,
Gusseted, triangulated and perfectly designed for my needs. The roll bar is designed to work with both standard seat belts and harnesses as well.Blackbird’s GT3 roll bar is a work of art in my opinion. It turns the Miata from a hairdresser’s car into an aggressive little Skittle the second you bolt it in. Why did I go with Blackbird? First was the importance of the roll bar working with a glass rear window on the convertible top. In an effort to improve everyday use of the Miata, we went with a Robbins top that had a glass rear window. This can cause issues with other roll bars on the market, but not so with the GT3. With the GT3 being designed to accommodate glass rear windows, the roll bar is compatible with both NA and NB Miatas.
Next, the roll bar had to work with the stock 3-point seat belt. I am not interested in going through the hassle of putting on a 5-point harness every time I steal the car from the girlfriend for a cruise. This would also involve getting seats with proper harness holes and add complexity I wasn’t looking for in a car that’s main goal was to be a comfortable street car. The GT3 relocates the stock seat belt guide to work with the roll bar without compromising the roll hoop’s design. If I do get the hankering to install a harness, I’m already set because the GT3 has an integrated harness bar built as a structural member of the roll bar frame.
Here you can see the straight legs that support the main hoop. This is actually a hard to find feature in Miata roll bars that work with glass rear windows. Many come with bends in these legs that can reduce the bar's ability to withstand a rollover. I like to call bends in these support bars built in failure points, no thanks.
The hardware is oversized and all Grade 8. Grade 8 offers superior yield and tensile strength over the standard Grade 5 or Grade 2 hardware you'd find at your local hardware store. The nuts have a locking feature to keep them from loosening over time.Finally, and most importantly, the roll bar is 100% SCCA legal. In the Miata world, you’ll see a lot of options without this designation. Even more crazy, you’ll see roll bars with bends on the rear support legs for the main hoop. It’s the lazy way to make the roll bar work with glass rear windows, but not the safe and well engineered way to go about it. Constructed of DOM steel tubing to SCCA’s spec, the roll bar weighs in at 42 lbs, less than one might expect. Blackbird doesn’t skimp on any details, including Grade 8, oversized hardware for all mounting locations, even the washers are Grade 8.
Installing the GT3 Roll Bar requires removal of the seats, some interior trim and the carpet on the parcel tray and behind the seats, but a good place to start is by disconnecting the ground on the battery.
Removing the seats is a simple job. Removing the plastic covers on the ends of sliders reveal the 4 bolts per seat that need to be removed. At this point the seats are ready to come out once the wiring harnesses between the chassis and seats have been disconnected.
