6-Point Roll Bar (painted silver): opinions needed

[Man 'O War]

I'm planning on having a 6-pt. chrome moly bolt-in installed. A 5-pt is required for me, but I'm just going to have a 6-pt installed with removable door bars. My '03 Z is quicksilver with black interior. Since the bar has to be there, I'm thinking it might as well look good, so I'm thinking of having it painted silver to match my car's exterior. What do you guys think? Any Photoshop folk out there that want to give me an idea? I'm going with the Wolfe Racecraft bar. Another color I may consider would be blue, but want to consider silver first. Thanks in advance.

[PowerPro01]

If you want it to be "seen", paint it silver. If you don't, or want the stealth look, paint it black, as the Stones sang...

[KCMAGS]

Silver-Yes
Black-Yes
Blue-No No

[Birddog-Singer]

Silver - yes
Black - yes
Red - yes
Blue - no

[case2307]

I think black would look best.

[DBarbosa]

I say stay with Black it gives it a stealth look.

Look at my gallery for pics of my 5 point wolfe rollbar.

Darwin.

[Man 'O War]

Thanks, guys! You've been a huge help. I always try to picture, or imagine something before I do it. I may have another option: chrome plating it. I have chrome door sills from West Coast Corvettes and I actually like the look of chrome with silver. It's sort of a low contrast look that adds some class. It was risky for me, but paid off. My Hickock wheels are polished aluminum and sticks with the theme.

(DBarbosa: I love those stripes on your Z! Thanks for the pics of your roll bar, too. I'm having a mini tub job done next week. Do you have an extra few inches between your wheel wells and your rear bars to allow for mini tubbing. Wolfe's website says there's room for it, but I'm not seeing it in too many photos.)


So it looks like my final colors will be silver, power-coated black, or what do you think of chrome plating?

[MikesZ06]

Hopefully, my Z will be out of the shop in a couple of days and I'll take some pics of my rollbar. I realize that it is more expensive to wrap it in leather that matches your interior but I swear, the damn thing looks like it came out of the factory this way. I love it!
Something you might want to consider anyway.....

Mike

[FiveOJoe]

Well, why we're on the subject, Just what exactly is a sub 10 second car SUPPOSED TO have in it??


ManOWar: Black or Chrome in my opinion
Joe

[WayneE]

Joe, you need a rollcage at 9.anything. But if you're only going occasionally and not running deep 9s, you may get away with a rollbar.

[Man 'O War]

After running consistent 11's at Orlando Speedworld, the "safety police" finally cracked down on me and told me that I have to have at least a 5-point roll bar (with the 5th point being a door bar, at least). Not being one to like too much asymmetry, I'll be opting for a 6-point. I'm not sure at what point you have to have an actual cage (overhead bars), but I think it's 9's. I think (not sure) that NHRA requires a 6-point for 10's. I can run 10's if I bolt on ETs.

MikesZ06: thanks for the tip on the leather. Sounds classy. I may do that with just the door bars, but I want to see where I'll want some padding because I love autocrossing, too. I may remove the door bars for autocrossing, but then again, I'd prefer to support my weight on something besides my front speaker grills.

Chrome bar: any others think this would look cool or would silver be better? Black does sound good now that I think about it more, too. It's just that the all-black interiors looks a little plain. The guys with red exteriors can really enjoy red roll bars. I've got to think about it more.

[Man 'O War]

Welp, I've made my decision. I called around my area and learned that chrome plating was going to cost me about $1k! So,... I'm just going to have the black powder coating done at Wolfe. I was looking through the Summitt Racing catalog (again) last night and saw that roll bar padding comes in an array of colors. So if I wanted, I could just pad certain sections in gray or whatever to break up some of the black and at the same time, have the necessary padding to make high lateral-g cornering easy on me and my speaker grills (down by feet). Thanks for all your opinions!

[MislMan]

If you are planning on running in any NHRA events (and not just Test and Tune nights) you better take a look at the NHRA rule book. I believe there may be regs about being able to inspect the welds and the mounting locations depending on the ET/Speeds you will be running. OSW for just T&T will never hassle you once they see a decent bar in there. But if you actually have to pass tech you might get tossed. Just something to think about.

Having said that ... I vote for the black bar and use either leather or roll bar padding for highlight. Maybe even having something stitched into the leather to set it off. How about Z06Vette.com stitched into the padding cover.

See ya at the track.

Later ... Larry S.

[DBarbosa]

Originally Posted by Man 'O War

Thanks, guys! You've been a huge help. I always try to picture, or imagine something before I do it. I may have another option: chrome plating it. I have chrome door sills from West Coast Corvettes and I actually like the look of chrome with silver. It's sort of a low contrast look that adds some class. It was risky for me, but paid off. My Hickock wheels are polished aluminum and sticks with the theme.

(DBarbosa: I love those stripes on your Z! Thanks for the pics of your roll bar, too. I'm having a mini tub job done next week. Do you have an extra few inches between your wheel wells and your rear bars to allow for mini tubbing. Wolfe's website says there's room for it, but I'm not seeing it in too many photos.)


So it looks like my final colors will be silver, power-coated black, or what do you think of chrome plating?

Wolfe say's there is enough room for a mini tub and it looks to be enough.

I am also thinking about a mini tub.

Thanks for the comp. on my stripes, I really think they came out pretty good.

Darwin.

[Man 'O War]

MislMan,

Thanks for the info on OSW. I just read that cars in the 10's now have to have 10-pts cages. I really need to get the rule book. Some tracks are IHRA. I'm told that Bradenton is. Is OSW a NHRA track? I usually only go to test-n-tune nights on Fridays, but the time slip lady was hassleing me about the necessary safety requirements after several nights of running 11's. I wouldn't mind running heads up, but don't think I'd be competitive at bracket racing.

Thanks again, everyone.