So the past few days, my brother and I have been putting together the cage for the CRX.

for a while there we were just scratching our heads, because the pictures shown on the website were completely different than the pipes we got. In the pictures on the website, It was one complete pipe running from the main hoop across the side of the roof, down the a-pillar, and down to the floorboard by the kick panel. But the pipes we got, it came with a loop that went from the main hoop, to the top of the windshield, across to the other side of the car (along the roof), and back to the main hoop, and then there were 2 more bars to add (roof, along the a-pillar, to the floor). I would've rather had the cage the way it was pictured on the website for sure.

anyways, We cut the holes in the floor, ground away all the paint and body glue crap, evened out the surface as best we could, and got to work. Now we have the main part of it together, and tack welded, ready to drop it down and weld it up for good, then add the side bars, and rear bars. I'm beginning to regret not buying the swing out door option. But whatever...

We had a race seat with a custom bracket made and everything, but we realized that you actually sit HIGHER with the race seat, so we had to use the stock seat (and we have to re-fabricate a bracket for the race seat).

Anyways, here's some pictures. This whole thing would've been a lot easier with a proper notcher. The notcher we bought was off-center for some unknown reason.

And you have to keep in mind, this isn't an SCCA racer, this is an NHRA All-Motor drag racer. The rules don't even say we are required to have the cage. But we did cut the support beam out of the doors, and have a fiberglass front end, and all that, so we feel more comfortable with the cage.

This is an Art Morrison 8 point. ( http://www.artmorrison.com/F_RollBarCage.htm )

Be warned, each of these pictures are just a bit less than 300k.

http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0060.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0070.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0079.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0089.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0098.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0101.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0112.JPG
http://www.fatboyraceworks.com/~ndah...e/DSCF0117.JPG

More pictures are in that directory (index available), but there are quite a few bad pictures that you will have to excuse. I tryed to delete most of the completely worthless ones.

I have a question. Where the drivers side bars meet..(picture 112), should they be right next to each other, and just try to weld in between them to the vertical pipe? Or should we notch part of one of them, so we can weld the actual side bars together a little bit? Or should we just make a gusset for them? Where else should we add gussets?

sorry for the long post.

 

Man that's one h3ll of a project. Kudos for taking it on yourself. Personally I'm getting a custom cage built as I type this, but mine is designed with roadracing and open track days in mind. Instead of cutting through the floor and adding a plate, my fabricator is creating an extended 'box' on the frame. Well, it's difficult to explain, but basically it accomplishes the same thing w/o compromising the integrity of the car. There's 100's of ways to make cages I've learned.

[picture]
It's not my car but it shows what I'm talking about.

In regards to picture 112, it wouldn't hurt to have between 2-3 inches between your bottom and upper bars. That way you can ensure a complete weld around the circumfrence of the bar. Although I might mention some of the Factory Porsche cup cars do not have complete welds around some of their roll cage bars. ...I was surprised. I don't believe there's really any need for a gusset in that location.

Paul

 

in NHRA you need a cage to race pro NA.

Make sure those plates are of proper size or else some picky competetors, (like me) will be annoyed. We had the same issue with them.

 

What are you using to bend the pipe? Where did you get it?

 

we toyed around with the idea of bending the pipes ourselves, but decided against it and bought the pipes pre-bent from Art Morrison. I need a cage for my hatchback as well, if we bought a pipe bender, we could've built both cages. But in retrospect, I'm glad we didn't try and do it ourselves. It would've made everything so much more difficult. But it would've been cheaper.

Incidently, there is a guy in town that runs a steel yard that has a big *** electronically controlled hydraulic pipe bender that he's itching to use, and wanted to get into the project with us...but we still decided against bending it ourselves.

simple: yeah, all the plates are 6x6x.125.. And you need a roll BAR for the AM class. The cage is unecessary unless you're running quicker than 10.99..and I don't expect to break 10s without quite a bit more money and time (or some phatty sponsors). Thanks for the info though.

 

im 99.9999999999999% sure you need a full 6 point when going faster then 12.000.....not to second guess ya but iv never heard other wise...

good job on the plates...youd be surprised how many people bitched at us

 

yeah, a roll bar is required when going faster than 12.00 I guess a roll bar is a 6 point.

(a roll bar is composed of the main hoop, a cross bar behind the seat, a diagonal bar by the drivers door, and two rear bars that extend from the top of the main hoop back to somewhere behind the main hoop.)

that's the way the NHRA rulebook words it anyways.

So people gave you a lot of **** for your plates? What was wrong with them? At first, we considered shaving off a corner, to make the plate fit better, but then I decided it probably wasn't a good idea. Even though it would probably make the cage stronger.