Maximum Motorsports Roll Bar Street 4-Point Without Door Bars/Harness Mount Coupe 2005-2014

We mentioned safety in a lot of our videos. Many times, it's just a secondary benefit to a mostly cosmetic upgrade.

Today's installation is going to be exactly the opposite. This six-point roll bar from Maximum Motorsports is designed first and foremost with safety in mind. In my opinion, it's also a kick-ass cosmetic upgrade.

Maximum provides these bars in raw steel. In our case, we had it powder-coated green to match the paint on our 2013. This was done in advance for the purpose of this video only. For actual installation, the rear bars must be welded for structural integrity before painting or powder-coating.

The green bars really pop with our black interior. The NHRA actually requires a bar like this on any car running 11.49 or faster. Last time out with our 2013, we went 11.00s. It's time to get legal for our assault on the quarter-mile next season.

For this installation, we need a jack and jack stands, or preferably a lift, a T-47 torx bit, an eight-millimeter socket, 10-millimeter deep socket, a 13-millimeter wrench, a 13-millimeter socket, 15-millimeter wrench, 15-millimeter socket, 9/16-inch wrench, 9/16-inch socket, 3/4-inch socket, 3/8-inch ratchet, torque wrench, a drill, a 7/16-inch drill bit, 1/8-inch pilot bit, two-inch hole saw, straight edge, an air saw, a chisel, a hammer, a marker, a center punch, a flashlight, Phillips head screwdriver, some sort of grinding tool, a pry bar, a razor blade, safety glasses, and plenty of patience.

It's a good idea to disconnect your battery before you get started. We're going to be unplugging several electrical harnesses during the installation. Before we can begin the installation, we're going to need to remove a good part of our interior. Both front seats, our back seat, our door sills, our kick panels, and the rear interior panels are all going to have to come out.

Bolts for the seat tracks are underneath these plastic plates. They're held on by clips, so you want to push them towards the back of the car to get the clip to release. The rear seat bolts are going to be 15 millimeter. We'll slide our seat back so we can access our front bolts. The fronts are going to be 13 millimeter.

Before you remove your seat, you're going to have some plugs in the bottom. If it's power-seat, there'll be two plugs for the power track, plus there's also plugs for the air bag. Once you disconnect them, you can remove your seat.

Next, we're going to remove the back seat. The lower seat cushion comes out first. It doesn't require any tools, simply grab the cushion and force inward and up. The rear back rest is going to come out individually. There's only one bolt per side that you'll have to remove. They're going to be 13 millimeter. Once you remove the bolt, you're going to pull the release to fold down the seat. I'm going to slide off the bracket in the center.

Next, we're going to remove our door sill plates, reach underneath, then pull straight up. Next, the kick panels are going to remove pretty much the same way. Now we have to remove the interior quarter trim panel. It's held in place by a pushpin down here, one here, and one there. You want to repeat the process on the other side. The only slight difference with your driver's side is going to be the kick panel. The very front has an additional clip that holds it in place.

Now we're going to move our carpet out of the way. You don't actually remove it from the car, but we're going to want to fold it over the console. The first step there is to remove your seat belt. Now we're going to remove the clip that holds the carpet in underneath your back seat as well as the three clips on the side. The seat belt has a harness that goes through. You want to unplug that so you can move it out of the way. Again, you want to repeat the process on the other side.

Now that we have our carpet tied out of the way, using supplied zip ties, we're going to remove this B-pillar bracket. It's held in place by seven 13-millimeter bolts and two 15-millimeter bolts. We're going to move this wiring harness in-board so we can get that bracket off. First step is to get this wire off that goes to your seat belt. Slide the clip out and remove. Bracket's unbolted, there's seam sealer going all the way around here, and a lot more on the inside. We're going to have to use a hammer and a chisel to get it out.

This is the new B-pillar support brackets provided by Maximum Motorsports with their kit. It's going to fit in place of the old one, but it's pre-drilled for holes for our main hoop. Before we can install it, we going to have to clean up all this excess seam sealer. Now we can test-fit our new Maximum Motorsports bracket. What you actually want to check is right here. You can allot up to an eighth of an inch of a gap. You're going to be okay on the top, but in the side, in the production tolerances on different cars, you get a little bit of a gap. We're going to put a few washers in there.

Maximum Motorsports supplies 3/8-inch washers to use to fill the gap. We're going to need two of them in this case. Make sure the two 15-millimeter bolts removed go on the outside two where they came off. You just want to make them all hand-tight for now. You're ready to torque down all your bolts 17 foot-pound. There's a specific order you'll want to use. It's in the instructions provided by Maximum Motorsports. You'll want to torque just your two 15-millimeter bolts to 48 foot-pound. We're going to move on to the driver's side. We're going to repeat the same process, removing the factory B-pillar support, replacing with our Maximum Motorsports piece.

