Friday, May 16, 2008

Do Luck Cage for the S13 Hatch

We're doing a Do Luck cage install on a 240SX (as you can tell by the title). I've seen this cage installed on several cars before. I guess I've never paid attention to the fact that they were all RHD cars.

To most, incluiding myself, this does not seem like a big deal. The RHD and LHD cars are essentially the same car (minus the engine and the fact that the steering wheel's on the opposite side). There's one VERY critical difference that I had overlooked--seatbelts.

In the late 80's the US government mandated cars to be equipped with SRS (Supplemental Restraint Systems). Airbags were a luxurious item to have on a car back in the day, so some manufacturers decided it would be cool to have automatically retracting seatbelts. The 240SX was a victim of that era. That's enough of a history lesson for today.

The question is, what does this mean to anyone trying to install this cage? See below picture:



That gaping hole is where the lap belt sits in. Not that difficult, but annoying.

In addition, I had one more concern. Notice the footprint of the cage in the trunk. There are no preexisting mounting holes (RHD or LHD). Upon careful translation of the manual (it looks like a 3rd grader drawing), I’ve found Do Luck has designed this cage to be bolted in with 8mm tapping screws! Weak… I’ll be addressing that issue I’d like to call a design flaw.

No comments: