I just got the RD Fabs upper body brace
http://www.rdfabs.com/usbgmj.asp (lightly used off another Jbo member) and its not even close to fitting on my 2004 cav. Obviously its meant for a 3rd gen cav but is there a difference in the rear panels that it would fit an older style just fine? It almost looks form the pics like the B pillar trim sticks out alot farther, likes its rounded not flat. Any ideas when they changed those panels? I'm gonna start looking around junk yards for some. its either that or cut up my interior panels which kinda sucks since they advertise "No Drilling Required, just assemble into place! Fits Sunfire and Cavalier Models"
Also once I actually have this thing in my hands I'm wondering how it actually helps, its mounts to all the seat belt points. the B pillars which suport braces going down to where the seat belt attaches near the floor.... if your bolting this thing up with plastic and foam between the bar and metal on the body isn't that kinda defeating the point of "bracing" the car if the there is soft material in between the bar and the body.
Either way I wanted it to make it simpler to safetly run harnesses which once I figure out what need to be done to make it fit an 04 it will work for my intended use just fine.
Any info is helpfull
Hmmm...interesting as I have been looking at this to add to my 2002?
Do you have any up close pics to show what you are saying? I'd like to see how it mounts as my rear panels are fully painted and I'd not want something that would "crush" the panel to fit...if that makes sense?
Thanks....
Eh...old man with a Corvette now...it was bound to happen sooner rather than later right?
Why don't you send a message to Chris (Agent Omega). He can probably answer some of your questions.
Wide Body Progress
BlueDeuce (dnt02cavls) wrote:Hmmm...interesting as I have been looking at this to add to my 2002?
Do you have any up close pics to show what you are saying? I'd like to see how it mounts as my rear panels are fully painted and I'd not want something that would "crush" the panel to fit...if that makes sense?
Thanks....
theres not treally much to take a picture of... the bar is longer then the gap bwteen the B-pillars on an 04. And when it does fit it doesn't really crush the inner panels... which is kinda the problem, it doesn't go tight up against the body... which kinda defeats the point of the "stiffening" It seems like if you took the rear panels out completely and bolted this thing up with would slide left to right on the bolts becasue it doesn't actually bolt flat up to the body, just kinda sits on the bolts.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Sunday, May 06, 2007 5:36 AM
Ah...makes sense now.
Eh...old man with a Corvette now...it was bound to happen sooner rather than later right?
i do recall the pannels in the 03 plus to be diff in one way or another.
where exactly does it mount
because i know for fact that the clothes hanger area thing is totally different on 03+ models
makes it rough to find new interior panels when you want them
Looks like it bolts up to where the seat belts bolt on to the B-pillars...
it bolts up to where the seat belts mount on the B-pillar, and then the surport braces bolt from the bar down to where the seat belts mount to the body at the bottom. I think I'm just gonna dremel out some slots in the back trim panel so I can slid it right through the panel and bolt it in. Thats not gonna turn out preaty when you can't get it in there to figure out where to cut hahaha, just guess and check.
use spacers if its sliding side to side. some small tube stock should work
In Loving Memory of Phil Martin December 14 2005
Alexis: Dustin, you're ghey, lol. I am better. I have tits, and tits rule all.
Darkstars wrote:Also once I actually have this thing in my hands I'm wondering how it actually helps, its mounts to all the seat belt points. the B pillars which suport braces going down to where the seat belt attaches near the floor.... if your bolting this thing up with plastic and foam between the bar and metal on the body isn't that kinda defeating the point of "bracing" the car if the there is soft material in between the bar and the body.
Pretty much they only call it a unibody stiffner so they don't call it a harness bar. If they called it a harness bar and somebody used it as such and it failed then they could get sued and all the things that go along with that.
-Seth
^ good point, maybe it was made for the intention of harnesses.
