whats a good brand of sub frame connectors and roll cage. I see jegs has a cage, no sub frame connectors though. Or is taking it to a metal fab shop the way to go? I have a welder myself so I can buy a cage and tack weld it all in place then trailer it to my work and weld the rest up with the big welders sense mine is only a little Lincoln 100. Or is it better to not move the car till it's all done?
Chassis Engineering also has cages & I believe a co. called Tubular West has subframes(not completely sure on the name).
Be careful about pricing on rollcages etc...you can get a good price from the big name suppliers, but shipping is what kills you. Not sure what part of the country you're in, but if you can pick one up yourself, you'll be better off, and if you can't do that, you might check with a local fabricator to see what they would charge you to bend and install. If you do order one...S&W Racecars makes a very nice kit with very little modification/trimming necessary.
If you call S&W, ask for Lee in sales, he is a good friend of mine. They installed the original 8 point in my car about 20 years ago. I always have used chassis guys myself, I like the look of a custom install.
Yeah I'll call around. Thanks for the info. I can't wait to get it done. I'm not going to get impatient I doing it right the first time. Just super excited haha
well according to.youre responce 12 point cage would be a waste.. a 5 point Roll Bar will be good till 10 secs 1/4mi anything 11.5 and slower yoi dont need anything. Ive only seen 2 brands for SFC If you want a rollbar or cage...its always best to have it built to your car vs the supermarket pre made crap
I know that I don't need a 12 point that's just what I want. I had that in my comet i just liked how stiff the car was. I had 6 and 8 points in other cars and you can really feel the difference.
Not trying to dissuade you here in the least.. only the realist in me coming out to add input similar to the other guys who run wheels up. If you want to make the "car feel better".. do some chassis rigidity mods along with the 6-8 point setup. Unless you want to invest into making mad power levels of pure race car performance down the road..serious race boost levels that hits the tires really hard off the line.. even a 10 point is massive overkill with its 8.5 cert'. Any additional weight used up higher in the chassis will only serve to make "you feel better" but actually makes the car more top heavy and LESS stable at very high speeds. Simple physics and the law of diminishing returns starts to kick your wallet right square in the nuts. Now also keep in mind that this perspective comes from someone who always uses "massive overkill" as his daily mantra. Almost everything I build is overkilled beyond what most will call overkill. My Comets road-racer type chassis will eventually have major chassis work(convertible floor pans, gusseting/bracing, fully boxed rockers, firewall and full frame-rail mods, etc) to keep the weight down low for better CG. After all that, and with more weight than I would really prefer to add during the whole process, the car will be more than stable and stiff.. (will use chrome-moly plate and tubing$$$ wherever possible to keep weight gain down a bit more). To then keep weight in check and keep it off where weight hurts us the most from a stability standpoint.. I will only run an 8 point setup of lighter CM tubing just to satisfy the tracks requirements. A normal person running my - 550-575 HP - power levels would just build it to a 6 point spec and be done with it and still have some room to grow in power output. An 8-point will give even more room well beyond what my budget will ever allow.. and still keeps me feeling like an overachiever after it's all said and done. On the other hand.. the more weight you put up at the highest point in the chassis?.. the greater the catapulting affect will be. Need to then make more power to offset the weight gain and initial power absorption during heavy launch(takes more power to more quickly "flip" that now heavier topside back onto the rear tires. Unfortunately, after a certain point in design(speed).. safety takes a much higher priority than weight gain or reductions in vehicle CG. Race teams will never get the best drivers if they skimp on driver safety, tracks will deal with lawsuits from potential failures in track safety and design, and there becomes an obvious trend in driver deaths relating to those shortcomings. Faster and more deadly.. or slower and safer.. lessor of two evils. All really depends on how fast you want to go.. and how safe you need to be.. and only you can truly answer that question before all the work begins. Howevere you end up here.. good luck with it and make sure to post pics if you actually do end up stuffing a 12 point in that little car!
Slower is not always safer. I've seen many accidents with slower cars and have even seen them go on their roof. My advise, if you race a lot, put a cage in your race car. On the other hand, if you only race a couple times a year, I would go with the 8 point.
