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I set out the other day to install the rear strut brace and plates. I cut out the plates and marked where I wanted the tubes to sit.
I went to test fit the plates and low and behold the factory rear strut brace and parcel self prevented the plates from sitting at the top of the tower. At this point I'm left with little choice but to make room or mount the brace lower. Those that follow along have probably already predicted my decision. 30 or so spot welds later.
Some much room for activities.
Close to 15 pounds of sheet metal gone. I got the plates tacked in. I pre bent them on the bench to contour the tower.
Before starting on gussets I tacked the rear cowl together.
Then I had to tackle the problem of getting a dimple die kit. The sets online were rather pricey for my taste so after a bit of research a friendly guy from the North American rally FB page linked me to his diy. I modified his design a bit and came up with mine.
Scrounged around my scrap bin for some materials.
And got this out of it.
Other than doing it crooked it dimpled quite well. Don't mind the holes I didn't clean them prior to dimpling.
Well I spent some time this morning before class further testing my die. It works great for 20 gauge and 18 gauge. I tried it out on a test piece of 16 gauge and here were the results:
And mildly bent piece of metal with no dimple in sight. This is after trying an impact and pounding the two dies together with a hammer. Looks like for my gussets I'll just be reducing weight with the holes. I'm not super worried about making the plates flimsy, after I tried bending a few test pieces by hand to no avail. No sanctioning body even requires cage to body gussets so there more for peace of mind than anything regardless.
Despite the fact that I couldn't dimple my gussets I pressed on and started with the door X's. It took me a few tries out of cardboard but in the end I came out with this.
Cut them out and marked them for the holes.
Weight reduction because ricecar
They look the evil robots from the Fairly odd parents TV show once cleaned up.
Four tacks later and I could start folding them in.
A little bit of Asian persuasion from a ball peen was all it took to get them shaped.
I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to weld them all the way around or stitch them every few inches. Any insight from guys that have done this type of thing would be much appreciated.
I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to weld them all the way around or stitch them every few inches. Any insight from guys that have done this type of thing would be much appreciated.
Stitching is how we usually see gussets done. Where are you planning to mount your harnesses?
Stitching is how we usually see gussets done. Where are you planning to mount your harnesses?
That's the consensus I got from looking at other cages as well. I'll be adding a harness bar to the main hoop once I have acquired a seat. That way, I can set the bar to the proper height in correlation to the seat to get the safest harness angle possible.
Glad to see this is still alive. Coming along nicely! I hope you're going to pad the hell out of the cage above and in front of your head though if it's a street car. Leaving the door panels/dash in too I hope? People get cut to hell in stripped out cars if they stack it on the street.
Loved the murica flag picture xD
Keep up the good work!
P.s. good to see you taking harness/seat angle into account. Seen that overlooked often.. keep the angle as small as possible.
Glad to see this is still alive. Coming along nicely! I hope you're going to pad the hell out of the cage above and in front of your head though if it's a street car. Leaving the door panels/dash in too I hope? People get cut to hell in stripped out cars if they stack it on the street.
Loved the murica flag picture xD
Keep up the good work!
P.s. good to see you taking harness/seat angle into account. Seen that overlooked often.. keep the angle as small as possible.
Thanks for the kind words! Cage padding is up in the air at this point. My head shouldn't be near any bars but we'll see. The door panels are definitely staying because I hate the look of gutted doors and I'm going to do am aluminum dash so no sharp edges there either.
Made up a cowl to cage gusset today. It's slightly overkill but I figured since the front struts are going to be braced to the cowl that the back side would be equally as rugged.
For those hard to reach welds you kind of have to be one with the car.
B pillar gussets. These were short and sweet to do. I rounded off the edges and turned it down on the holes which really improved the aesthetic appeal.
taking notes on all this awesome DIY cage info.
i'm doing my swap this winter and plan to do the cage next winter.
awesome work! keep it up!
Good luck to you! I'm about to do another one in a s13 hatch. Feel free to follow along.
Originally Posted by Rocknrace03
very cool build. would definitely use some cage padding, you'll thank yourself when bump your head just climbing in the car.
Yeah I've got to see where my seat will place me but there will be some padding down the road.
It took me a bit to finish the C pillars with all the rain lately. For those that don't know the previous owner had a pretty rough history with my car. I found this out after removing the C pillar trim and noticed the gouged holes on the interior panel. From what I can tell they cut open the inside of the C Pillar to pound the outside half out. This looked subpar and needed to be hidden.
You can see in the left corner the wrinkles on the roof skin and brace. It's not functional other than hiding everything.
Looks a hell of a lot better than before. It'd about time to start finish welding the gussets up. In the mean time I scored a job. This poor hatch needs a cage.
Other than that I've been busy plugging away at the hatch.
Once that's buttoned up I'll be back to the sedan. I haven't narrowed down a seat or steering wheel yet. I'd like fixed back and preferably under $500 for a single seat. I'm leaning towards a kirkey 47 but I'm open to suggestions.
A bit of an update for you guys. I finished up welding the gussets in the car today. I still have a main hoop gusset and rear X gusset to add but that's after the tunnel is in place. My mig skills are slowly growing so the gussets came out pretty decent.
After sitting in a set of bride low maxes I tossed the kirkey idea right out of the window. The kirkey fits me better shoulder wise but everywhere else the Bride is so much nicer. Im getting a stellar deal because I'm getting my roomate some recaros on the same order. I'm getting the Bride vios 3 low max.
Im not 100% on the steering wheel but I really like sabelts line up. Matching harnesses would be sweet.
The 240's cage is also done. I'm just waiting on payment and pickup so I can snag my seats.
By the way, I think if you made a modification, you could get your diy dimple die to work better. I think the issue is the pipe is too thin, and doesn't match the angle on the socket. Real dimple dies are machined to match. If you got a thicker tube as the receiving end of the die, and ground a bevel or chamfer to more closely match the socket, I bet it would work. See my chicken scratch paint sketch for reference. If you had access to a lathe, this would be even easier to make. I need a lathe. Until then I have a set of 4 dies from Trick tools that I like a lot.
09-15-2016, 08:34 PM
