I know its a lot to read but bare with my guys and thanks in advance!

Alright guys, what's up! My name is Ryan for some of you that don't know me.....anyways I'm enrolled at Wyotech right now and I just got done with my 3rd day in Chassis Fabrication class. The shop that we have is top notch. We have access to Mig/Tig welders, oxy torches, plasma, tubing benders, vertical/horizontal bandsaws, iron workers, all the flat stock and tubing we need to do whatever projects our heart desires.
So, that brings me a few questions I wanted to ask EXPERIENCED welders in this forum who have had experience putting cages in hondas. I will be putting cages in a 93 eg hatch and my 98 integra 2 dr. 1 1/4"ODx .120 wall mild steel will be going into the eg and 1 1/4"OD x .120 wall chrome-molly will be going in the dc2. This is what the instructors recommend and I'm looking for feedback on these dimensions. Also, they have recommended Tig for the cages if we get good enough so hopefully(I've never welded before) I'll be able to pick it up reasonably fast and Tig my cages.
Next, I wanted to see if you guys have pics of cages in either egs or dc2 and explain a little bit on the engineering/design you decided to go with and why. The main point of this post is that I want to do both cages RIGHT the first time. Also, as far as painting goes I've seen a few people on this forum wrap the inside of the car with newspaper to start painting. I was wondering if there is a simpler method and what paint/method you decided to go with.
Finally, they told us before we bring the car into the shop to have the interior stripped as much as possible and we have to remove and gas tank and all gas lines under where we are going to be welding. Is it normal for cage builders to remove the tanks?
I'm actually very lucky to be in this class cuz we have top notch instructor and access to the best equipment and the cheapest materials(price) because the school buys TONS of material. I will not be taking the dash out just fyi. The material pricing is really cheap like I had mentioned so I'm not to worried about making the cage elaborate. Also, if there are any more chassis stiffening pieces I can fabricate for the car either in the interior or out please give me some insight on it. Thanks a lot for reading and I hope I didn't ask too many stupid questions but hey, everyones got to start somewhere right? Thanks guys!
P.S. Something else I forgot to ask, what electronics besides battery and ecu do you guys disconnect when welding roll cages?

Update: Here's some pics. Spent 7 hours ripping out the interior, sound dampening, wire wheeling all the "glue" out of the car. What a mess but finally its done and ready for the cage! enjoy
Ryan





Modified by Teglove2 at 12:44 AM 1/9/2006

 

You need to look at the rules of whatever type of racing you want to do, then build the cage to those rules, an instructors recommendation is just that and it really doesn't matter what he says. I suspect they want you to remove the gas tank for insurance reasons.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Teglove2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">1 1/4"OD x .120 wall chrome-molly</TD></TR></TABLE>

Pretty sure thats overkill for chromoly.

 

If you are planning on running these in NHRA competition or drag racing period you better get a rules book or a teacher that knows the specs. Those are not legal options for NHRA. Mild steel needs to be a minimum of 120 wall dom tube or what most use is .134 hot or cold rolled material because they will fail a mild steel
cage if it ever needs to be ceritified at .116 wall .117 is the min. 4130 can be .083 wall. A six point bar you have 2 options 1 3/4 OD mild steel or 4130. If your going with a cage for 9.99 or faster then you can take the OD down to 1 5/8.
And yes there is a reason they ask for the tacks to be out did you ever see one blow up. There is no reason to take a chance they are to easy to remove.

And don't practice on your roll bar if you can't weld good enough then let someone that knows how do it. You may need it someday for something other than looking "COOL" and if it falls apart it may be what hurts you.

Battery and ecu usually take care of it

 

Thanks very much for your input guys! I know that .120 wall for chrome-moly is overkill I just threw that number up there. I know you can go much thinner on wall thickness with 4130 just threw it up there. If I could see some pics of some cages that would be great! Keep the feedback coming fellas!
Ryan
P.S. These cages are not for looking "COOL" as you put it. I race bikes on the freeway all summer up to 150mph in my dc2 so this is definitely not for show, fyi.

