Reply to "Full Roll Cage -- Hidden"

Peter H,

I purchased the Ford GT motor and Ricardo 6 speed transaxle from an outfit in Michigan. They then drop shipped both of these units directly to Steve in Paramount. The reason I went with the Ricardo 6 speed is because of the ease of shifting and the light feel of the clutch -- while still having enough holding power. This thing will shift like butter and still be able to handle the power. I looked into purchasing the RBT 6 speed transaxle, but the cost of the Ricardo was not much more; and the technology and ease of use really trumped RBT's unit, IMHO. The bad part of the Ricardo is the size, not length wise so much as the width. It required Steve to start over in the rear of the car; but man did these guys really shine with a great solution. They did cut the wheelhouse quite a bit at the rear of the engine (being a dry sump engine; it could be dropped down quite a bit over the wet sump cousins). The attachment for the upper control arm was pushed away from the center of the car; and so was the lower control arm. As this was becoming a Group 4 flared car anyway, Steve was able to play with the offset of the custom rims to make everything work together. They also custom manufactured the rear frame of the car. They built this out of rectangular steel rather than built up sheet metal. This would probably be best for a car with a minimum of 550 HP anyway. It was a very elegant solution to a complex problem.

I'll see if I can send a few photos from work on what has been done so far as far as the roll cage. It is not meant for track days though, I know it would be laughed out of the inspection area. The reason it is being done is because of the power of the 5.4L GT motor and what that would do to the body if no structure was installed (i.e. cracking and twisted metal badness). The car has not been run as of yet, but if it runs as good as I am hoping; then sometime in the future I would love to look at installing a Whipple supercharger on this thing. I wanted to install as much structure as possible for any future power increase -- I'll just have to see how this all pans out because I really do not know what I am talking about right now anyway.

I just have to say that the people on this board are the best. From reading old posts for a while this is not really a new concept, but it is true.

Mark