928 Racers...roll cage cost ???s
 

For all you 928'ers that have put roll cages in your car (full cages SCCA or other spec)...what was the ball park cost to have this done?

I'm in the process of getting the cage for my track car and so far have saved quite a bit by working with Ken O and his fabricator to get the pipe and bend it. Ken's cage is done and will serve as the template for mine and others. At this point, I believe all the pipe is bent and ready to go in...all that is left is to final trim each piece and notch accordingly, tack it in, and then complete the welds.

I'm most curious about the hours required to get the pipe in, tacked, and then welded...?...any ideas? any ideas on what a good welder should charger per hour to do this.?

Thanks in advance,

Actually having done this myself......"all that is left is to final trim each piece and notch accordingly " that takes a LOT of time to get the fit correct. I did enjoy using the hydraulic tubing bender managed to make a few unusable tubes along the way. Figuring out how to make mirror images of compound bends takes a while :) Get it TIG welded and not MIG because you usually get a much better stronger weld that way.

Jim is correct, bending the tubing is the easy part and the final coping can be very time consuming. Having merely cut some tubing to length and bent it is trivial. In my cage I made many trips walking back and forth between a CNC mill and the car to fit tubes, you would think having that machine makes it easy but it doesn't.
The other method I like is a right angle grinder with an aggresive wheel. If you have a pallet or similar block next to your car you can hold tubing down with your foot and have at it with the grinder. Keep a marker handy and hold a tube in place in the car, mark the high spot and toss it on the block and grind a bit. Repeating that a 'few' times with patience can really get things done. That final fitting is the bulk of work that goes into a cage.
You'll want to finish weld some areas before tacking others, there's no simply tacking everything and then leaving it with the welder. The mouting plates on the body are an example of that.
Another decision is what to do with the roof? To weld the tubes at top you have 3 choices:
Cut access holes.
Remove the entire roof.
Leave tubing farther away.

TIG welding is certainly the way to go but I found areas on the body that were difficult and needed to be MIGed in my case, namely the footwell plates, it's rather thin there.

I opted to remove just the roof skin drilling out all the perimeter spot welds since I wanted the cage as high as possible :) AND GOOD WELDS !!

Tom,

Just got off the phone with John Davis. $1500 in labor for Ken's cage.

Yep...that is what Ken told me...I was just trying to gauge whether to just go ahead...or if I could save some by doing something else etc etc...from the sounds of it...it's probably best to just let them do it...

So ...to modify the question...is about $1800 a decent price for a full cage in a 928? (I have no idea of what a normal cage in any other car costs..let alone the 928.)..

TIA

It would be much more in Socal...

Mine was a bargan at 1200, but its nice, but really average.
did the same basic cage with my old 79, and it was near the same.
I would expect to pay anything up to about $1800. my first cage was good too, but it had some major fit issues. (but i liked the removable bars ) scot has this one now, as we pulled it from my 84 when i was decommish'ed:crying:

Is "decommish'ed " any thing like being driven straight into a concrete wall at 60 MPH ?

Yes, depending on the design.

2k parts and labour. I don't know if it saved me much but I prepped the areas for the pads that the tubing is welded to. The guy who built my cage [Blair Gehnman at GSR suspension in Chilliwack] met with me before hand and showed me where to remove the under coating and paint.
Darrin

Ken's (and soon to be John Davis and Tom Middleton's) cage:

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im289.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im290.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im291.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im292.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im293.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im294.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im295.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im296.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im297.jpg

http://forums.rennlist.com/upload/im298.jpg

Thanks for the pics guys....

Seems the consensus is to go forward..so I will....John is ripping his interior out right now..and I'm working on getting my car to Ken's place to do some plasma cutting and final prep work before it goes in for the cage...looking forward to getting it done..so I can get her back to the shop to start in on the engine work...fun fun fun.. :D

Nice cage design, especially like the detail work of the plates the cage welds to. The reinforcing around the rear shock towers is a good idea as is the boxing at the front hoop mounting point. A couple of ideas we did that came out well are under the mounting points of the front hoop I extended tubing through the floor and welded a pad on.
This gives a place to get a jack under and you can quickly lift one side of the car up to change tires or put it on stands. My side Nascar door braces I made the upper one removable so It's easier when working under the dash. The only thing I would change is the removable bar should use a slip joint of a larger od tube over the smaller one.
I added braces running through the firewall to the shock towers and down to the tunnel but this makes you ineligible for production classes, ok for Gt and SP . I would like to run a diagonal from the pass side roof down to the intersection at the tunnel but want keep my options open for putting in a second seat.
Darrin

I need a track car (like a hole in the head really). This is a great thread.

Keep on keepin' on Tom!