Performance Parts & Engineering

Roll Cages, Harnesses and Helmets form the platform of any safe high performing race car and this is a top priority for the team at Performance Parts & Enginnering (PPE).

Our roll cages are designed on a “spec” basis. This means we take each project as an individual model and base our computer aided design (CAD) drawings around the series regulation and primarily the safety of the driver and co-driver.

About 30% of our customer base at PPE are tarmac rally competitors running cars from older Porsche 944’s and Caterham Clubmans to the latest spec Mitsubishi EVO X and Focus RS models. Co-driver are a major focus of the car design.

You need to consider weight distribution differently than if you have a single occupant car such as a circuit racing car (V8 Supercar for example).

Now while the co-driver may in many cases be a small person, lets just consider 70kg sitting in the passenger seat. Forget about just the centre line of weight distribution in the car there is braking, power output and suspension geometry to take into account also.

So this is where is comes in important to design the car for a purpose.

Sure you can always take a car built for tarmac rally onto a circuit but we’re talking optimum performance here.

Our design methodology incorporates all the elements of the category and we build the roll cage as an integral component of the cars structure for just this reason.

A solid, minimal or better still non-flexing chassis means the tuning you perform on suspension and tyres is what is truly the change for the better or worse.

Often if a car flexes here or there a little bit it’s 100% not measured. So in other words you have no idea if the new 300lb springs actually made a real difference. It could really be a ride height adjustment or rake adjustment that fixes the handling issue.

Anyhow, back to safety. That’s the purpose of this little article.

Once we have formulated the category regulation, car specification and a few other items we go full circle back to safety.

Harnesses play a major part in this and the mounting location are designed to form part of the structure and then this also meets the mounting location for race seats and collapsible steering columns too.

Airbags don’t often feature in race cars so we work closely with harness manufacturers to use the best harness to minimise body injury in the event of an accident.

Stay tuned here for more news and information on why PPE is the “go-to” motor sport tuning facility in Australia for the greatest range of parts, knowledge and engineerings across all the major motor sport categories.

Call Alan Heaphy direct on 03 9271 3668