Ok, so right about the time I finally made up my mind to buy a late model 993 or 996 for the street and setup my street/De RSA for track only, my insurance company sends me my new policy which has a recent addendum: "competition is defined as events not open to the public which improve or demonstrate driver skill"...what a load of crap...

While my 944spec is not covered on the track, and I always assumed that anything under a total loss of my rsa would be on my ticket, this was the nail in the coffin. (Plus the idea of bunching up a real nice, relativily rare car was needling me anyway.) So...

I just bought a GP white 93 rsa that had a light engine fire, 20K original miles, was stripped, repainted and still in mostly bits, with a salvage title. A Kit really. Most everything is there, and it does run, but some work is still needed. It would take a lot of work and a bundle of money to return it to stock since it's stripped and missing key parts and trim important for a street car, but saves me the energy of stripping out for a race car, and I don't feel too bad about messing with the originality of it since it's a salvage.

So I am looking to build a track only car, modeled around the C4 RS Lightweight: http://rpmsportscars.com/pics/1990C4RSLightweight6.jpg Obviously with 2wd only, but with the plastic tail, plex windows, stripped interior, cup suspension, exhaust etc...basically all the stuff I was going to do to my street car. So some questions:

Does anyone know anyone that does a good knockoff of the Matter cage? (in dom steel of course) The car is missing a sunroof panel (yea I know it's a bummer it has one, but I'll get it sealed up) but in the meantime is the 964 sunroof the same as any old 911 sunroof? just to fill the hole for now? I'm running full monoballs, bilstein/H&R turbo springs and cup sways on my street car and love it, but it is a bit soft for a full blown race car, anyone have experience with the H&R RS cup suspension kit?

I'll post some pics as things develop.

Oh, my 944 spec car is for sale if anyone needs a really nice one, pm me.

thanks, I can't wait

 

IIRC, the Heigo cages have been mentioned previously.
There was also an authentic Matter cage for sale a few weeks ago too IIRC.
I suppose you could always have a 'duplicate' fabricated as well.

 

I saw the car you're talking about on eBay. I thought it looked like a good deal.

 

porsport.com has an original Matter cage for sale.

 

He told me he allready sold it. The full cage anyways. I'd love to know what he got for it.

 

Who cares about a Matter cage? Have a custom one built which can be better than the factory Matter one if done correctly.

 

Why not replace the entire roof with a new non-sunroof fiberglass (or carbon-$$$-fiber) one!

 

Getty sells a fiberglass sunroof insert; I have one in my 90 C2. The fit is not great, but OK for a track car.

 

Mark, yep that was the one, I thought long and hard about it, most of the cars I've done in the past were well worn and needed as much cleaning up and referb as upgrading, so I'm hoping this one will be a bit different.

I have to admit watching Geoffrey put together his car was inspiring, something about a body in white is too cool. (So if/when you hear me complaining that this turned into a money pit you know who to blame...)

I was looking to the matter cage for design/baseplate locations, as the cars I have seen look really nice and they have a good fitment with the dash. This will be a custom cage.

Kurt, I saw the getty piece, but I was thinking about just welding a factory panel in place ( Gary must have a bit more ca$h than me...)

The car also has a 993 3.6 biplane tail (the little one with the 3rd brake not the 3.8 wing) so I was going with the all glass rs america tail. Anyone have any performance advantage of the larger tails?

 

"I have to admit watching Geoffrey put together his car was inspiring, something about a body in white is too cool. (So if/when you hear me complaining that this turned into a money pit you know who to blame...)"

I'm glad I have such a positive effect...If you need some pictures on the cage design, let me know and I'll take some for you.

I would not weld a sunroof panel in the center of the roof unless you are very, very good at welding and not warping the entire roof. I would recommend finding a solid section and replacing the entire roof. Fiberglass is an option, but then you need to run with wrist restraints if you race in PCA.

 

Forget about Matter, their business went down some years ago and I think it's bettter to buy a new one or make custom one instead of buying a second hand cage. You never know what it has been through.

 

Re: sunroof


Removing the sunroof and welding in a panel is an option and does save weight but you should be aware the roof panel on sunroof equipped cars weighs a lot more than that of sunroof less cars.

I enquired about CF and fiberglass panels but was told the roof panel is important for shell stiffness and repacement panels in CF/fiberglass just don't work in that respect.

Good luck with the project. In your posistion I'd concentrate on getting the shell right to get the weight down. I'd like to strip mine down to the shell, have it dipped, seam welded and a cage welded in but it's a hill of money to do it because of the labour in stripping and then rebuilding the car.

 

The Matter cages are some of the best fitting you can find. porsports was NOS he wanted a small fortune for it. I agree though w/comments above that you can have a custom cage built that's better for probably less $$. The heilgo cages are v.nice as well. FVD sell's here in US.

 

I have read that the welds can fail in a short time due to the body flexing around them.

I was hopeful that a full weld-in cage would prevent such movement, but I was wrong. I have my F/G panel sealed with RTV, but it still creaks and groans like crazy.

If I were to do it over again, I would follow the advice here and weld on an entrire roof section from a non-sunroof car. I would guess this would be a hard item to locate in the US, though...

 

My post isn't entirely clear.

The entire roof panel in a sunroof car is a lot heavier than the entire roof panel of a non sun roof car.
Fitting an entire roof panel in CF or fiberglass is apparently a bad idea due to loss of shell stiffness.
As you say the best answer is to fit an entire roof panel from a non sunroof car. It's just not that cheap to do.