We designed this on Chris's 2000 Sunfire originally for Joe ( Eazy ) just as a basic stiffening bar that he was going to mount his seat belts to. Now he has an 03 and it worked just fine in his car. Then redesigned the next one for ruen off Sparco's design so that it also has support for the bar to anchor to the lower seat belt bolts. The only updates added were the stoppers on the bar to hold the belts in place if you wanted to add them, and the lower support bars. But we all know that anchoring 4-pt racing harnesses without a roll cage built into the car is a bad idea if you some how roll the car because it locks you into the position you are in. If the roof collapses on you, your pretty much well dead. We list it as a "stiffening bar" yes for legal reasons and supply that in writing with its intended purpose when someone orders one of these. It mounts up using the same upper bolt that the stock seat belt requires but behind the stock seat belt swivel thing there located on the B-pillar. Is that how you have it mounted in there or did you totally remove your stock seat belts? There was zero play in this when we fully had it installed and tightened in Chris's car. It mounted up fine in my sedan, but it was by far too short since the sedans seats sit further back past the b-pillar. Now this issue has been discovered where they are only going to work on the 95-02 models until we can get one of the new 03+ Sunfire and Cavs into the shop to confirm this fully. I'm going to inform Ryan of this right now and get this info on the site changed around until we can get this fix or design a new bar for you latter 3rd gens.
00 Sunfire interrior
Eazy's 2003 cav
See how its mounted behind the upper belt swivel thing?
Ryan can you post up some pics of your interior of the 04 so we can see how much of a difference there is or what is being crushed? I PM'd Eazy to see if i could get more pics than that one i just stumbled upon trying to figure out whats going wrong here. I just called Chris as well to inform him that there may be a possible issue.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edited Sunday, May 06, 2007 3:58 PM
i also dont see how that brace would help at all UNLESS its goes all the way back into where the body is behind the trim piece (and still uses the seatbelt bolt, just is flush against the inside of the body, and not up against the trim piece itself.
does this bar actually work? too me it doesnt seem like it would be worth its weight.
Once again, it's not an actual stiffening bar, it's a harness bar. For legality, they can't list it as a harness bar.
Obviously it doesn't make sense as a stiffening bar because that's not what it is.
If you wanted a stiffening bar take and weld tubing from one side to the other.
-Seth
I thought when you were mounting a racing harness that the belts behind the seat needed to be at a 45 degree angle down towards the ground for it to be safe?
btw I did not get this for its stiffening ability... I got it because i want to run harnesses. But on the website it says.....
"General Motors, Pontiac Sunfire/Chevrolet Cavalier unibody stiffening bar. This product is to be implemented in reinforcing/stiffening the upper portion of your vehicle between the vertical sections behind the two front seats. If used properly, it will help fight body flex and stiffen the vehicle in stressful situations."
That is a blatent misrepresentation of what the product is.... I wasn't a roll bar.. but I was at least expecting it to mount solid. I bought it slightly used off another JBO and I'm not happy, I would have been really pissed if I bought this new from the company.
USJDM.....GOT YA B!TCH! wrote:I thought when you were mounting a racing harness that the belts behind the seat needed to be at a 45 degree angle down towards the ground for it to be safe?
I'm gonna mount the harnesses to the rear seat belt buckle area. With the harnesses you don't want your sholders or the top of the seat to be the pivot point cause if you crash when your body goes forawrds its tries to compress you down, with a bar as a pivot point it holds you BACK not down.
Darkstars-
If i recall correctly when we made the first one off of chris's sunfire and i was in the shop for the final install for fitment purposes before it went out to joe a year ago, there was none of that foam/ sound deadening material behind his. Where the bolt attaches to the b-pillar the metal mounting tab was actually metal/width of plasitc b-pillar/ metal behind that bolt. His cover did not bow or anything because there was very little clearance behind the cover to the metal b-pillar structure. There has obviously been some interior upgrades since his Sunfire's b-pillar covers to yours. It was literally extremely snug to where it would have some stiffening support, i remember yanking firmly on the sucker. To our knowledge, all 3rd gen J-body's were the same interior wise for that portion of the vehicle....