Just about ready to put the main hoop in the car. Before we do that, we've got to put the rear bar in here. We want to make sure the curve is facing the outside. We're going to slide right over the rear bars. We're going to install the supplied 9/16 bolts. You don't got to tighten them all the way, just enough so that the bar doesn't move.

Now that we have the rear bars installed, we're ready to put the hoop in the car and test-fit everything. You're going to want some help for this part. The bar's got a little bit of weight to it. You want to tilt it as far forward as possible when sliding it over your console. Once you have it in place, grab a couple of the supplied bolts, just to keep the hoop from moving. Although we're not quite ready for them yet, we threw the side bars in just to get an idea of what the finished product's going to look like. This bar's going to look great in our car when we're done.

Let's move forward and mark the holes for the rear bars. First thing you want to do is just mark a template around the rear bar. We're not going to mark the holes just yet. We're going to make sure it's pushed up against the wheel well, and then you're going to outline it.

Now we're going to make sure that our roll bar is centered in the car. To do that, we're going to have to put the door bars in, and just mock up their location. You're going to install the bolts supplied to hold it in place. You don't have to tighten it all the way down. You just want to make it snug for now. To best fit the side bars properly, this panel has to be all the way up against the rocker. In our case, there's some more sealer in the way, so we have to get that out of the way before we put the bar back in. Before we move the bar, make two small marks in the floor, just so we know how much seam sealer we have to remove.

With the seam sealer removed, we're going to put the bar back in and make sure we have proper clearance. That means, when we have it cut out, this fits flush against the rocker like it's supposed to. We still have some extra sound deadening over here. We're going to scrape that off as well. With the seam sealer and sound bending out of the way, you can see now, it fits flush against the rocker like it's supposed to, and it's also flat against our floor.

We're ready to do the other side. Before we mark all our holes for our door bars and our rear support bars, we're going to make sure the door bars clear the doors. The hoop has a little bit of side-to-side adjustment. We want to make sure it's straight before we drill anything. We want it to be just shy of touching. In certain cars, it may lightly touch the door panel, but it definitely shouldn't hit it. Just make sure your gaps are the exact same on both sides. Before we remove the door bars, we're going to mark where the plate goes, and we're also going to mark where we're going to drill our holes. Again, make sure it's flush against the rocker before you mark anything. We're going to make sure this is flat against the wheel well, then we're going to mark our rear holes.

Once you have all your holes marked, it's time to remove the roll bar so you can drill your holes. We're going to drill out the holes that we just marked. The hole's got to be 7/16. You'll want to start with a 1/8-inch pilot, make it a lot easier to drill the holes.

Our next step is to mark and drill the rear support plate. This is going to mount on the outside of the car. It's going to sandwich the wheel well between this plate and our rear support of our roll bar. You're going to need somebody in the car to mark it for you as you hold it in place.

Now that we marked the plates, we're ready to drill our holes. The plates are very heavy steel. You want to make sure you've got a sharp drill bit and a nice, powerful drill. If you have access to a drill press, this would be a great time to use it, but you can do it by hand if you need to. Since the holes have to be drilled 7/16, you'll want to start with a small pilot hole. Now we'll drill our 7/16 hole.

We're going to drill the holes for our door bars. On the passenger side, there's no problem. On the driver's side, your outside ones will be right on the rocker, but the inside ones will be underneath this cover. This cover goes over your fuel and brake lines. You want to make sure you move this cover out of the way, and put the plate in there to make sure you don't rupture the lines when drilling your holes.

We're going to have our assistant drill the outside holes first, so we can have an idea where the door bar is going to be. We're going to use the supplied plate and put it between the floor and the fuel and brake line, and drill the inside holes, making sure we don't damage the line. We're going to line this plate up with the two holes we already drilled. We're going to slide it over these fuel lines to protect them before drilling. We're going to open all holes up to 7/16.

It's time to modify our quarter trim panels. The bar for your main hoop is going to go right through this section here. It's going to require you to cut this panel in half. It's a good time to have an assistant help you, especially if you have one with a steady hand. The panel has to be cut 43/4 in from the edge. We're going to put some tape down first, measure it out, and mark it before we cut it.

Now we're going to make marks along the line here, and then use a straight edge and mark it. You'll have to mark the center for drilling the hole for the hoop. It's going to be 3/8 inch in front of this, and you want it centered on the flat section. We're going to be using this hole saw to cut out the hole that we need. Because of the size of the saw, we're going to drill a pilot hole first.

Once you have your hole drilled, you're ready to cut your line. Before you do so, you want to flip it over, remove this backing. We're ready to cut. We're going to remove our tape, and we're going to clean these edges up. The holes we just cut are for these side bars here.

Now we're going to cut the holes for the rear bars. To do so, the rear bars have to come out, the hoop's got to go back in the car, and then we'll mark where we have to drill. Putting the hoop back in. We'll put a couple of bolts in to hold it in place. Maximum Motorsports designs this kit to fit the 2005 and up Mustang. They supply a piece of PVC piping to put on your roll bar tube to come down to your quarter trim panel.

