roll cage

[rooster]

How does one get a cage put in a car? Are there kits to buy? How many "points"
would you get?

 

[PAracer]

There aren't any kits to be bought. What you can do is measure for the bends and bars that you need, and have pieces bent to your specs. If you do your own work, you can have a functional and good looking cage for $300. Aside from that, you will need to find a local chassis builder who is willing to tackle the job.

 

[Off Road SHO]

It's expensive to have a shop that KNOWS how to build a roll cage do it for you. For one, it takes a lot of knowledge and time. Two, it takes a good insurance carrier. The good shops know all about attorneys and don't want to be sued into oblivion so they have to have insurance to defend them in court.

I got a quote to have a Taurus SHO caged from Tatum MotorSports; they made The Other Woman and build a lot of off road race cars for the top tier guys. I was expecting 3-4 thousand and when it came back at 5,500 plus the material, I decided against it. And this was 5 years ago, before the price of that special roll bar steel went up so high. I hate to think what it would cost nowadays.

If you're going to attempt it yourself, at the very least you should see if you can go and visit some shops that build these for a living and just watch what they do, see where they attach. Most of the actual fabricator guys are friendly and willing to share, it's the owners that are tight ****** with their knowledge, it's just a business thing.

Good luck.

Tom

 

[Shoaz]

It's expensive to have a shop that KNOWS how to build a roll cage do it for you. For one, it takes a lot of knowledge and time. Two, it takes a good insurance carrier. The good shops know all about attorneys and don't want to be sued into oblivion so they have to have insurance to defend them in court.

If it's for a race or track car application, much of the legal stuff doesn't apply. It's one of the few places where you're on your own as far as legal responsibility unless there's clear negligence.

I got a quote to have a Taurus SHO caged from Tatum MotorSports; they made The Other Woman and build a lot of off road race cars for the top tier guys. I was expecting 3-4 thousand and when it came back at 5,500 plus the material, I decided against it. And this was 5 years ago, before the price of that special roll bar steel went up so high. I hate to think what it would cost nowadays.

That's nuts. I don't know anybody who's paid that much for a cage install, unless it's nearly a tube-frame application or something really radical. Check around with whoever is building the cages for local track crowd. Getting it done right/well is worth paying for, but I still think it shouldn't cost anything close to what Tatum quoted Tom.

Most guys around here in the race groups typically have $10k-$20k _total_ invested in their cars. As I understand it custom cage installs are generally $1500-$2500 for basic race-legal cages, with some spending more for additional features. That may be going up now with new requirements for door bars, etc. Bolt-in or autopower cages (i.e., pre-fabbed for common applications, not an option for the SHO) are less expensive.

If you're going to attempt it yourself, at the very least you should see if you can go and visit some shops that build these for a living and just watch what they do, see where they attach. Most of the actual fabricator guys are friendly and willing to share, it's the owners that are tight ****** with their knowledge, it's just a business thing.

And find out what the rules are for whatever group you're going to run with. It makes a big difference. NASA cage rules just changed again this year, so it's a good idea to make sure you'll be compliant to the latest specs for your group of interest.

 

[92inPA]

PAracer took measurements and made up a drawing for a main hoop and a shoulder harness bar for his 93. I had a local chassis shop http://www.swracecars.com bend them up and I gave it to him for Christmas. It cost a couple of hundred dollars two have those two pieces bent out of 1-3/4" x .095 DOM tubing. (SCCA regulations legal) The remaining materials were purchased from http://www.onlinemetals.com/. All totaled it will cost around $300 to install the bars. This includes a main hoop, the shoulder harness bar, two diagonals from the main bar to the rear strut towers, a strut tower brace and bracing down to the H box. PAracer has so far fabbed each piece and tacked it all in place. It looks GREAT!!! He just needs to finish the welding.

With basic shop tools and a good welder, a roll bar setup can be installed for a very reasonably cost.