Roll bars

[djburns]

Wondered if any other s owners have fitted the rollcentre roll bar as supplied by Tower View to their "S"?
I have with some difficulty! It took some streching, re-drilling of base plate mounting holes and I'm a little concerned that the hoop could have been higher(about 2" clearance under roof, ie about level with top of my head)
Anyone like to comment on their experiences?
cheers

[joospeed]

i've seen a few of these bars and they do seem low .. rollcentre are well respected though and I'm sure there's no doubt about the integrity of the bar. I'ev got some CDS tubing to make a bar for my V8S .. cheaper than aftermarket and with proper bracing should be strong enough .. well stronger than no bar at all anyway!

[JSG]

Don't know about self fitting them, but I had one fitted by Tower View Race service (sole agents for Rollcentre bars) and the gap between bar and roof hoop was minimal.

I've posted photos before so do a search.

Rendao has the car now and may have some pics.

[Ren Dao]

The bar is right up next to the roof- I am six foot and have no problems with height restrictions- but I can't tip the seat back as far as I want because the vertical bar gets in the way.

[tvrmark]

I've got the fist rollbar TVR Services fitted to a V6 S. There is minimal clearance between the roof and the bar (10mm ish). The seat does go all the way back, although there is no room for the seatbelt real. The top bar is not as far back as the V8 (20mm ish) and does come close to my head hence heavily padded.

Mark

[djburns]

cheers guys,
interesting comments, I can get seat back fully but can only squeeze seat belt in on drivers side, may be something to do with body mounting as original bolts in different positions on either side! no probs with quality of materials, whole thing is rock solid. I will be getting some padding for hoop though.
One other thing, rear uprights seem to be too far to centre to make mount for harness shoulder straps, I will probabably keep the cross bar I've already made which joins the 2 original seat belt top mounts. (Hope this still meets MOT requirements). These mounts seem to be just part of bodyshell not connected to chassis in any way, would prefer all harness points connected to chassis in case of major smash with disintegrating body etc!
Any other thoughts welcome

[GreenV8S]

Mine was the prototype and I can tell you a lot of thought went into that roll bar design. It's a tough compromise to get the rear legs far enough outboard to be suitable as seatbelt mounts, and still pick up the chassis far enough back to be an effective brace. It works OK as long as the bobbins to screw the eye bolts into the rear legs are fitted into the side of the leg not the front, this moves them a couple of inches sideways so they just about line up with the center line of the seat. Although the original top seat belt mounts are just into the fibreglass I agree it doesn't look very clever, and on other cars I've seen a beam mounted sideways across the rear legs, which overhangs the three or four inches you need to line the seat belt up. Having an overhung fitting itn't very clever either, but the one I saw looked very sturdy and I think the seat belt would snap before the bar failed.

[tvrmark]

djburns, have you a V8 or V6 as they have different Rollbars?

P.S. S4 is the same as V8

[djburns]

Thanks Pete, I've no doubts over quality over roll bar, and thought about eye bolt in the side of rear upright, I think that involves drilling out and welding in threaded sleeve. I might consider that later if it can be done in situ, I'm not taking it out again! The main thing is I will be confident that if the worst happens I will have some protection upside down.
Yes, tvrmark, its a V6 S2
Good to here points of view as apart form track days I've entered my first sprint next month, getting nervous already now I've seen opposition. (911's, impreza's, evo, etc!)
Cheers