sq/in pad, so there is quite a bit of flexibility there...



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Darin E. Jordan
SCCA #273080, OR/NW Regions
Auburn, WA
ITS '97 240SX

[rage_racing]

cool just double checkin before I welded in somethin crazy this week..

[Dave Ebersole]

You are allowed 100 sq. in. of plating under the foot of each tube, tied to the inner rocker panel, ideally. You may be able to incorporate that into your floor repair.
Have fun,
Dave
O=00=O

[RSTPerformance]

Originally posted by Dave Ebersole:
You are allowed 100 sq. in. of plating under the foot of each tube, tied to the inner rocker panel, ideally. You may be able to incorporate that into your floor repair.
Have fun,
Dave
O=00=O

This is one rule that still makes no sense to me. Why do we (SCCA) not want more safety? I think that you should be allowed to do anything as long as you do not leave the interior of the car and you do not go through any metal (IE firewalls, floor, ect.) Yes it will stiffen the car but who cares safety should be our first concern in club racing. This 100 Sq Inch rule sucks. Who do I wright to, if yu have an address and a name please post here.

Stephen

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by RSTPerformance:
Yes it will stiffen the car but who cares safety should be our first concern in club racing.

Stephen... Stiff (rigid) does NOT equal Safer...

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">This 100 Sq Inch rule sucks. Who do I wright to, if yu have an address and a name please post here. Stephen</font>

The 100sq/in rule is there because you are limited to 8 cage contact points in IT, and the attach-point is cosidered the pad... However, you are also allowed to have any number of tubes attached to the pad, so if it were allowed to be infinately large, people would be attaching tubes all over the place...

You don't need more than 8 attach-points to make a safe cage... Beyond that, you are simply stiffening up the chassis, and that starts becoming a performance issue... not to mention it can have a NEGATIVE impact on the safety of the car... As it is, the rules allow for some pretty exotic and rigid cage designs... Keep in mind that this is IT, not Production or GT... If you desire more complex cages... I hear both are looking for participants...

If you still feel this is all hogwash, and wish to write, the address is the same as always...

[email protected]



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Darin E. Jordan
SCCA #273080, OR/NW Regions
Auburn, WA
ITS '97 240SX

[RSTPerformance]

I'll be the first to admit that I do not build or design cages for a living. However I do see cages in all sorts of cars. It seems to me that doing a repair on a floorboard would need more than just putting in some small tin to replace it. I guess I would need more education but I have always seen more than 8 pts on a cage if the rules allowed more than 8 points. I don't agree with anyone that making the car stiffer is enough of a competition advantage to sacrafice some of our safety. I think there is a reason that all (rally cars and speed challenge cars and well the list goes on and on) have the cages spot welded in as many areas as possible. Yes I agree that some of it probably is for stiffness but lets face it how much better as far as a compeditive advantage in an IT car is it over the cages that are built for IT. As IT cars get older and older rust and structure become more of a problem. It's unfourtunate to see a car retire from IT and go to vintage or prod. or worse get crushed just because the driver feels safer. and the class of the car shouldn't matter for safety since all cars are capable of well over 100 mph at any given track.

Darin, I understand that a safe cage can be built and they have been for years. I also understand the reasoning of the 100 Sq Inch rule. It still drives me nutty though. I may be overreacting but safety always gets me going. thanks for pointing out the real facts that we do have the ability of building good cags within our rules. I remember when SS could only have bolt in cages!

Stephen

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by RSTPerformance:
It seems to me that doing a repair on a floorboard would need more than just putting in some small tin to replace it.

The ITCS allows you to repair the damage to return it to "as new" or "as factory repaired" condition, using factory approved methods and suitible replacement parts... I don't see this as being much of an issue, as the means are in place to correct the problem...

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">I think there is a reason that all (rally cars and speed challenge cars and well the list goes on and on) have the cages spot welded in as many areas as possible. Yes I agree that some of it probably is for stiffness but lets face it how much better as far as a compeditive advantage in an IT car is it over the cages that are built for IT???</font>

Try this sometime... Put your car on the scales and measure the corner weights... Then, make a spring adjustment up or down a couple of turns and remeasure the corner weights... If you turned it more than 1-turn with little effect on the corner weights, then you can bet that LACK of rigidity is a performance problem for your car... Chassis rigidity is a MAJOR peformance issue... Beyond the basic safety rules... not much is done to a Speed Touring or GT car that doesn't involve making it more competitive...

Again, with the cage rules as they are, I don't see an issue with buiding an extremely safe cage... and with the chassis rules as they stand, there shouldn't be a problem with repairing rust spots/holes either...



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Darin E. Jordan
SCCA #273080, OR/NW Regions
Auburn, WA
ITS '97 240SX