26 replies to this topic

[Jammy]

Well just remember that once you fit a roll cage the whole shell becomes a lot more stiff, meaning the impact energy doesn't flow through the shell as well, resulting in more damage throughout the shell.

Sorry, I realise the search can be pretty cruddy at times, I'll see if I can find anything...

[KermitStu]

thanks

iv managed to find the post your on about with the crashed mini ouch feel sorry for the owners some nice minis there

yer i understand that about the roll cage it will be a good year before that happenes anyway

Edited by KermitStu, 02 November 2007 - 03:41 PM.

[Jammy]

Found this:

and I thought that minis would be weaker than vectras,mondeos,clios,Micras and would crush up easier I dunno

Yeah everybody seems to think that and it's really annoying because it isn't really true. Minis actually do fairly well in most crashes on the road and in normal situations and in most incidents are able to escape before getting hit because they are small and manouverable and do what the driver wants when they want. This is what designers call passive safety (the ability to avoid accidents in the first place) and is what manufacturers today are aiming at in the whole. Yes there are many pictures of Minis that have been completely totaled but as Guessworks says these are mostly in motorsport situations and if you look you will find just as many photos of other models getting destroyed. Minis have a lot of complex curves in the panels which absorb a lot of energy when they are deformed in a crash. People think that Metros must be safer for example because they are newer but when a Metro was put through the Euro NCAP testing it got the worst all round score ever recorded. The Metro was made mostly of flat panels with the number of welds analysed by computer to be as few as would hold it together. Mini has curves and as many welds as the designer thought would make it strong in the 50s. No you can't legislate for a nutter driving down the road the other way crossing the central reservation at 90 but you can't legislate for a jet engine falling on your house or your neighbour tunneling under your foundations either.

Look ultimately it's your car and you need to feel safe driving it. Speaking personally I don't like to advise you one way or the other on this issue because it's your safety at stake and I'm no expert and whatever anyone on here is saying you should ultimately make the choice yourself. All I would like to do is make sure that you know that there are dangers to fitting a cage as well as benefits and that Mini's are not inherently unsafe on the road. We don't all drive around in our Minis convinced that we are going to die at any moment.

Linky

[wolfys_mini]

as an example, i hit the back of dads company car a couple of years ago, was doing the national speed limit. sun in my eyes etc. left a 6 inch scratch in his bumper, broke my spotlights and bashed the grill in. pulled the front panel out a little bit, new grill and i was all straight again.

[KermitStu]

thanks Dr thats really helpfull and thanks for the story wolf

[minimarco]

the curvature of the panels, especially at the front, makes for a very strong shell, and is excellent for absorbing impact energy, even if it does end up looking pretty crumpled afterwards.

what about clubbys?

p.s. to answer your question, put a bmw badge on it.

Edited by minimarco, 02 November 2007 - 05:50 PM.

[Carl-Brit]

weld a bar for each side of car from front subby to back weld it all the way front to back and have it bolt on to each subby that will add rigidity mabee add some bars to each like a ladder or diagonals and go over all the welds where pannels join on the sills and inside the car ect to make all the pannels stronger if you really want to do ott i was thinkin stuff like this myself

[Big_Adam]

Pick up a copy of "How To Modify Your Mini".

Has a section on beefing up shells.

[minivanman]

Sell the mini and buy something with a high NCAP rating if it matters that much.

[wolfys_mini]

Sell the mini and buy something with a high NCAP rating if it matters that much.

*claps*

[Ethel]

Yay,

this old chestnut was due a return to the top of the pile.

Minis are made out of steel that's at least as thick as that in more modern cars yet they're a fair bit smaller and lighter, that means if anything in that respect they are tougher.

They don't have the benefit of planned deformation - crumple zones.

A Mini weighs a tad over half a tonne, go head to head with a heavyweight Volvo and your Mini is going to do the bulk of the rapid deceleration - as are you sat inside it.

Minis are bog cheap to insure that wouldn't be the case if insurers were regularly forking out on hefty personal injury claims.

[Dan]

weld a bar for each side of car from front subby to back weld it all the way front to back and have it bolt on to each subby that will add rigidity mabee add some bars to each like a ladder or diagonals

DO NOT DO THIS. It is very dangerous. In a crash one of two things will happen, either your welding will hold and all the crash energy that would have been absorbed by the car deforming will be transferred directly to your internal organs as the only thing still moving after the impact or your welding will fail (far more likely) and all those bars will find somewhere to go which in nine out of ten cases would be directly up through the floor of the cabin as they aren't going to go down through the road. Ladder chassis vehicles are incredibly dangerous to crash in which is why nobody builds them any more.

It is very nice to see my name being bandied about in this thread, but I am by no means a vehicle design expert. Everything I said is based on experience and cutting cars up at work. Lots of people will tell you that they had a terrible crash in a Mini when they were young and they were 'lucky to survive because the car folded up so much'. Generally all these tales have one thing in common, the people in the car got out in one piece and usually walked away. The car folding up in a crash is a very good thing so long as the cabin remains largely intact and that's what people forget. They weren't lucky to survive, they were lucky they were in a Mini. An old Fiesta or any Metro or Saxo would have been far worse a thing to have crashed in. '80s Vauxhalls had a terrible habit of snapping off the drivers feet in a crash specifically because the front of the car didn't collapse and so the first thing to fold up in an impact was the bulkhead but nobody really regards them as inherently dangerous.