We just found that on the 2013, they changed the design of the quarter trim panel. On the earlier models, this flat arm rest is going to go all the way up. On the 2013, they added this cut-out. We've blocked this off, cut a piece of PVC ourselves and we'll have to cut an oval instead of a flat round hole like the earlier models.

Before we cut through the panel, we're going to want to make sure there's nothing on the back. On this panel, there's a large piece of foam on the back that's going to have to come off. Thankfully, Ford just glues them in place. Give it a good tug, it'll come right off. After a lot of trial and error, we were able to get the cut-out proper for our 2013. Remember, this is only going to be an issue with the 2013. Your 2005 through 2012, this flat section goes all the way up, it'll just be a round hole.

Now we're ready to permanently install the panels. These two pieces are going to have to be held together once they're in the car. Maximum Motorsports provides these adhesive plates. They're going to mount to the back and hold the panels together once they're installed. Since we've been handling the panels, we're going to want to clean them up to make sure there's no grease or anything on them before we put the supplied adhesion promoter on, to keep the panels from falling off.

Your promoter's going to come in a little sponge, just wet the area where the adhesive's going to go. You want to give your adhesion promoter roughly a minute or so to set up, then you're ready to stick on your panels. Remove the red protective tape, line them up, hold them for a second. We'll move on to our lower.

Now we're going to prep the front part of our panel to connect it to the rear. Again, we're going to clean with alcohol first, then the adhesion promoter. You want to carefully line the panel up and attach it to the Velcro. We're going to let that set up for about 20 or 30 minutes, and you'll be ready to re-install the panels.

We're ready to install our hoop for hopefully the last time. In the interest of the video, we powder-coated our bar in advance. When you're installing it yourself, you want to put the rear bars on and have them professionally welded to the hoop to make sure your bar's legal. We're going to do this at a later point. We're going to put the bar in for now. Again, this was done for video purposes only. We will be removing our bar and welding it properly before the car leaves the garage.

Now that we have the rear bars and the hoop in place, we're ready to install the supports inside our wheel well. We took the wheel houses out to make it easier. They're held in place by a bunch of these plastic nuts, very easy to remove. You want to put the bolts just hand-tight at first, since you want to have a little bit of movement on the plate. Now you want to go through and tighten them all up.

Once you've tightened up the bolts, you want to grab your torque wrench, and we want to torque each of them to 33 foot-pound. Once you've finished torquing the bolts on both sides, put your inner wheel liners back on, and move inside to do the hoop.

Now we're going to install the eight bolts that hold the hoop to the brackets that we installed. You want to put all four bolts on both sides in loosely before you tighten any of them. Make sure your bar is centered as it was before, and then you're going to torque them down. You may have to hit the bar a little bit to get it lined up. Once you've installed all eight bolts, you're going to go through and torque them all to 33 foot-pound.

Now we're ready to start putting some of our interior back together. We're going to start by cutting the zip tie for the carpet and start putting that back in place. Make sure you don't forget to fish through the wiring harnesses for your seats. We'll re-install our pushpin on the edge here. Now we're moving on to the passenger side.

Now we're ready to install our front seat belts. You want to make sure the belt is on the outside of the roll bar and not tucked around the back. Now we're going to finish installing our rear interior quarter trim panels. You want to make sure the panel's flush up against the window, and flush at the top here, then you can install the pins that hold it in place on the bottom.

Now we're going to install the other half of the panel. You can see your Velcro tab down here. The other one's hidden behind the roll bar. You're going to slide this into place on the outside here.

Now we're ready to start re-installing our back seat. We're going to start with the seat back cushions. You want to make sure the cushion is vertical, because it will not clear this bar if it's not. Now we'll install our seat bottom.

Now we're going to install our door bars. We need to cut the carpet out for the stud to go through at the bottom. What you want to do is put the whole door bar in, put this plate on, and put these bolts through, just to hold it in place. Remove the bar, then you can trim your carpet.

Now we're ready to install our lower support plates. The bolts are two different lengths for the front mounting plates. You want the longer ones to be on the inside. The reason why is there's a curve to the floor. They provide these half-round washers that'll fit in there as we tighten it down. Now we're going to torque to 33 foot-pound. You want to make sure the inner bolt is not touching your brake line. Maximum does supply something to put over the line. The lines are nice and flexible. You can just very carefully bend them out of the way. Now we have plenty of clearance, we can re-install the plastic panel we removed.

Once you finish bolting in your door bars, you can put your seats, your kick panels, and your door sill plates back on, and your installation's finished. Expect to take the better part of a weekend. It's not a bad idea to bribe a few friends for some help. Now that we have our six-point roll bar installed in our 2013, we can't wait to get back to the track.