Our Cage Build (pic heavy)

[audisnapr]

hey all - some of you may have seen our car before on other forums or other threads, but we thought we'd start a new thread dedicated to the cage building process being done by the guys at TyrolSport of Queens NY

For those who have never seen our car, here's a quick history: A friend of mine (Jason), and I (Joseph) split the purchase costs of this beat up 1990 G60 Corrado (w/ VR6 Swap) with the sole intent of turning it into a dedicated track toy. Our hope was to run 3 or 4 events per year with no other purpose but to enjoy the time on the track. After 10 months of stripping, grinding, sanding, painting, wiring, wrenching, etc, etc, we finally had a car that was track worthy. At that point we weren't interested in competing on any level except the time trials that were put on by the group we were running with that particular day (EMRA, CART, PCA, etc). Over the past three seasons, we were able to run at Lime Rock Park, NJMP (Lightnight Circuit), Pocono, and Watkins Glen (we hope to expand the venue list in the upcoming years).

A few pics of the process:


Over the past three years we've made several improvements to the car, some necessary, some functional, and some completely for aesthetics only.
Here's a few pics of us at various tracks:


All along we've been using an AutoPower, 4pnt, bolt-in roll bar which we bought the same day we purchased the car. Like most guys out on the track, we were on a tight budget and since we weren't competing we didn't want to spend the extra cash on a full blown cage. But that has all changed now. Jason and I have developed relationships over the past years with various shops, persons, vendors, etc and have finally got the itch to start competing at some level (to be determined). Although not every competition we'll compete in requires a full cage, both of us have young children and are beginning to fully understand the value of our safety.

So without further ado, here are the beginnings of our cage build. Mike and Tom over at TyrolSport have been a great resource for us and are taking care of us. They have been sending us weekly (if not more often) updates and are in constant contact with us with design ideas, questions, suggestions, etc.

Here's quick sketchup image Jason created during the early stages of discussion with Tyrol


Tom and his crew cleared out an area for the car


I believe this was taken the Monday after the car was dropped off (Saturday) - so they got right to work



Filling in holes from our AutoPowr bar



Materials!


In order to get better access to weld up the front tubing of the cage, the windshield need to come out



What they found wasn't great news, but definitely fixable.



After the wire wheel treatment.




And finally some of the good stuff






we'll add more as we get more!

[Darren]

Looks great! A well done cage will also add a lot of rigidity to your car so it's a speed upgrade too!

A few comments after building several race cars, take them for what they are worth.

I know all of these points are relevant for NASA and I assume for SCCA also.

1. The main hoop looks like it curves in before the bottom.  NASA rules specify that the angles in the main hoop can't add up to more than 180 degrees.

2. I don't like the diagonal across the roof because it will be right over the driver's head.  In general I like to have everything as far away from me as possible.

3. You should really have a cross bar (knee bar they call it sometimes) across the front of the cage between the a-pillar bars.  I don't like putting them at knee level really and my 996 actually has 2 cross front bars -- one is behind the pedals which helps prevent wheel intrusion, and one that is higher up right under where the gauge cluster would be.

4.  I'm pretty sure you are required to have gussets between the main hoop and the halo, using the same dimension material as the rest of the cage.

5. I just recently worked with the halo design on our lemons car and the a-pillar bar is exactly like is pictured here.  In retrospect I would have liked to have it intersect in the middle of the bend in the halo so that it would better distribute forces from the a-pillar bar.  In the end though it probably doesn't matter that much and if you did that it could interfere with visibility which also could be a safety issue.

FWIW -- it's hard to make changes once the cage is in.

I'm excited to see the finished product! Keep up with the updates!

[marked001]

we probably shouldnt have posted that model of the cage because it is 'very' unfinished...haha.. especially the front end (knee bar, etc)...

thanks alot for the comments, Darren.. def will take them into consideration.

[Darren]

You're welcome and please don't take it as me being critical -- I know how much time and money goes into this stuff and it's always better to get it right the first time!

Will you be looking to race this car?  I would think it would fit very nicely into NASA PTE and we have an absolutely fantastic PTE class now with 10+ cars at every event.  It's been bigger than Spec Miata in NASA at some races.

[audisnapr]

Darren wrote:

You're welcome and please don't take it as me being critical -- I know how much time and money goes into this stuff and it's always better to get it right the first time!

Will you be looking to race this car? I would think it would fit very nicely into NASA PTE and we have an absolutely fantastic PTE class now with 10+ cars at every event. It's been bigger than Spec Miata in NASA at some races.

Definitely not taking your comments as being critical. We are here to get feedback as well as show off our build We appreciate you taking the time to share your comments with us.

For now, safety was our primary objective with the cage build. However, we have been tossing around the idea of Time Attack events (which don't require a full cage) as well as possibly getting our competition license. The cage is def. the first step to us being able to compete, so we'll see what happens.

[audisnapr]

a few updated images sent over just a few minutes ago. def a full house at the shop right now - super grateful they have some time and resources to work on the cage! thanks mike!

[audisnapr]

even more goodness

[Larry Herman]

Hopefully you haven't fabricated those door bars yet, because they are completely worthless.  IMHO they are both heavier and weaker than a simple X brace.  They are fundamentally an unsupported trapizoid, and because of the double bends create an unstable complex of tubes that can easily be concaved on impact.

I have also seen plenty of cages that had "Nascar Bars" that were also worthless because they too had no strength in tension or compression.  Instead, you should consider making a gusseted X brace similar to what a Porsche 996/997 cup car has.  Straight tubes are stronger, and the pyrimidal shape offers significant strength in compression.  Of course YMMV.

[marked001]

again, that model was just for fun and to get a dialog started with the shop... the door bars were never finished in the model... but they were based off of these...



the door bars are still the big item thats up in the air.. thanks for the info though.

[Larry Herman]

Here's a picture of proper door bars using an X brace design with a strong gusset.  I can find pictures of other types if you want.