porschefig

Do you think this winters work will be enough to offset the weight of a cage? Still going to be under 2300 lbs next season?

Awesome work as always!

MPD47

Man, that photo makes me feel like I'm having Deja Vu!

Keep us updated

95ONE

Indeed it truly is. But I've removed so much of everything else, every pound further is increasingly difficult. But these fenders do serve another purpose. To fit 315-345 tires in the rear.

But this isn't the half of it. 20 more lbs of metal off the rear is getting removed. swapping out steel roof for fiberglass one. Will be removing another 70lbs off the nose. Cage should be offset with about 20-30lbs lighter than 2300 even with cage. But truly time will tell.

95ONE

Here are a few more pics of what I did today. Rear metal part weighed in at 33lbs.

HansB

Bruce, interesting project. Makes me want to buy another tub and do all the cutting, grinding and sawing again. You never quite get it right the first time.

Looking at my car with cage again now, there are a number of areas where the cage really takes over the strenght of the chassis. Once you start fitting the cage in, you notice areas where you would want reinforcement, or could take stuff away.

Is your cage taking care of the rear suspension pickup points? Are you going to delete the support bracket of the gearbox? I would. What are you going to do about the rear ride height and the height of the gearbox? I have lots of troubles with the angle of the driveshafts, eating away the CV joints.

How do you keep your rear rugged enough? If you are going to race the car, you will have people running into you? Also I notice that the shape of the rear is defined by the remainder of the hatch support. Are you going to keep this?

gt37vgt

another tub??? Hans your sick... perhaps you need a trip to Australia?
have your got the X brace across the underside? to reduce floor shuffle ?

95ONE

Hans, that is spoken like a man with real experience. All your questions are those we've run into with other cars. We've overbuilt many of the cages adding un-neccessary weight. and then found some weak points later. I don't think I'll get even close to 100% correct. But I will definitely try. Excellent eye on the pics.
Yes. I'm getting rid of the brace. I am adding about 15lbs of steel back to the rear as a bumper bar / brace beam to take care of the strength issue you asked about.
It does sound like you've run into some 944 specific issues I could learn from.

The Cage is taking care of the suspension point strength that I cut away. - and the metal that was there really wasn't keeping it near as strong as the cage will. I will have a few well placed 1" chromolly bars to to final strengthening of the cage/body structure. - WRC Rally style stuff, but not quite as extreme. If you look up some Rally cages you will see tons of interesting placements of the tubes.

on another note. I'm adding the expanding foam into the frame once I am done welding which will increase the stiffness of the stock frame a ridiculous amount. (changed plans. not doing this)

Yes, I kept the rear hatch as something to define where things need to go, and yes, I'm actually going to keep it in place. The steel braces are temporary though and an aluminum set will go in it's place. Then very thin aluminum will finish off the enclosure. Bead rolled for strength.

blown 944

ummm...

you are making me feel trivial.

hats off..you are really knocking it out of the park

DanR

You have some ***** and bravery with a cutting tool, I will give you that. Looks really impressive!

95ONE

That holds more truth than you know. cutting is fast and easy. Well, knowing where to cut helps. But its the putting it together properly with a slight artistic touch is where all the work and time are. And a main reason so many projects don't finish. I will basically be doing the cage twice. once with cheaper steel exhaust pipe with lots of build up and tear down. Then the final in chromoly. If I screw up just two bends, I could be throwing away around $100. I'm sure another reason you don't see many TIG welded chromoly cages. Min cost around $2700.

EDIT: Class rules in NASA doesn't allow for smaller tubing.. no weight savings.. So keeping with DOM steel. unfortunately

Ian Carr

love the laser blue V70R in the back ground LOL

looks great man. I have been debating really hard if i should go the same route. I really want to pull the whole front end off like you did, custom tube frame supports, dry sump the motor and mount it verticle. make a custom header with the turbo right there.. whole 9 yards

Look forward to updates.. hope this doesn't fall of like GUNs project did (YEAH I AM CALLING YOU OUT GUNS) hahahah

A.Wayne

Hey , what happened to your car ? the back is missing ...........................


Anyway , i would have thought it best to have a cage in place or the chassis jigged before cutting stuff away .......................

95ONE

Balancing act. But it seems there is still plenty of steel left in the A,B, and C pillars to keep it straight. Besides the fact that there is nothing in the car left but the frame itself. And I am leaving some metal in there until the Cage is installed. Wheel wells and some lower skirting is still to be removed.

The complete front and rear of the car are last on the build sheet. The cage is the next step. I've got to get some chromoly in here. I've done a light search. Cheap place out of Michigan that sells it for $5.50/ft. One place I called here in town wanted $7.95 per foot. I need to start calling today. (as stated earlier - ended up deciding on Mild Steel)

95ONE

You're modest. I know you can handle any of this.

95ONE

More work yesterday and today. Can't find the damn camera though.

I welded every seam in front of the firewall. Cage will take care of the rest. maybe a seem or two in other places.
First used sand. Then Soda. Neither one were that quick. Ended up using Wire wheels and such. Sound deadening still caught fire about 15 times. (opposite sides and things)
Just couldnt work hard enough to get the metal completely clean in front of and behind and in-between. So I just stayed prepared for fire. - Car is just a shell anyway. not even 1 wire left. WHICH by the way weighed in another 20lbs. (Fuse box and assorted wiring to front and rear mostly not needed anymore) Might put back 5.

Also got in my 996 twin turbo monoblocks today. Compared them to the 993 Twin turbos. Slightly smaller cast. 2lbs lighter. But they're a stronger casting with the same pistons and pad. Less is definately more. -- I would post pics but I still have to find the camera.

I'm going to start welding up some stuff on the rear of the car. I still haven't gotten the chromoly in. I still haven't ordered the fiberglass roof and rear fiberglass license area. (basically $1500 in parts and tubing)

This might take a while. EDIT: HA! a while... Just got the rear fiberglass piece in from lindsey Sept 8th? yeah.. it took a while.. Fiberglass Roof panel still isn't ordered.