Volume II, Issue 6, Page 24

With the upper mounting point marked on the hoop, the door strut is cut to 26-inches and the floor mounting plate location can be established. Heavy cardboard protects window glass from grinding and welding damage. Unprotected glass will pick up bits of hot grit that leave craters you’ll never polish out.

As with all other mounting plates, the grinder removes all paint and surface rust from the area to be welded. Again, Dale uses the hammer-and-tack technique to get the 6x6-inch mounting plates to sit flush with the contours of
the floor.		 Here’s a look at the finished mounting
plate after it’s been hammered and
welded down.

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After welding, the door 26-inch strut offers excellent protection to the driver against side impact and also adds strength to help prevent hoop collapse in the event of a roll over. A passenger side door bar is not required if there is no passenger seat in place. Some racers take advantage of this loophole to shed a few pounds. But remember, with the second door strut eliminated, you must add a strut somewhere to maintain the mandated 6-point footprint. Most racers simply add a single diagonal strut from the main hoop to the driveshaft tunnel to regain legality.

The final step is the installation of the horizontal cross brace. The one supplied in the universal-fit Competition Engineering strut kit is 56.5-inches, some 7-inches too long for this application. We’ll trim it to fit. While one end of the cross brace is already notched to fit the main hoop, the other end must be notched after cutting. This can be done with a simple grinder and some patience but Dale prefers this inexpensive tube notcher from Central Machinery. You can find these at Harbor Freight for well under $50.00. Just clamp it in a vise and using a 1-3/4-inch hole saw mounted in a drill motor, it makes short work of the notching process. Here’s the completed notch. The
tubing notcher can cut angles from
0 to 45-degrees in 1-degree increments.
Get one, it’s 10-times faster and cleaner than free hand notching with a grinder.