I was just reading that the body structures of the earlier Evos had an "integrated roll cage"--reinforced a/b/c pillars, rings, etc.

Does the X have this as well? If so, would putting a cage (or just a roll bar) in the X be redundant for track work?

I'm just curious...

 

I don't think an actual roll cage or roll bar will ever be redundant. Even if the X does have reinforced pillars etc, it's still not nearly the same as an actual roll cage imo.

 

Reinforced or not, nothing is as ever as strong as a full well-built cage.

 

i agree

 

I'm sure, along with the entire chassis, the pillars are reinforced quite a bit, which makes the whole car very stiff for handling purposes. Even still, it was never meant to be a replacement for a roll cage.

 

^+1 Roll cages are not just for saftey they also provide additional chassis stiffening for impoved handling. Less chassis flex also the suspension to work more efficiently.

Jesse

 

The cage is for safety. If you wanted to make the chassis stiff, without the safety features of a cage, there's ways to do it with about 1/10th of the weight of a full roll cage.

 

No way the structure of the X would compete with a _decent_ cage...

That said, when I rolled my IX it held up especially well..

... That said, I have seen IX's that are pancakes - so I got off EXTREMELY luckily

thank all the gods

 

i dunno.... the evo does not seem to have a very rigid chassis at all. when i jack it up, it flexes all over. my s2000 in other hand doesn't seem to flex as much. but that's just subjective--i'm not sure.

used to have a vette c5 z06, and that car was crazy flexible. i remember going up my driveway i can feel the car twisting in my seat (it had a harness bar between the seat belt locations, and i could hear that thing creaking and hitting against the frame). it was that bad. also had a c4 vette, and it was even worse.

and yeah, roll cages are best for stiffening. forget all those underbraces and stuff. nothing is as effective as a cage. i used to have every type of brace ever made for the s2000, but in the end i took everything off after conversing with all the s2k track folks. happy with my harddog roll bar.

 

the X body is much stiffer then any other evos before. But the cage ,if you have a right one and build designed right way lift the car stiffness and handling in the whole new level.

 

I'm not trying to say that a full cage wouldn't be safer. I think that's obvious. Certainly I'm not planning on doing something like wheel-to-wheel racing and saying that the X has equivalent protection built right in.

I'm just trying to figure out whether compared to other similar cars, the X is a little safer "out of the box" because of some kind of integrated roll protection in the body. IOW, say if you were doing HPDEs in your X (not wheel-to-wheel racing), and you don't want to put in a cage (or even a bar), the X would give some added protection just because of the way it's constructed.

Another question to ask would be: would it be safe to have fixed-back seats and harnesses in an Evo without a cage? I certainly wouldn't put harnesses/seats in the vast majority of other cars out there without a cage...

I went down this path because I read that the earlier Evos did have an "integrated roll cage", because they were constructed as rally cars. It's more of a curiosity than anything, just trying to understand more about the X.

 

the X body is supposedly much safer then any other evo before. That is why we pay the weight penalty ...

 

Seriously?

The normal Lancer is stiffer than Evo 8's and 9's, and the Evo 10 is obviously even stiffer than the Lancer. Like Robevo said, that's part of the reason the 10 is so heavy. I can jack my car up just behind the front wheel and the rear wheel will lift off the ground to the same height. Seems pretty stiff to me...

 

well, just my opinion really. not facts. but when i jack up from the front and let it settle on jack stands, the car will continue to drop maybe ~1" before settling, after touching the stands. the s2k feels 2x as stiff--it's like a rock. the difference between the two cars are very noticeable when jacking up and down.

however, of course, this does not translate directly into driving dynamics. so, it could be that the evo is reinforced in ways that stiffen up the chassis relative to the suspension, but necessarily to unreal loads like on frame rails. but i think i can confidently say the s2000 is significantly stiffer.

i will say the evo feels perfectly rigid going up and down driveways, whereas the z06 was noticeably bending.

i dunno, those are just my observations. handling-wise, all the cars i've driven are very different from one another, so it's hard to say what component of handling is attributable to chassis stiffness.

as for the op's question, "would it be safe to have fixed-back seats and harnesses in an Evo without a cage?" all the discussions i've ever read from track gurus suggest that this is a very bad idea. and given that some posted above that they've seen evos actually crushed when flipped, well, i guess that's that then. besides, your seats already have harness holes, and are relatively bolstered, full buckets probably will not hold you too much better if your harnesses are on tight enough. i know in my vette, even with those lame useless seats it has stock, with harnesses i can hardly move (not that this was a brilliant idea either with the stock seats.)

 

yeah I think the X is 100% stiffer than the IX