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Boss 302 Roll Bar Kit - Available

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Hello All! We are a new sponsor here and fellow Boss 302 owners. We have started making a limited number of high quality products for the Boss Mustangs. I wanted to share the availability of our complete bolt-in roll bar solution. As we are not the first on the market with a roll bar kit, our quest was to be the best. Here are some details.... (and pics)!

Cool Tech invested many hours of R&D in developing a kit that was "worthy" of these extremely capable, track-ready cars. We sought to create a kit that an owner could self install and that enhanced both the safety AND the performance capability of the car. We also wanted to minimize any cutting, drilling, or modifications to the car enabling an owner to have the option to remove the bar and return to a fully OEM configuration should they ever decide to do this. Of course, the bar had to also respect the pragmatic and ergonomic capabilities of the OEM car - respecting seat travel, recline, and safety belt access and function. With all of these as design constraints, ultimately creating a solution that could meet our expectation was no easy undertaking. However, we are very proud to say that we have been successful and we will now offer a very good solution for your consideration!!

Our roll bar kit is constructed using the same tubing specifications as required by the SCCA for road racing classes. Namely, 1.75 inch x 0.120" wall DOM (Drawn Over Mandrel) tubing throughout. The Cool Tech bar is entirely TIG-welded. Bolt-in installation is accomplished by using unique, purpose-specific, precision machined tube joints (shown). These unique joints allow us to eliminate the more traditional slip fit tubes with an unsightly through-bolt and nut. Further, a true bolt-in bar allows us to ship the bar to you completely powder-coated. Initial color choices will be Race Red (to match the Laguna Seca cross bars) and Black. If you have another color in mind, just let us know and we'll do our best to accomodate you.

This roll bar also incorporates a very strong rear tower brace (included, but available seperately too). The rear strut tower brace substantially stiffens the rear of the car as it spans both towers and provides a solid foundation for the rear strut braces from the main bar. In short, the bar improves the overall safety of the car - providing added roll-over protection AND it improves the handling of the car by adding significant stiffness to the rear end. The roll bar also incorporates a harness bar and Cool Tech will offer Boss-customized harnesses and clips to complement this roll bar installation. The harness bar kicks rearward 4" to provide full seat travel! In the pictures, the seat is in its full-back position and the seat-back angle is also back.... and there is still 2" of clearance! Also, very careful attention was given in order to place the harness bar at an ideal height for adding shoulder harnesses. This angle is approximately 7 degrees at this full-back position - with conventional thinking that an angle of 0-20 degrees is ideal. Simply stated, there is no other bar on the market that has this attention to critical details! Finally, another critical design criteria was the minimizing of panel mods. There is a small mod required to each of the side panels - but it is minor and then there is a "notch" than can be placed in the rear vertical panel for the support bars. All in all, the mods are very minimal.

If your intent is to build a track-only car and enter into competitive, wheel to wheel racing events where bumping and grinding of cars is commonplace, then you probably need to be looking at a full weld-in cage and this solution is not for you. If, however, you enjoy driving your car on the street and also entering track events on weekends, then you are the customer we designed for. This roll bar solution will provide increased roll-over protection, provide a secure place to mount shoulder harnesses, and it will also serve to stiffen the chassis of the car and improve handling characteristics.

As of this writing (Feb 2012), we are ramping production of these roll bars. Orders will be fulfilled in a first come (paid), first shipped basis. A limited number of bars are still available for pre-order and can be shipped mid to late February. Also, please watch our website as we plan to have Driver and Passenger side "Boss 302" unique harnesses available soon. Thanks for looking!

The kits will ship complete with all needed hardware and complete color-illustrated install instructions.

BossRBinCar1_640x480.jpg
 
Welcome! And a very nice looking Roll Bar.

It really looks like that will do great for street/track use.

It appears as though the non-LS Boss 302's will have to remove the rear seat. Is that correct?
 
hotrodnut said:
Welcome! And a very nice looking Roll Bar.

It really looks like that will do great for street/track use.

It appears as though the non-LS Boss 302's will have to remove the rear seat. Is that correct?


Looks like you either remove the rear seats and install a rear seat deleate, or leave the seats in.

However even if you leave the seats in they woun't be able to be used because the down tubes wll not allow the seats to be brought up.
 
If someone wanted this and wanted to keep the rear seat, it looks like they could get a used rear seat out of a wrecked car and have a upholstry shop modify it to fit. Just a thought.
 
