Looks like my cuda is finally getting sprayed this month, so it will hopefully be assembled and ready for shows next year. Since it has a big motor going in, updated suspension and body stiffening, I would like to take it out to Willow Spring festival for some fun driving. With how old cars are built and how people drive on the road, I think it would be a good idea to put a roll bar in it. Nothing crazy, but I would like it to be a little more secure, just in case. My friend thinks I can have a removable harness bar in the back so I can still ferry friends around. Any pics and ideas would be appreciated.

IMO, too many safety concerns if you want a roll bar/cage AND use the back seat. IIMO I would ditch the back seat use and focus on your safety first.

Id ask why your doing the install after paint or maybe I misread.

Even on a simple 8 point the right and left short rear kickers ruins your plans of back seat passengers. Even if you left them out and made it a six point the upper rear bars would be head crackers.

You have posted in the past your a big fella and so your probably gonna think about swing outs which even makes it a weaker less safe deal.

Id make it more functional for safety vs trying to make it a taxi.

Since you stress its a street driven car id think a crash or rollover out in the wild might be more of a risk then at a purpose built facility so id not skimp. You can always give your friends thrill rides in the passenger seat one at a time.

Skimp too much on safety and functionality and then you get the poser label no matter how nice the car will be. We see many of them in old guy "pro street" type cars.

Car with a roll bar and back seat look cool, but the practicality of it, is not high. To get into the back seat they will have to climb over the crossbar, not to mention you have the 2 down bars. If you run the down barns closer to the door panel/outside of the interior, you might be able to have someone sit in the middle of the rear seat. I'd still be concerned with them bouncing their head off the down bars at some point during a ride or crash. I have 3 "muscle cars" 1 is my street car, and the other 2 are race cars. The race cars have a roll bar and a roll cage. Either build a true street car with no roll bar/cage or build a street/strip car with a rollbar, but don't plan on using the back seat for actual passengers.

A roll bar is such a PITA in a street driven car!

It's one of the concessions I had to make but really dislike the inconvenience of it.

I had the side bars made to go under the armrests and, while not 100% legal, most techs give it a pass at the tracks we've been to.

I tried to get in the back seat the other day to clean the inside back glass. It was quite the challenge and made me realize I'm way too old to be doing this!

It will most likely come out when the car is painted and returned to 100% street duty but I will say it and the 5 point harness made me feel much safer at the track. We're already tickling 9's and I'm just going to slow it down rather than update the cage.

Removable shoulder bar is not NHRA legal. That being said if it had padding No one will ever check it. My kids climbed over it (8 poont) for years. Even had friends climb over it at Mopar Nats more than once to cruise. I was in the back seat cleaning the other day. Not that big a deal. Of course I'm still young at 68
Doug

If you're going to weld anything into the car, put it on a frame machine first and make sure the car is straight. A car with bars welded in is almost impossible to get straight afterward. When I got taught to do cages, we took the wheels off and the car sat on a big level I beam jig.The doors were adjusted to close properly, then we welded the bars in. If the car is kinda warped and things don't close right, welding bars in kinda locks that into the car foreve, Even a rear 4 point adds a lot of rigidity.

^^^ Good point. Hopefully the car was confirmed "square" before painting.
We used a surface plate for the vintage TA cars, but those got a lot of pipe.
To me, a unibody car really needs a cage - at least 6-point - if it'll see the forces that drag racing or road racing puts into it.
After thousands of passes, my Duster's doors still close like a new car; a buddy who had an un-caged PS Cuda in '70 had a twisted unibody after 1 season.
In my car's case, only way to get into the rear seat area was through the right side, due to no RF seat.
And I'm not a big guy at 5'11" & 165 lbs.
In any case, I keep thinking, "what adult wants to get into an E-body 'Cuda's rear seat" ?

Ive a really nice un caged car that was raced from the dealerships doors. HOWEVER I will never get the fender/door/cowl area to align right or the weird reflection the mirror paint shows in the rear quarter that some never notice and others just cant figure out. When I got it the K frame had a combined total of over 30 inches of cracks and rips in it.

Our cars lead a tough life, keep the nice ones nice.

Thanks for the info guys. Making me consider other safety options. Wonder if a std 4-point roll bar with no side bars would be a better?

An NHRA roll bar tech inspector told me that there’s two cage in my car, the cage AND the body. One compliments the other. A roll bar is for roll overs, if you want it strong put in a cage bumper to bumper. A roll bar with down bars and side bars does not help the front of car (engine-trans) where most of the weight-flexing is. Leave the bars out and go have fun or wear a helmet each time you drive it (head hitting those bars on crash)

Struggled with it myself and decided to really do it right, the street aspect and rear seat use are going to be compromised....there's no way around it.

I feel it's better to do it by the book and reap all the benefits than trying to somehow cheat the system..

Some is better than none when it comes to driver and front seat passengers You could make the front down bars like in that red car

if the front has the most weight flexing, would a couple of bars from the cowl area to the front of the front rails help, even if there is no roll bar installed ?

I have an 8 point roll bar in my '67 Barracuda Fastback. It was a kit I bought from S&W. Once I installed it, I knew the back seat was never going to get any use, so i deleted that and put in a firewall, which i would had have to done anyway. Like someone else mentioned earlier, even cleaning the back window on the inside is a pain in the rear now, because it is not easy to get back there. I'm a large mammal @ (5ft10, and 230lbs). My car also has subframe connectors, and front bars because i removed my inner fenders. My front bars connect from the frame rail to the firewall. No flexing, car is stiff and launches well with my 550-600hp 440/727 combo. The car is heavy because i used mild steel. With my 230 lbs, it weights 3650. On the door bars, i used swing-out kits, which make it easier to get in and out. If it was a 100% race car, I would not have installed the swing outs.

With this level of roll bar, i do not worry about street driving and it being a danger to me in a wreck.

That's what my car has. Plates bolted to the firewall and bars welded in from plates to the frame horns.

Or from cowl to shock towers, which can be hidden in the wheelhousings.
Mopars definitely flex around the cowl/A-pillar area; it's not uncommon to see a crack in the factory-leaded seam, even on street cars.
They can also bow between the A (hinge) pillar and B-pillar on the HT bodies.
There are a few photos out there on the ol' interwebs of Golden Commandos & Landy that are pretty extreme.

Does that car still have the stock inner fender wells up front? If so, I don't think adding snout bars will help it

If you have a 70 or up Cuda there is a brace-strut from shock tower to cowl, it’s not that strong but the inner fender and the strut are a good engineered piece for street duty. To keep from flexing you need an X arrangement clear back to bottom of main hoop, a lot of bars and less wiggle room in car. BTW the cowl is not strong enough because the uni-body was designed to flex from the get go. Don’t flex it breaks.

I have a 25.5 cert cage with factory interior and back seat. You can't get back there to sit in the rear seat, but I didn't want the tin can race car look. Some of the bars even punch through the seat. I modified the seats to zipper around the bars. The bars going through the rear seat bottom tie into the top of my front leaf spring perches. Still street driven.