Roll cage padding recommendation please

[Lucozade]

I believe the roll cage is 44mm.

Demon Tweeks do a 40mm and a 50mm option.

What has anybody fitted?

I don't have a lot of time for trial and error as I'm doing a long drive next week and would prefer to have it in place by then.

Cheers in advance.

[wessexrfc]

I've fitted 40mm grey water pipe lagging, (any plumber merchant will sell it). You'll find that the padding can't fit all the way around the pipe due to its tightness to the roof, so this size fits a treat. How this type compare's to others I don't know, and hope never to need it.hth

[Noblola]

Do your melon a favor and leave the pipe insulation in the closet. Get proper SFI 45.1 padding designed for the forces involved in an "event" between melon and metal.

[JLSELAN]

+1--The real padding has totally different compression characteristics than pipe insulation--get rid of that stuff!

[david.mt]

I bought the 45mm FIA approved roll cage padding from Merlin Motorsport (451-100-00). Not cheap at £31/piece + delivery but what price do you put on your head.

I don't have the car anymore and have one piece left unused. Was going to stick it on eBay but £20 delivered if you want to try it out. As mentioned above it is commpletely different from foam lagging and is a hard rubber/plastic compound as clearly designed to take the impact rather than the metal roll bar .

[R0162]

Do your pocket a favour and get the pipe lagging, if its soft and spongy its good for your melon

[wessexrfc]

Good point guys and well put, the foam I've used is a high density foam, but take the point that its not designed for the job. As my head is touching the roof when driving, I'm going to be dipping into my pocket me-tinks. David yhm

[C&C]

david.mt said:

I bought the 45mm FIA approved roll cage padding from Merlin Motorsport (451-100-00). Not cheap at £31/piece + delivery but what price do you put on your head.

I've put this stuff on the roll cage at the sides as with the harness on, these are the areas very likely to come into contact with head in an event. As it's very hard, I also then covered it (and the rest of the roll cage) with some of Merlin's non-FIA approved stuff which is more like pipe insulation to provide a bit of padding in case of a less serious event.

There's not a lot of spare room when driving with a helmet, but it works ok for me.

[joust]

The FIA spec is here http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/6CCD18064...

If you want to slow down that in around 20-30mm you need very rigid polymer. If you wanted something more "spongy" (ala pipe lagging) you'd need probalably something over 10cm thick and even then it probably wouldn't do it as you are dealing with upto 300g of forces.

I'd certainly not recommend pipe lagging based on that spec!

J

[Lucozade]

FIA 45mm padding arrived today. It's rock solid ! not sure that's going to be any better under normal road conditions when I'm not wearing a helmet.

Being tall my head is close to the roof and definately will make contact with the roll cage.

Back to the drawing board.

[joust]

Lucozade said:

Back to the drawing board.

C&C's suggestiom seems to be sensible - put that on and then cover in something more "spongy" for normal use?

If you are only worried about a gentle knock on the road (e.g. going over a bump), then the softer foam would be fine, but if you want to protect against you crashing the car and having significant g-force on your head, hard though the FIA foam is it'll be far better, as your brain would go straight through the pipe lagging and it wouldn't be much different to hitting the rollbar directly.

Remember your head weighs about 5kg. A 10g accident makes that 50kg (on-track accidents can be in excess of 50g).

Get a 50kg weight and drop it on pipe insulation and see what's left after you do.....

J

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Lucozade said:

Back to the drawing board.

Sorted.

[joust]

[hoyin]

what is the standard stuff that is on it ??

When I did a car limits day I spun and smacked my head on the roll cage and I am only 5ft9".

But it was OK ...

[Lucozade]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I doubt FIA approved plus pipe lagging will leave me with enough room to get in and out the car!

Is it too much to expect that there must be something suitable for "road" use.

I understand that the FIA approved stuff is designed for helmets hitting it at much higher speeds, however, for normal road use you would expect you could get away with something a bit more spongy or foregiving, i.e. not so frickin hard.

I'll keep looking.

[wessexrfc]

Craig, found these on fleabay, suspect the same as you have already?? :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Safety-Devices-FIA-Roll-Cage...

Also this, but just looks like off set pipe lagging to me? :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ProTecto-Rollcage-Roll-Bar-C...

[joust]

That looks far more sturdy than pipe lagging.