It appears as though the non-LS Boss 302's will have to remove the rear seat. Is that correct?

Yeah, this is true. In our design, we really didn't want to put the support tubes to the sheetmetal wheel wells which is basically the only thing available when you are to the sides of the seat. The other reason, quite candidly, is that we really don't think it is safe for rear seat passengers to sit in a car with a roll bar. In extreme cases, even minor traffic accidents could become fatal. For these reasons, we really gravitated toward a rear seat delete prerequisite.
 
CoolTechLLC said:
It appears as though the non-LS Boss 302's will have to remove the rear seat. Is that correct?

Yeah, this is true. In our design, we really didn't want to put the support tubes to the sheetmetal wheel wells which is basically the only thing available when you are to the sides of the seat. The other reason, quite candidly, is that we really don't think it is safe for rear seat passengers to sit in a car with a roll bar. In extreme cases, even minor traffic accidents could become fatal. For these reasons, we really gravitated toward a rear seat delete prerequisite.

Thanks for the reply, I see your point and respect that safety is foremost in what you are doing!

Now, can all the rear seat delete panels from LS work in the standard Boss or would it just be better to go out and buy an aftermarket rear seat delete kit?

I imagine the latter would be the most cost effective but wouldn't have as good a factory look.
 
How does the hoop bar connect to the floor?

Great question. On each side of the car where the B-pillar meets the floorpan, there is a large factory bolt-in gusset that further ties together the B-pillar and floor. In our installation, we will have you remove these gussets (8 bolts) and replace them with similar gussets that we manufacture as part of the kit contents. Unlike the OEM gussets, we have built-in a two flat surfaces at a 90-degree angle. This gives us excellent foundation for the roll bar footing which is bolted into place after the OEM gussets are removed and replaced with our gussets. Our gussets have nuts welded to the inside surface so that the main hoop can be simply bolted in (using Grade 8 hardware that we supply.) Below is a picture of one of our gussets and you can see the roll bar is bolted to it. (Please note that our production gussets are delivered with a wrinkle black powdercoat finish.)

Gusset_Left.JPG
 
Now, can all the rear seat delete panels from LS work in the standard Boss or would it just be better to go out and buy an aftermarket rear seat delete kit?

I agree that the most cost effective solution will be an aftermarket kit. I've seen many people using (and happy) with the kit pictured below from www.rearseatdelete.com

05RSD1.jpg
 
CoolTechLLC said:
Now, can all the rear seat delete panels from LS work in the standard Boss or would it just be better to go out and buy an aftermarket rear seat delete kit?

I agree that the most cost effective solution will be an aftermarket kit. I've seen many people using (and happy) with the kit pictured below from www.rearseatdelete.com

05RSD1.jpg

Thanks for the post, that looks pretty good!
 
CoolTechLLC said:
How does the hoop bar connect to the floor?

Great question. On each side of the car where the B-pillar meets the floorpan, there is a large factory bolt-in gusset that further ties together the B-pillar and floor. In our installation, we will have you remove these gussets (8 bolts) and replace them with similar gussets that we manufacture as part of the kit contents. Unlike the OEM gussets, we have built-in a two flat surfaces at a 90-degree angle. This gives us excellent foundation for the roll bar footing which is bolted into place after the OEM gussets are removed and replaced with our gussets. Our gussets have nuts welded to the inside surface so that the main hoop can be simply bolted in (using Grade 8 hardware that we supply.) Below is a picture of one of our gussets and you can see the roll bar is bolted to it. (Please note that our production gussets are delivered with a wrinkle black powdercoat finish.)

Gusset_Left.JPG

Would you have a .pdf file of the install instructions that I could see before a purchase?
 
Do the production ones have full welds there, or just the tacks?

Man, I'm GLAD you asked the question - just to insure that there are NO DOUBTS!! LOL

The roll bar is FULLY weldeded at every joint. The fabricator has made literally hundreds of roll bars - primarily for race cars and in compliance to different rules. It has taken so long for us to get to production because this guy is just so well know and even in this economy his business is doing very well. The photo above was a work in progress. You can even see the tacked on square bar. This was put in place insure that there was NO movement in the spread of the bar as this is the one that the jigs would be made of. As I hoped I mentioned before, the large gusset plates are coated in a fine black wrinkle powdercoat in the production units. Again, thanks for asking.
 
Kendall, for non-LS owners are you planning on offering your own version of the x-brace, or an equivalent bolt-in shear panel to increase the car's torsional stiffness?
 

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