I drove down to RPM Rollbars in Portland, OR on Friday for a fitting and coming up with a diagonal brace addition to satisfy SCCA.
RPM is where we (lexpioneer and I) got members of the Solstice Forum and the Kappa Forum together to create a group buy to get 20% off on our rollbars. I’m not sure exactly, but I think we have 8 to 12 members in the group buy. We only needed 3 buyers!
I don’t think that RPM is a direct competitor of any of our advertisers. Rollbars is all RPM does. Our advertisers may dabble in a one-off rollbar but none of them are offering a bolt in rollbar off the shelf. Moderators can let me know if this post is not allowed and I will remove all references to RPM.
The fitting went well. Rob, the owner of RPM Rollbars had a Solstice rollbar tack welded and they took the seats out of my car and it fit right in. They made some cuts and adjustments on the rollbar mounting pads to make the installation easier for the end user. They came up with a diagonal brace to satisfy SCCA rules that does not intrude into people space..
I sat in the car with the rollbar in and the two center bars were not as restrictive as I had anticipated. I was able to shift into 2nd and 4th without hitting my elbow on the center bars. The top bar was not as close to my head as I thought.
The seats will go all the way to the back panel without any loss of movement.
I raised the top and the rollbar just touches the headlining.
There does not seem to be any cutting required of the interior panels to make the rollbar fit. The center console rear piece will need to be notched in order to bolt the center bars to the steel underneath.
All in all, the bar will fit well into our cars with minimal reduction in ergonomics. And it looks pretty good.
Rob seems to be very detailed oriented and I got the impression that he took pride in the final product. He kept saying that the typical car owner may not have tools such as grinders, metal cutting saws etc. and he wanted the rollbar to be a simple bolt in process with minimal modification or fabrication required for install. He also talked about the importance of using the right powdercoating shop that could coat his rollbars with a flawless finish to match the quality he puts into the manufacturing of the rollbars. I looked at the welds on finished rollbars and they were very smooth.
He said that there aren’t very many fabricators specializing in bolt-in rollbars. Most of the rollbars coming from other manufacturers require welding or modification to fit. His company is growing in the rollbar business with HPDE becoming very popular and drag racing requirements for a rollbar when the ET gets below a certain point. He just received a large order for Dodge Hellcat rollbars because those cars are capable of 10 second quarter mile time straight off the showroom floor and NHRA will require them to have a rollbar.
RPM has a steel jig for every cars that they manufacturer a rollbar for. I saw around 40 to 50 jigs on racks in their shop. Each jig is large enough to locate every mounting plate on a rollbar and has brackets to hold the pipes in position while being welded. Rob said that when a new car comes in for a rollbar, he devotes a lot of time measuring the car’s interior, inputting the measurements to a CAD program and building a jig to exactly match the mounting points on the car. The jig insures that every rollbar will fit the car it was built for with no "fitting" required.
I was very impressed with the operation and especially Robs enthusiasm and pride for his business.
As for completion timetable - two three weeks for all the bars to be shipped? As soon as he finalizes the SCCA diagonal brace, he will build all the Solstice/Sky bars (8 to 12 bars total?) in assembly line fashion and send them out for powdercoating when completed. When he gets them back from coating, he will wrap them in protective wrap and palletize the bars for shipping. I'll go back to Portland when the bars are done to have mine installed.
Interesting fact I learned is that ROB and his crew travel around the country installing their bars in customer’s cars. They ship tools with the rollbar and fly in to do the install. They usually fly to installation locations if more than one customer needs their rollbars installed. It may be an option for forum members.
