roll cage/adjustment question.

So I'm in the process of doing the cage in my hillclimb impreza. The cage builder is a circle tracker. Cage is to be built to rally america(modified FIA) guidelines, but I'm not bound by them. There will be an x bar from the main hoop at top of the b pillar to the rear strut towers. There will also be bars from the rear strut towers to the base plate at the bottom of the b pillars. The builder suggested putting in what amounts to an adjustable strut bar in the back. Basically a bar from one rear strut tower to the other, with and adjustable component somewhere in the middle. My question is will that really do anything? It won't cost me anything, but seems like a bit of effort. I don't have camber plates in the back, and it seems to me this might get me the adjustment back there, so I'm not entirely against the idea. I just don't know if it's worth the effort. I've always been sort of a adjust the air pressure once or twice type of guy, and then adjust my driving style to suit the setup. Rather than drive, adjust, drive adjust, drive adjust trying to find the perfect setup. I find that if I spend all my time on setup, it distracts me from the task at hand.

Wouldn't it be easier to just weld in another bar that goes from tower to tower? At least that will stiffen things up a bit back there. An adjustable strut bar only needs to be adjustable so it will fit where you want it to go. Its primary purpose is to limit body deflections where the suspension mounts during hard cornering. It does this by essentially joining both sides of the car together. It won't help with the actual set up of the suspension.

Wouldn't

sachilles wrote: There will be an x bar from the main hoop at top of the b pillar to the rear strut towers. There will also be bars from the rear strut towers to the base plate at the bottom of the b pillars.

accomplish the same thing?

Agree with tr8todd about the strut bar though. It would seem to me that an adjustable strut bar would only be useful to either pull the struts in or push them out, neither would be useful unless tweaked.

tr8todd wrote: Wouldn't it be easier to just weld in another bar that goes from tower to tower?

That is exactly what I was trying to describe. Reason for mentioning the cage, is I wasn't confident that with the cage work in place that an adjustable strut bar would actually be able to make the strut towers move enough to make it worth the effort. Also factoring in the parcel shelf, I'm not confident that it's worth the effort/additional weight.

Where are the rear braces being tied too? Most Impreza's RHB pads are at the strut which means an adjustable bar will do very little to absolutely nothing.

Also, be very aware of building the cage to some sort of spec/class rule. The last thing you want to do is build a cage that you can't sell down the road. A car with a cage that is no good for any class will end up hurting you in the wallot twice ;)

Is the X all there is for the rear hoop braces? If so, nix that idea. You end up with no rear support and what is essentially one bar with a huge heat effected zone right in the middle of it supporting the hoop.