 

bump for a guy who needs some feedback and pics!!!

 

If you havent welded before.. Dont start with a roll cage.

Also Chromoly is hard to weld, not to mention it needs to be tigged..

Get the rule book.. All your answers are in it!

 

to let you guys know he said he is going to wyotech. they teach you how to weld before you can do any welding on a cage. they have to practice for two weeks. every thing they weld has to get checked by the instructor. if the welds are not perfect they have to do it again. he is going to be graded on the cage too. the instructors will make sure it is perfect before they will pass him. now are you guys going to help him or not. thanks to the people that helped.

 

Thanks accordlove. Bump for a guy still looking for some cage pics.........

 

I cant believe no one on this forum has cages? !!! Weird.........

 

SEARCH

 

You might want to try the drag racing forum. assuming your car is for drag racing of course.

 

bump new pics!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by accordlove &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">to let you guys know he said he is going to wyotech. they teach you how to weld before you can do any welding on a cage. they have to practice for two weeks. every thing they weld has to get checked by the instructor. if the welds are not perfect they have to do it again. he is going to be graded on the cage too. the instructors will make sure it is perfect before they will pass him. now are you guys going to help him or not. thanks to the people that helped.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No offence to you guys but its going to take you more than 2 weeks of welding to be able to do a cage. The angles are nuts, and tig isn't really something you can be a natural at. And you also have to watch welding themoly as mentioned before. I'm pretty sure that if you put to much heat into it, its no better than mild, and you'd actually be worse off because it'd be thinner than the equivalent mild.

Practice every waking hour untill your build date, and to be honest i still don't think you'll be ready. Remember clean clean clean, keep your tungsten as close to the puddle as possible and move quickly

p.s. I'll get ahold of you sometime this week, i've been busy with work and a couple cars

 

I just graduated from Wyotech in December... which campus are you at?

Once you start practicing TIG on some scrap pieces you will soon realise how long it will take you to TIG a whole cage.

For the cage on the EG I would go with 1 5/8 x .120 wall mild steel. Really though it all depends on which sanction you are building for. Get the rule book and find out exactly what you need.

Just to give you a quick idea for a project for the class I made a couple sets of traction bars and sold them for good money while I was there.

 

I love how everyone (chad) keeps stating the obvious on this post. I know what I'm doing I'm just looking for pics and some feedback on cages no welding lectures please. I know tig is going to be hard but we HAVE to be efficient at welding tig before we can even pass the class. O, and Chad, the method that we are taught to build cages we don't even need to measure angles its pretty cool. Don't worry I got it covered.
P.S. I got to the PA Wyotech campus.
Ryan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Teglove2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I love how everyone (chad) keeps stating the obvious on this post. I know what I'm doing I'm just looking for pics and some feedback on cages no welding lectures please. I know tig is going to be hard but we HAVE to be efficient at welding tig before we can even pass the class. O, and Chad, the method that we are taught to build cages we don't even need to measure angles its pretty cool. Don't worry I got it covered.
P.S. I got to the PA Wyotech campus.
Ryan</TD></TR></TABLE>

i meant the angles your body/torch will be at i.e. welding the bottom of the rear hatch tubes to the main hoop. What do you want to know about cages, like 95% of a cage is the welding, without flawless welding all you are doing is weighing your car down and creating a death trap. plus track officials inspect the thickness with a sonar type device then you welds are inspected visually.

Look up the s&w prefabs, search the archive for the cusco cages (bolt-in but still similar), and theres an ad up in the vendors forum for prefabs also, from user safe drives. I've seen a few threads in the drag forum also.