I am no where near my car or the shop to verify this for you right now since i am about 75 miles from the shop at college. I have called chris and informed ryan the shop owner of this issue and am waiting for chris to jump online to chime in here aswell. I'm sorry to hear that your extremely upset with the bar... I hate for anyone to have to be the first to find out that something doesn't fit correctly due to changes in years that wasn't known at the time of fabrication. We are going to figure out how different they are and more than likely have to design a new bar for the cars with this clearance issue.
Darkstars wrote:btw I did not get this for its stiffening ability... I got it because i want to run harnesses. But on the website it says.....
"General Motors, Pontiac Sunfire/Chevrolet Cavalier unibody stiffening bar. This product is to be implemented in reinforcing/stiffening the upper portion of your vehicle between the vertical sections behind the two front seats. If used properly, it will help fight body flex and stiffen the vehicle in stressful situations."
That is a blatent misrepresentation of what the product is.... I wasn't a roll bar.. but I was at least expecting it to mount solid. I bought it slightly used off another JBO and I'm not happy, I would have been really pissed if I bought this new from the company.
Well it is hard when a shop makes a custom piece for a car that you buy off the original owner used, especially when there are differences between years on vehicles. The guys at RDFabs are great and they do great work, so I'm sure they will do whatever they can to help.
Wide Body Progress
Nity9CavSedanCRJ wrote:Darkstars-
If i recall correctly when we made the first one off of chris's sunfire and i was in the shop for the final install for fitment purposes before it went out to joe a year ago, there was none of that foam/ sound deadening material behind his. Where the bolt attaches to the b-pillar the metal mounting tab was actually metal/width of plasitc b-pillar/ metal behind that bolt. His cover did not bow or anything because there was very little clearance behind the cover to the metal b-pillar structure. There has obviously been some interior upgrades since his Sunfire's b-pillar covers to yours. It was literally extremely snug to where it would have some stiffening support, i remember yanking firmly on the sucker. To our knowledge, all 3rd gen J-body's were the same interior wise for that portion of the vehicle....
I am no where near my car or the shop to verify this for you right now since i am about 75 miles from the shop at college. I have called chris and informed ryan the shop owner of this issue and am waiting for chris to jump online to chime in here aswell. I'm sorry to hear that your extremely upset with the bar... I hate for anyone to have to be the first to find out that something doesn't fit correctly due to changes in years that wasn't known at the time of fabrication. We are going to figure out how different they are and more than likely have to design a new bar for the cars with this clearance issue.
so with the bar bolted in place its the width as the car?? like it will bolt up snug to the actual car? thats what I'm hoping for which will leave me with 3 options... wait till RD Fabs figures it out and buy another, switch the side panels and upper seat belt bolt to an older models, or dremel out the back of the panels slide the bar in from the back and make some sort of spacer to go from the bolt head to the bar to hold it tight when bolted...
If option 3 will work I'll be happy, it wont be preaty but for this car I don't care, its more about form < Function.
Darkstars-
To date, we've sold quite a few of these but I couldn't tell you the (newest model year) car it's been installed on. I know for a fact it fit my 2000, Eazy's, Phewes and Cody's cars. We've never had a complaint about this bar and if/when something we sell to a customer doesn't fit or work, we remedy the situation immediately. The fact that you purchased this bar second-hand is a new situation for us and I can't say right now how we're going to handle it. I'm not sure why you didn't just e-mail or call us to remedy this, though.
As has been stated numerous times in this post, the bar is what it is. It looks strikingly similar to the Sparco harness bar, doesn't it? IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE BAR TOUCHES THE METAL ON YOUR B-PILLARS. Let's just say someones used this bar for a harness bar...the force exerted on the bar in an extreme braking situation would be forward and down. In other words, in all directions that we made SURE this bar was 100% sturdy. The bar would also be at the correct angle for such use--it's within specs necessary for ESTA dragway.
If you're located anywhere close to our shop, please bring the car by. If not, shoot us an email and we'll do our very best to help.
