aCab

Looks Good Jason! Wanna build a cage for my car next?

speedengineer

Just a quick update and cell phone pic.

Still need to finish the passenger side door bars, the verticals between the driver's side nascar bars, the foot protection bars, and gussets where the forward bars attach to the main hoop.

Trying do decide if I want to do gussets between the forward bars and the windshield crossbar. Not sure yet... Opinions?

speedengineer

Updated the website again with a whole bunch of photos. Here is one of those for you.

At this point, I actually have the footwell bars done too, as well as a short chunk of tubing that goes from the harness bar to the rear-left down tube (keeps harness from sliding off around the corner of the harness bar). I just haven't taken any photos of this yet, so you get to look at this one from a couple weeks ago.



In other news, the SAI and especially the EVAP systems are actually kinda heavy. Getting rid of all those lines and tubing (and also the IAC/TB coolant lines, heater core, and AC lines) made the engine bay look at TON cleaner! You can actually fit your hand down underneath the intake manifold now if you wanted to!

robrob

This doesn't look structurally sound to me. I looks like the roll cage footing "box" could shear off and slide downward:

speedengineer

No, it should be pretty strong actually. Remember that there is that little 'corner' underneath there, which is what the horizontal piece sits on. I've got another photo farther down of the joint all welded up. If you sum up the linear length of weld around the perimeter and multipy it by the thickness of the sheet metal, you have 1 square inch worth of cross sectional area. That is nearly twice the cross sectional area of the 1.5x.120 tube.

robrob

I did realize that the box was just tack welded in place andyou're right, it does look stronger in this pic where you can see it's welded into the corner but it still looks suspect to me (but I'm not an engineer or cage builder ):

speedengineer

Well hopefully I'll never have to test it out! There's a lot of cages out there with significantly weaker looking setups and I haven't heard of any issues in accidents. I haven't been around the track world long enough to inspect more than a few wrecked cars though.

I had actually been planning on adding a support brace from the tube to the car in that area too. But after looking at it in person, decided it wasn't even necessary, and NASA TT rules prevent us from using gussets farther than 6" from the end of a tube anyway.

cracknut

I suggest adding an x-brace between the 2 rear bars for added rigidity. They don't have to be the same diameter and thickness as the other bars since they're not required by the rules (I assume - I don't run NASA).

Here's a pic of mine. There are also similar 1" bars from the shock towers to the main rear bars which meet up on the other side of the main rear bars (can just see the passenger side one). After adding that 'X' the tiny creak I would hear entering the driveway disappeared.

dc_s2k

That hose for your catch can will collapse under heat/vacuum. I used it and had to move to black heater hose.

speedengineer

Well, I've had identical one on there for the last two years and it didn't have any issues. However, that one was only plumbed to from the valve cover to catch can, and not back to the intake. So, maybe with the vacuum it will now collapse, thanks for the tip, I'll keep an eye on it.