Just a question or two. Looking at a 4pt cage, wondering if anyone has ever bolted one in instead of welding? Also, is it possible to install a cage with the headliner in? I REALLY don't want to have to take the headliner back out. Thinking maybe I could use pins on the legs back to the rear to avoid welding in the car??? Any of this viable or am I back to square one?
Had a take-in-take-out 6pt cage in my 97 Mustang Cobra, because in the Silver States Classic anything over 130mph had to have one. Had a guy in Sacramento make one just for my car, took him about a week with the car and he never took the headliner out. You can make one but pins are not good enough, you have to use grade 8 bolts and double plate where the pads attach to body or frame. You can use swing out diagonal members for drivers seat and passanger sides, and believe I would us a coupling type of connection where you bolted the pieces together. I know either Competition Engineering or someone like that makes a bolt in cage, but I am pretty sure they are six point. Not sure what you mean by a 4pt cage. It seems to me a 4pt system is called a roll bar, which has an upwright behind the driver and two supports going toward the rear. Are you using the car as a street car or street and strip.............the reason you want a take-apart-cage? Here is really what you should be looking at, and yes, they can be are made for take-apart type, SCCA allows a bolt in cage and I think so does NHRA.............................a 4pt is somewhat useless if you put the shinny side down................................IMHO
Looking at the Jegster kit which mounts at 4 pts, roll bar and 2 legs to the back. Mainly will be a street car with a few trips to the track to see what it will do. Was a bracket car before I got it, just thinking about a little protection for what few brain cells I have left. The pins I was asking about would be shortly off the roll bar on the legs to the trunk, but I think what I'm hearing is to use the connectors, right? Thanks for the input
ra3spd, Ok, the picture above is called a 6pt cage, the two legs that support the cage are counted as attachment points. Where ever the cage is taken apart you need to use a coupling (a tube larger than the cage tubing and of the same wall thickness) that will slip over both pieces and be bolted through both tubes with a grade 8 nut and bolt. Does the car have some type of subframe connectors? This would be the logical place to mount the attachment points of the cage at least in the passanger area. In the trunk I would weld the attachment points into the body and support them with a bolted in or welded pad underneath the body as supports.
Thanks for the input olerodder. Don't have the subframe connectors yet, that is also on the list, just trying to figure out which ones to get. Would like to have the bolt in connectors that I will also get welded after installation. Trying to get it all together on sequence of installation of all of this, as I am also redoing carpet and insulation at the same time............only want to do it once.
Ok, #1. I would put the subframe connectors in and weld them, #2, I would take the carpte out, then have the mounts made for the cage, then #3, have the carpet put in...............in that order. Hopefully after the abuse of a bracket car the unibody hasn't suffered too much without any subframe connectors or cage.
Thanks for the response, have the carpet on the way, need to decide which subframe connectors and get them ordered. I don't have ANY welding skills, will have to get my welding certified daughter to weld them in after I get them bolted in. She will also weld the cage for me. :bananaman
Got the subframe connectors and roll cage ordered today. One question, the subframe connectors need to be installed with the chassis loaded,i.e with the tires on the ground, correct?
Any part that you install as a part of the chassis needs to be bolted/welded in a loaded condition..................the same with the roll bar..........................IMHO
Car must be at final ride height, with all vehicle weight on the suspension in order to properly install the S/F connectors. You can do this with jack stands (under the suspension)a level (Car must be level from front to back,side to side,corner to corner) Sounds harder than it is. Put the cage in after S/F connectors (at the same time car is set up is best)No duplication of labor this way.Good luck!!!
both my parts cars came with cages and one was a wreck so i know thats a well desinged cage. and on my other one some on got some box tubbing and made some conecters they are big i just have to cut them off and weld them to mine.... might just take it to my dads work place were there is a lift.
