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Mail From: Chris Behier <(email redacted)>

Hi everyone,

Kevlar pannels:

First of all I would like to thanks you for all the help
especially to Skod (once again) and Jim Bixby for some good references.
This seems to be quite an adventure, so I'll see how it will turn out.
Right now I am getting a hold of the correct weave, then I'll
inquire on the the correct resin, in the meantime, I'll be talking
to some of the shops skod mentioned.


Griggs stuff:

I originally took my car to Griggsracing for a $600 6pt rollcage
which then turned out into a hell of an adventure. The menu then became:


6pt roll cage - triangular door bars, removable shoulder bar, painted
in black/grey metalic paint, hoop end points in side pannels.

Frame kit - linking the front and rear subframes with a third frame
welded into the floorpan of the car.

Aluminum driveshaft - to lighten and offset a little the extra metal I
was ending up with, and get rid of high speed vibrations.

Camber caster plates - spherical bearing strut attachment.

Alignement after all was done.

(New 5pt belts)

I met John (Bruce's son) on Saturday morning, and I was _really_
pleasantly surprised the way the roll cage came out. This cage really
blend in with the car really well. Best of all was Paul's welding. I
have to admit that this guy is good with welding and fabrication. He
did the frame kit as well, with the center console still in the car.
Gee, and my stereo still worked after all was done Now the best
part about these folks was the extra service and effort they went
through when I brought down my Koni front struts. As I could NOT
remove those darn bolts on the spindle, I asked them if they could put
them in as well that day. Once the stock parts were out, upon
inspection, we found out that the front was bottoming out way too
much. So we solved that with an extra inch of travel with the camber
caster plates. We set the camber to 2 3/8 degree for some track use
At 6pm (got there at 12 noon), they worked on my car and another
_radical_ stang. Their wives were _really_ understanding and so was
mine Paul even created holes with reinforcements for the seat belt
mounting points and threaded the brackets for the eye-bolts I was
bringing down. They fitted perfectly and my 5pt belts fell right in.
I have to say that these guys were _great_ and especially affordable
for all the work that was done. to get a similar cage, at sear point
it would have cost me 1200 bucks for a regular 6pt. The cost for the
custom 6pt was about 800 or so. Bruce was great at keeping the cost
down, and making sure everything was done _right_.


The results are increadible. The car feels SOLID. I now wonder if
there is more flex in the '94 coupe compared to the convertible. As
the car was jacked up, I decided to give it a test - open and close the
door. I opened the door and closed it without much effort - I was
impressed. I could never close the door before, even the with the
global west subframes in there with extra gussets and all. Griggs has
a nice little "launch" pad on the street they are located on (Prado
rd). The point is to go over 60mph and just hit the un-even pavement
and see how well the car handles. Without the koni struts, the car
felt solid but the front bounced around quite a bit. The camber caster
plates and the konis fixed that problem (to some extent). It is such a
nice feeling to have a solid car (and still take the top down).


Now about the seats, I followed the suggestion that Don Rositch
presented, which was to get new tracks for the seat. Well guess what
Ford did. On the passenger seat, there are 4 possible bolt locations
(in series, 1/2" appart) at the rear mounting of the seat for the
tracks to bolt on. The tracks used the third bolt hole from the
front. On the drivers seat _that_ hole was NOT drilled. They must
have done this on purpose, those &*%$#@. So I drilled a new hole on
the tracks to accomodate the power seat track hole and now I got a
drivers seat. I should be getting the tracks from ford to get my
passenger seat in any time soon.

Anyhow, I spend all of sunday, washing, waxing, fitting the
pannels back in, trimming some pannels, putting the rear seats in,
and all in all, it came out _nice_. It was good money
spent well, now I need to do that Torque arm and panhard setup for the
rear and I am set for Mini Nats (NorCal Shelby club event at Sears
Point in CA).

I am droooooooling on that coil-over setup, and I can't wait
to loose 40lb off the front when I do that change

I would like to thank everyone who gave me great advise
in getting past this project, and also those Griggs guys (no relation
to them, just a very happy customer). And Also to my wife that let
me do all this stuff

Chris...
Stouter/Safer '92 GT Conv.
'94 GT Coupe.

PS. That aluminum driveshaft does look nice too - and no vibes too
over 100mph...