Hey everybody, long time no post. I have been busy with everything from school to work to dealing with all the little hangups on this 2000 Ranger I bought a month ago, but I'm finally ready to dive back into the '66 fastback. I've been itching to get to work on it.
The car has a lot of new parts (suspension, brakes, tremec 3550, engine, currie 4.10 8", all new wiring, and a few other things). It's basically sound but I just want to go through the whole car again now that I have time and it's not my driver, and get it 100% the way I always wanted it. I'm starting with the chassis.
I already have some TCP subframes and the crossbrace. I want to put a rollbar in, and I was looking in my mustangs unlimited catalog. They have one that works with the stock rear seat, and they have the "race" version that involves deleting the rear seat. I'm wondering how much better the race one is? I don't really need the rear seat, but if the difference in strength is marginal, it might be nice to keep it. The rollbars don't look too different except the race one has an extra cross piece (seat belt mounting?) and the rear sections reach farther back. Will one work better with the subframes? Also I want to do 3 or probably 4 point belts; do I need the extra crossmember of the race bar to mount those?
I'm not trying to build a race car, but I'd like to end up with something around 400 horsepower that I can drive when I want to, but not all the time. Like I said, rear seat might be nice but is definitely not necessary. I'm just trying to get an idea of the pros and cons of the race bar. And if anybody has a better idea than those 2 options, I'm open. Thanks.
The car has a lot of new parts (suspension, brakes, tremec 3550, engine, currie 4.10 8", all new wiring, and a few other things). It's basically sound but I just want to go through the whole car again now that I have time and it's not my driver, and get it 100% the way I always wanted it. I'm starting with the chassis.
I already have some TCP subframes and the crossbrace. I want to put a rollbar in, and I was looking in my mustangs unlimited catalog. They have one that works with the stock rear seat, and they have the "race" version that involves deleting the rear seat. I'm wondering how much better the race one is? I don't really need the rear seat, but if the difference in strength is marginal, it might be nice to keep it. The rollbars don't look too different except the race one has an extra cross piece (seat belt mounting?) and the rear sections reach farther back. Will one work better with the subframes? Also I want to do 3 or probably 4 point belts; do I need the extra crossmember of the race bar to mount those?
I'm not trying to build a race car, but I'd like to end up with something around 400 horsepower that I can drive when I want to, but not all the time. Like I said, rear seat might be nice but is definitely not necessary. I'm just trying to get an idea of the pros and cons of the race bar. And if anybody has a better idea than those 2 options, I'm open. Thanks.