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My cage builder said he couldn’t do a dash bar and keep my defroster. He recommended keeping the defroster, as he knew racers who crashed when their windows fogged up, they had no defroster, and they couldn’t move forward to wipe with their hand while strapped in their harness. Even so, I dropped the dash to get the A-pillar bars nice and snug agains the A-pillars. This moves the cage much further from your head than if you drop the bars in front of the dash.
Sasha
Not necessarily true. There are options. This has been discussed on another thread, but in my case at least, the dash bar was directly above the defroster flappers in the heater box. So close that the flappers could not open fully.
What I did was trim enough material from the top of the flappers that they would open fully with the dash sliders.
I then trimmed enough (most) of the plastic away from the underside of the defroster vents that are fastened to the dash, so that the nubs that remained were basically just sitting directly above the dash bar.
I have found that with the fan on speed 3 or 4, if the floor and face sliders are closed and the defroster slider fully open, I get a good health waft of air thru to the dash. I haven’t driven in wet weather since building it so can’t directly vouch for effectiveness, but it seems like it will work.
Thanks for the info. Since I am not interested in keeping the defroster, I’ll look into leaving the dash in. UNLESS - it’s not really that hard to take out?? None of the guages have to work anyway. All you really need is tach, oil/water temp, and oil pressure. These can all be aftermarket.
PS - under the heater controls is a "box" and a vertical dash support bolted to the tunnel. Is the "box" in the center the defroster or the heat exchanger? I believe that the rules specify that one can plug off the heat exchanger but cannot remove it. Is the defroster mentioned above all in the same unit as the heat exchanger? Can some or part of this item be removed?
9.3.13.14. Water temperature, oil temperature, fuel pressure, oil pressure, exhaust temperature, engine RPM speed (tachometer), and mixture gauges are permitted, but shall be securely mounted and may perform no secondary function.
There’s nothing here that says the guages don’t have to work…and if they worked when the car came from the factory…
Now, we don’t have immediate plans to check for the function of the stock gauges but no one should think they can start pulling wires, etc. Just leave them alone.
And feel free to add aftermarket gauges, per the above.
9.3.5.3. Heaters
9.3.5.3.1. Heater hoses may be plugged.
9.3.5.3.2. Heater water control valve(s) may be added or replaced.
9.3.5.3.3. Heater core and hoses may not be removed.
The Rules are very specific about what can be done and I can’t find any mention of "defroster". Therefore, the defroster is supposed to be left as it came from the factory.
Carter
I am trying to leave my defroster intact but is it not basically heat duct and therefore can be removed? The heater core stays but per the rules "heating and cooling system interior ducts, … may be removed".
I plan to take out all the ducts to the front vents and then use some "duct" tape to close off the holes and leave the defrost ducts in place. With the leavers in the right place and the ducts taped up it should work fine.
Michael
ilateapex wrote:
[quote]I am trying to leave my defroster intact but is it not basically heat duct and therefore can be removed? The heater core stays but per the rules "heating and cooling system interior ducts, … may be removed".
I plan to take out all the ducts to the front vents and then use some "duct" tape to close off the holes and leave the defrost ducts in place. With the leavers in the right place and the ducts taped up it should work fine.
Michael[/quote]
Yes, I don’t know what the defroster is other than the ducting that is under the dash, which is allowed to be removed.
Also, for some data logging to work, it is necessary to unplug them from the stock instrument cluster (any sensor using variable resistance, e.g. fuel level, oil pressure, speed sensor in the diff) in order to work correctly. I’d interpret unplugging the instrument cluster as a part of the installation of data acquisition.