Don't you guys have a pre req. class for specifically welding before you get into fab. thats how ours is setup

just trying to help out man


Modified by b16hybridsol at 11:54 AM 1/9/2006

 

Of coarse! Like I said, we cannot do ANY projects until we pass all of their competencies(aka tests). Once again, I know what I'm doing, we have some of the best instructors in the country. These guys have been in circle track/drag racing for over 20 yrs I can't go wrong with their supervision. I know the cage is mostly welding but I'm just trying to get some ideas not ask for a welding lecture. No harm intended tho, hows the integra Chad?

 

getting there, i've actually got an s&w 8 point prefab that i'm getting ready to put in, but i'm trying to figure out all the specs so that i can make it a bolt in. Just in case i ever switch chassis or something.

try L-con on here, he makes some pretty crazy *** cages. but the ones i saw were like an scca style

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shorto85 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just graduated from Wyotech in December... which campus are you at?

Once you start practicing TIG on some scrap pieces you will soon realise how long it will take you to TIG a whole cage.

For the cage on the EG I would go with 1 5/8 x .120 wall mild steel. Really though it all depends on which sanction you are building for. Get the rule book and find out exactly what you need.

Just to give you a quick idea for a project for the class I made a couple sets of traction bars and sold them for good money while I was there. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I graduated from the blairshell campus back in 04 and to be completely honest with you if he works on just tig welding as much as possible i dont see why he cant tig his i never welded before i got there and i bagged my truck in 2weeks exactly from 4 link to bag mounts and it was all tig welded. Besides it dosent take that long to fully weld a cage. It takes us at my job 2 3 days tops for a 8 point. So all i have to say to him is work hard get your comps done as fast as possible and tig whatever you can before you do you cage.

 

Thank you god for someone who actually gives me some positive feedback. I've been trying to tell people what you said Watbak but the only people who truly know are the ones who have attended the school. I should have no problem doing the comps quickly, I pick up stuff rather quickly if I'm interested in it. Where exactly do you work? Do you have any pics of cages you can post up? Thanks!
Ryan
Fully-caged 600whp dc2 in the works. Someone buy my rc750cc!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Teglove2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thank you god for someone who actually gives me some positive feedback. I've been trying to tell people what you said Watbak but the only people who truly know are the ones who have attended the school. I should have no problem doing the comps quickly, I pick up stuff rather quickly if I'm interested in it. Where exactly do you work? Do you have any pics of cages you can post up? Thanks!
Ryan
Fully-caged 600whp dc2 in the works. Someone buy my rc750cc!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

you sound like commercial for wyotech.

 

I don't think you're really getting the point. Safety is not something to mess around with and I don't care how confident you are or how strict your teachers are going to be there is no way in hell I'd have someone with two weeks experience with tig, let alone welding in general, weld a cage that I am relying on to save my life in case of an accident.

Being efficient at something is totally different than being good at something. Your teachers care somewhat at how well you do but at the same time it is a business and they're there to make the customer happy and feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they hear they did something 'right'.

That's what everyone else was trying to hint at and why they're trying to not boost up your confidence that you can do this because you can't.

 

I've used a tig welder once, and it wasn't pretty. The weight savings of a chromoly bar will save you approximately 30 lbs. over a mild steel one, but the bitch is going to be having to tig weld it instead of mig.

No matter how much you know, are going to know, or how long your teachers have been racing, I'd say do the mild bar first and mig it. I think that experience alone will help you with the decision of the next.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Teglove2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thank you god for someone who actually gives me some positive feedback. I've been trying to tell people what you said Watbak but the only people who truly know are the ones who have attended the school. I should have no problem doing the comps quickly, I pick up stuff rather quickly if I'm interested in it. Where exactly do you work? Do you have any pics of cages you can post up? Thanks!
Ryan
Fully-caged 600whp dc2 in the works. Someone buy my rc750cc!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I work at HfR fabrictions in MD and to be honest with you if you want to see the work we do look at Paul Efantis cars we did both cages in the supras and we do all the chassis work for the solar but we did boostedjeff (he has pics in his rebuild forum) and bonerbens as well as JDMdans cage in his integra and i no he will be posting picks when its done.