Hi, Ive just bought a Coupe which has been part built, sold, part built a bit more then abandoned! Im going to strip it and rebuild from the ground up. So far, the posts on 'removing the f/g body' and 'seats' have been well usefull. What I now need to do is find out a bit more on engine options, braking options, and the main question of this post is.......
Roll Cages. Has any one got one ? who made it for you? is there a member out there with one that meets MSA regs who wants to sell it?

Is there anyone out there who currently Sprints or Tarmac Rallies?

Any advice going would be welcome !

Hi Peter,

Congratulations with the car, how old is it and do you have any pics (place them via Photobucket). For the rollcage, check out the GTM of DINO, he has experience with it and can be helpfull with this.

For the engine, my car has a 1275 engine with twin Weber carb and in my opinion this could be enough, but I don't know of course is this suits you, will you use it just for the street or also on track? There are of course lots of options, but I would stay with the BMC engines, these can be tuned up to 1450cc (altough this is heavy stuff as you only have a crank that has just 3 bearings, or you can fit a Metro Turbo engine of course.

As for the brakes, I would stay with Cooper S brakes (only when you have 10" wheels) or Metro 4 pot calipers with ventilated discs in front and drums rear.

I hope this brings some extra info for you. Good luck with the project and please share some pics with us.

All the best,
Michiel

And if you want something else other than a-series, this is a good place to start: http://www.16vminiclub.com/index.php

Performance Protection in Yorks (i think ) will make one for you, or you can make your own as Dino has

Hi Peter,
Welcome aboard
What classes of competition are you looking at? It obviously makes a difference as to what mods you can/should do etc.

Hi,

Well it goes like this.......

Ive owned Mini's and an MGB Roadster since the late 1970's. The latest Mini I own is a lightweight stage rally prepared car that uses my own coil over suspension, 13" rims, metro 4 pots and vented discs with an MED 1293 A series 649 cam Quaiffe LSD and so on. (I understand your recommendation Michiel)

I built Herman Mini in 1990 and have rallied him most years usually at single venue tarmac events and also on the Tour of Mull. I feel I've out grown the Mini and the GTM should provide me with a logical step forward. Ive been aware of GTM but never really looked at one in any detail although I had heard good things said, and of course it is a pretty little car. I bought mine unseen off ebay and it looks like I have most of a car. So all that said, the plan is to strip and rebuild with tarmac stage rally and multi venue stage events in mind. I am aiming to complete the project for next March when I intend to enter a Sprint at Anglessey Race Circuit. I don't care what class I end up in as this is only intended as a shake down event and lets face it FTD is the Holy Grail. (yeah ok !)

So far Ive been in touch with three mainstream cage manufacturers of which only one - Andy Robinson - knew what a GTM was ! Quotes starting at £1300 !!! Dino - if you build your own, how do you obtain MSA approval? I guess I ought to get the current Blue Book and read up? Dino, t'other Tim - what competition stuff do you guys do?

Im thinking ahead. First off will be transplanting the 1293 A series, but what after that? Ive heard MGF / TF might provide an interesting back end. Ill look at the links youve posted me Pantera......ta.

Another digression, what about rear brakes? with the added weight of the engine at the back are Minifins up to the job?

HI peter, i can think of one reason why andy knows what one is a friend of mine and knows my car and infact did my hoop for me, I have details somewhere of a complany that can did a T45 cage for soemone i know and it was a resonable price, donnt kow if they can do one of the shelf tho?

for myself ill prob be going to Andy to get teh rest of my cage materials etc, as we did a little tweek to tht original drawing i had for a GTM one to make it fit nice and snug.

as to engines etc, some of us here have got soem knowledge and done some research etc.

enjoy the GTM

WEST

I think you'll find Performance Protection have made a cage for a Coupe before. When i spoke to them at Race Retro they also seemed happy to supply the bends to allow you to weld it up yourself.

I have no plans to do any competition at the moment, i'm just very attatched to my head

If you want to make your own as Dino did and i am planning to do there is a post in the rollcage thread giving a few pointers about where to buy the steel etc

Peter,
re the cage, yes indeed the quotes can be a bit ...gulp.. that's why I decided to do my own.
The Blue Book is now available online from the MSA web site, you have to register to get access to it but it's pretty quick and painless.
There's no specific rule to stop you building your own cage, you just have to follow the guidelines! I'd talk to a local scrutineer first though to see what he thinks.

My car though is only really going to be used for road rallies and possibly the historic class in enduro's if that takes off, so the car doesn't need to be logbooked. Nevertheless I've tried to follow the BB rules as much as I can, the front and rear hoops would pass - not so sure about the single roof bar though.
As usual there are a few blurry areas in the BB, eg. the rear hoop must have rearwards facing braces...but (certainly for historics) the cage mustn't extend outside the cabin ! So that's a bit of an issue.

Dean Thomas stage rallies a much modified coupe I'm sure he'd be happy to discuss it with you, although it's so far removed from std. it may not help much - it all depends how radical you want to be.

looked into this myself, and im thinking it may be possible if your cunning with you tube to get one under the bodywork, coming from the top of the subframe mounts to just above std seat belt mounts, would be a little shallow, but its rear trangleation, then from where this meets the hoop, brace diagonally down across the door down to the bottom of the front hoop, there bu trainglatating it correctly, have put some thoughts together,

WEST

wooo. West, what we need is some sketches ! I use autocad as my day job, can you do a fag packet sketch for me to develop? If Im right in what your saying, part of the cage will penetrate the rear window?

On another note, Ive spent the day pulling the GTM apart and got as far as wanting to separate the tub from the steel. I looked at the tubular door door hinge post support thingy and wondered how important was it to support the windscreen surround. How far up does it go? I like the idea of being able to remove the body from the tub as an easy unbolt only option and do away with all this glass fibre bonding. Any thoughts or experiance? I guess that waterproofing is the main issue which could be adressed with a bit of thought but what about the rigidity of the entity (rhymes)?

I think not, if I've got this right I think West's suggesting going down inside between the window and the outer edge of the buttress, I think you still end up outside the cockpit in the engine compartment though, but it's certainly an idea.

Regarding the screen pillar strengthening tubes, I did away with mine as the front cage hoop is attached to the pillars anyway. I would be loath to leave it free though, it's very floppy unless held down well.

I have had a cage made by Performance and Protection which will meet the RAC MSA requirements for stage rallying. They are now able to offer the same cage to anyone else interested. I had it made with removable rear struts. I will post some pictures soon.

Been meaning to post these pics i got of a a fellow gtmer for a few weeks now, I imagine its the same layout as yours peter










YOu can make out where the rear diagonols are bolted through the rear bulkhead and stay below the bodywork and its msa aproved, proves my thoughts that the rear diagonals could be done with out poking through the bodywork

Will be sorting a cage out for mine this winter

WEST

in regards to widscreen support tubes,

in my view they are needed, gives a perfect shape to glass around creating a nice trianguler structure up the pillars, I have even considered a small support running up the middle of the screen to brace the top and bottom of the screen opening together due to an odd experiance I had a few months back after some high speed runs in a head wind at the pod. i.e the screen trying to push itself into the car due to the high speeds

WEST