Project Professional Awesome Time Attack Evo: Part 1 – Roll Cage and Chassis in Detail
Hi! For those that don’t know me, I drive the Professional Awesome Evo from time to time. That being said, I am no engineer, I don’t weld, I don’t fabricate, but when it comes to pushing the broom around the shop and holding things while the guys tack important bits of metal in place, I’m a champ. This should be kept in mind when reading this article. I may not be a complete dip sh!t, but I don’t know everything there is to know on this topic. Please don’t hesitate to comment and add to this conversation, let me know where I’m right and where I should get to studying!
Since we’ve passed the disclaimer I should be honest with you, I was supposed to update you along the way of the build of our V2.0 Time Attack Evo. I wrote the initial article, but after that I didn’t complete my task and I blame everyone but myself. I’ve decided, after gentle prompting from Mike Kojima (ie, “Where the hell is the damned story?”), to finish what I started writing months and months ago and give you all the details I can possibly give about the car. Without further ado, here’s part 1.
This was our starting point. A recovered, stolen Evo that once had a life as a magazine car. Luckily for us, and unluckily for the previous owner, thieves stripped the majority of the interior in advance.
Well documented in previous Moto IQ articles (here and here), we started the roll cage process by stripping what was left of the interior and then using dry ice to remove the sound deadening.
This involved using some tricky techniques to get vertical pieces of sound deadening off. We put unpaid intern Zack on the task as he's the most flexible of the bunch. Read into that what you will.
We also removed all the glass, doors and roof from the car to make cage install easier. This allows for tighter tolerances between the cage and the chassis roof. This can translate to more clearance between the driver and those bars, which enhances safety.
