GT350R/GT350/GT Roll Bar Kit by Cool Tech

are these safe for a DD? I know cages aren't bc you can bash your forehead on them, but I don't know about just roll bars

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You are right that in a caged car, even a minor accident can be deadly if you manage to bonk your head against one of the bars. The same is true of our bar for any rear seat passengers..... YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE REAR SEAT PASSENGERS if you elect to install a 4-point roll bar. For sure. However, I think it would be difficult for front seat occupants to come into contact with our bar - as the bar is BEHIND the occupants. That said, accidents are pretty darn unpredictable. Roll bar padding is readily available for those that want that extra measure of safety.

This is looking great! Can we see some pics of the mounting points both in the trunk and behind the front seats?

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Ahhh, good question! As we develop our installation instructions we're going to have to snap some pics and I can post those when available. I the interim, let me describe the front and rear mounts.... and perhaps you will appreciate the LONG R&D cycle for the bar.

Main Hoop: The S550 platform, similar to the S197, utilizes a structural element that runs across the car on the floor tying in the floor and the B-pillars. A major structural element and also something that will distribute loads from one side to another in a broadside collision. Also similar to the S197, there is a large gusset that ties this element to the B-pillars. The size and shape of this gusset is similar to the S197.... but unlike the S197, this gusset is not removable. Drats! Worse still, and many of you may find this VERY hard to believe, these gusset plates are made from a high-strength steel that is virtually un-drillable. Seriously! In early iterations of our roll bar design, we fabricated custom "feet" at the bottom of the main hoop ends and we thought we would have customers mark and drill holes. Impossible! Ordinary drill bits and high quality drills didn't work. No problem. We order up some ultra-expensive cobalt industrial drill bits.... 4 bits progressively larger in size at approximately $40 each. No luck. We had it all planned out. So as not to drive the cost of the roll bar up, we were going to offer an $150 installation kit comprised of these drill bits, etc. Trust me, as a manufacturer, this was the easy way out but you as consumers would have KILLED us. Be wary of a bar design that calls for you to drill these reinforced gussets. Let us know how that goes!

OK, so where the heck are the nearest bolts and how do we build a "structure" with integrity to utilize these bolts. We rejected this plan as we didn't believe the distance and orientation of these bolts was sufficient for what we wanted in strength. Then the GT sat in the shop for another couple of months as we nearly gave up on this project. After awhile we started to formulate a plan. The first part of that plan was that we decided - as we did in our (very successful S197 kit) to develop a ultra-strong platform, and then we would bolt the main hoop to this platform utilizing first class hardware. Through some creative yet simple ingenuity, we devised a way to secure the platforms to this reinforced gusset using some existing blind holes and, once again, Grade 8 fasteners. But frankly, that wasn't good enough for us. Many people know that bolts are only ~ half as strong in sheer as they are in tensile and the primary (roll-over) force would represent a sheer load on these fasteners. We addressed this by designing a "foot" that remained in contact with the reinforced gusset when our platform was bolted in place. With this design, we have the sheer forces on the bolts largely alleviated by the overall strength of this reinforced factory gusset. We also made the decision to design and fabricate our main-hoop platforms entirely of 3/16 steel.

Now, we are proud that we have devised a kit that can be completely bolt-in and honestly, we expect that is what most customers will do. For added strength and a more permanent installation, we will offer our kits with these platforms in bare metal and you can elect to weld them in place.

I'll describe the downtube mounting challenges in a subsequent post for those of you who haven't already fallen asleep reading this one! LOL

CoolTech said:

Too late Joe. My son is forever devastated by your previous comments..... that combined with the fact that we're calling him Helen now.

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Aww Hell, get the kid a grinder for Christmas. :lol:

CoolTech said:

I'll describe the downtube mounting challenges in a subsequent post for those of you who haven't already fallen asleep reading this one! LOL

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Not falling asleep.. This is great info! Looking forward to more details!

Regarding the down tubes, they too were a challenge but still a LOT easier than developing a design that would work well for the main hoop! In our S197 bar kit, we patterned it in a Laguna Seca model which, of course, had a factory rear seat delete kit. We built the kit in such a way that it could be installed with a minimum of unique panel (in this case, the OEM RSD) modifications. To the GT and "normal" Boss 302 crowd, we held the same design with an RSD being required. We slept better at night knowing we had mitigated the possibility of a rear seat occupant. But this perhaps wasn't the best solution for our addressable market insofar that our customers HAD to purchase and install some type of rear seat delete kit. Although the OEM kit is nice, it is expensive. There are some very cheap RSD kits that are available - some of which look pretty cheesy, and many kits in between.

Long story short, within the S550 community the GT350 and GT350R owners are the folks that are most likely to do occasional track time with their cars - so these cars are what we wanted to target. Further, we knew if we could develop a kit for the GT/GT350's with a rear seat in place, the same kit could be utilized by the GT350R owners. As such, our challenge was to see if we could come up with a suitable anchoring point that still let owners keep the seats in place. Let me just say up front that if the only alternative was to anchor to a single-wall sheetmetal wheel well, then we would likely have to go the RSD route to reveal better mounting opportunities. We got lucky with Ford's construction.

The down tubes are anchored to a horizontal flat spot at the top of the wheel well arch. This area is comprised of double-wall sheetmetal and one of the 4 anchoring bolts is through triple wall. Installation will require the temporary removal of your rear wheel well liners to provide you access. On this underside of the wheel well, we provide a backing plate (powder coated) and you will through-bolt to the plate at the base base of the down tubes. Unlike some roll bar kits of previous Mustangs where the down tubes may intersect a single-walled wheel well at near a 90-degree angle, the angle for us is approximately 30-degrees and this fact along with the fact that we are sandwiching double and triple wall sheet metal, GREATLY diminishes any opportunity of "punch-through". But we chose this area for one additional reason. The added sheet metal structure in this area is because there is a vertically reinforced structure that comes across the wheel well here and it picks up the mounting point for the rear shoulder harness anchoring bolt for the spool mechanism. So, rather than just a flat mounting plate on our down tubes, we incorporate a 1" lip at the back of our plate that butts up against this vertical structure. It not only helps you to place the down tubes correctly, but once again we have a means to mitigate sheer forces on our mounting plate fasteners.

Great explanation of your fabrication strategy....thanks for taking the time to provide the details. I'm planning on installing one of your bars in my GT350 if I ever get the car! :frusty:

Agreed, but we still want to see pics of the rear down tube mounting!

Sub'd

How much weight will this add?

How much weight will this add?

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Right at ~40lbs.

How soon do you expect to offer the GT350 bar on your website?

Bump....How's the GT350 Roll Bar project coming along?

Hi Roadracer - Happy New Year!

As of today the bars are in fabrication. The base pads for the main hoop (constructed from 3/16" steel and strong as hell) all finished fabrication today and are now at the powdercoating. Initial bars should be shipping before the end of the month. The 2015+ roll bar kits are now on the website (although under the Boss 302 Section). Apologies in advance for our website - we are currently in process to find someone to do a complete makeover.

Powdercoat colors that will be available are: Ford Race Red, Competition Orange, Dark Gray (gunmetal) metallic, Satin Black, and Performance White. Please let me know what colors you may be interested in as our intentions are to stock the bars after they have been powdercoated.... so we are trying to guesstimate the popularity of different colors. For our 2005-2014 roll bar kits, the most popular colors are Race Red and the Gunmetal Gray. Thanks for the interest.

Hello Cool Tech and Happy New Year!

Glad to hear things are progressing with the roll bar for the GT350's. I'm interested in one in satin black.
I'll have a look at your website.