Vent Racing Blog

The following is a quote from The Fabricator’s Handbook by Ron and sue Fournier

The Berkley Publishing group New york, New york

Gussets – triangular pieces of metal welded in the corner of a joint – are one way to reinforce roll bars or cages. The addition of gussets gives extra strength and stiffness to a welded joint.  USAC and NASCAR rules books specify 0.090 in steel gussets at all of the welds on roll bars.  Each book details where the gussets should be placed.  There are two advantages to gussets, one is generally know, the other is sometimes overlooked.

First, Gussets are an insurance policy.  Gussets provide back-up strength to a welded joint – particularly one of questionable strength.  I believe this is why the rule makers require so many gussets.  It is a good idea.

Second, Steel Gussets Stiffen the entire roll cage structure by strengthening each joint.  This strength helps the car resist twist, increasing the car’s torsional rigidity.  This make a safer and potentially better handling car.

Because Gussets work so well for both safety and torsional rigidity, use them wherever you can.  Even though a rule book specifies where they must go add extra gussets to strengthen any joint you think needs it.  And don’t forget: a roll bar or cage must protect the driver.  Make the cage as bulletproof as you can.

Here at vent racing we understand the value of gussets, cross members, diagonal supports and triangulation, that's what makes our cages safer, is our careful understanding of cage building.

Today's product spotlight is on the RZR 4 Seat Conversion.  This cage bolts on at the stock cage, and down in the rear differential area with our special support plate.  These are basically the obvious benefits of the cage, but there are a few points about this cage that might not be so obvious at first glance.  

First, this cage is also made from our standard .095 wall DOM, making it more than twice as strong as the stock cage.  Why does this matter you ask?  Because not only does it protect your little ones in the back, but it stiffens up the stock cage quite a bit.  the clamping design prevents the stock cage from being easily compressed in a sideways roll (the most common kind) and it protects the a Pillar collapse by adding rear diagonal support.  Additionally the RZR 4 seat conversion protects the stock cage by adding another point of connection to the chassis, at the rear differential, this means the force of impact is now spread over 6 connection points to the machine, rather than 4.

Second, this cage increases seating capacity, so you can make UTV'ing a family affair, but doesn't increase wheel base.  This cage only extends the RZR by a mere 8 inches, this makes for a far smaller trailer requirement than a 4 seat factory machine.  This means that most people can keep using their same old trailer that worked for their RZR when it was a 2 seater.  The Cage is specially designed to not sit too high either.  Most customers can fit their machine inside a toy hauler, this is not always the case with a RZR 4 or teryx 4.

The system is light weight.  The cage, seat, hardware, and belts only come in at 120 lbs, this means it is well under the factory rated 300lb bed rating, and affects the handling only minimally.  Some riders increase the spring weight but most find the stock suspension more than adequate.  This means the same old RZR sharp performance you have grown to love will still be there with the 4 seat conversion, but with the added fun of being able to fit kids and grandkids in the back.

Easily installed and removed.  The 4 seat extensions can be installed in about 1 hour with only 2 guys working on it.  This is because it is fixture built to hit all the right locations easily, and they are simple in interface.  These cages can also be removed in about 15 minutes, so if you want to make the swap ocasionally you don't need a vehicle lift or any special tools, an allen wrench, some sockets and you're in business.  Offering you some versatility if you don't often use the rear seat.

The RZR 4 seat conversions are the best way to increase seating capacity safely, cost effectively, and quickly.

our new 900 cage.  We have been working on this RZR 900 Roll cage for some time now, we have a couple variations and will be making the same cage for the RZR 800 also.  This cage comes powder-coated and with all sorts of goodies and can even be fitted with an aluminum roof.

This is our product in it's beginning phases, you can see we have used quite a few points of Triangulation as we discussed in our other posts about how to make a strong cage.  This RZR 900 Roll cage will come in white or black and will have a variety of customizable options including whip mounts, light bar tabs, A pillar grab bars and so on.  we hope you're as excited about this cage as we are. 

Building a roll cage is more than design, it's more than fabrication, it's more than engineering.  You see, the chalenge of a roll cage is that they need to be first and foremost, safe.  Safe means strong, which takes engineering.  Building a RZR roll cage requires the skill of predicting forces, and knowing material properties in order to get the proper balance of strength, hardness, and weight.  It also requires fabrication.  A perfectly engineered cage would still falter with improper welding, coping, or bending skills.  Precision, fitment, welding are all required to function in concert to produce the ultimate roll cage.

All this and we have only adressed the idea that a Roll cage has to WORK, add to that the fact that people have to want to put it on their machine.  In marketing a UTV is what is referred to as a self-definition product.  In other words, when someone looks at their RZR they see a little bit of themselves int it.  This means, no matter how safe your machine is, if it doesn't look cool, tough, agressive enough, it's not interesting.  So there must be a balance between engineering and design.  Color matters too.  Everything about a roll cage is required to be at least 3 things:

1 functional

2 tangible value add to the machine

3 Really  cool

At Vent Racing we pride ourselves on having a crack staff of individuals who can adress each of these facetts of roll cage building.  Sam Hunter, our lead engineer takes care of the function of our caes, carefully designing them to be tougher than the hell anyone can put them through.  Enrique, our foreman takes care to oversee the fabrication and make certain everything is built to very exacting standards.  Brian Tecklenburg works with the design and strategy for our cages, making sure they meet the "really cool" category.  And Brad Keller our logistics coordinator oversees the careful packaging and protecting of each cage, to make sure they get to our customers in 100% good condition.

So you see from concept to customer our cages undergo a rigorous design and fabrication process, making sure that no detail is left out, and do back up our products, we are so confident in our designs that if you destroy one of our cages in a crash, we'll replace it for nothing more than the shipping.