Originally Posted by
ERC
The salient point Crunch, is that Dave's cage failed the freeform test even though it may well be stronger than an approved cage. This surely is the crux of the problem? The same applies to mine. It is not the strength of the structure that is the issue, nor the paper trail, it is the test requirements that are out of kilter.
If the approved cage material was balsa wood, our cages would still fail the required tests assuming they were not adjusted - and you do not need to be an engineer to see what a nonsense that is. Please, let's have the test results published of each approved cage design - or hasn't anyone at MSNZ ever thought to test them? More to the point, if not, why not?
The cages are failing the test - but that is not to say that the engineers are not happy with them. They are two different arguments. The engineers are telling us what has to be done to meet the MSNZ test requirements, and even they say it is overkill but that is what MSNZ demand. If you ask the engineers, "are you satisfied they are as strong as the basic design with the thicker main hoop", the answer is probably "yes". Will MSNZ accept that and the answer is "no" they won't.
We are all repeating ourselves but until someone with an engineering qualification can post a test result on the approved cages as a benchmark, with the old hoop material and also the new hoop material, then we are going nowhere and we have insufficient facts on which to mount a proper case. When we have that, we need to ensure the rules for a freeform are that the cage must equal or beat those results to gain homologation. How difficult is that?
It seems that there is a reluctance by the Technical Department to apply a degree of common sense in what is still a transitional period, and is no more than approving a structure that already exists legally in 100's of cars, or as in Dave's case, is made out of stronger material. What harm is there in that? Who does it adversely affect? As has been pointed out previously, how come MSNZ are telling us to remove cages to conform?