well, i smacked the wall at road atlanta sunday. pouring rain, i was cooling down the car & grip went away on the back straight. nothing too serious, but MAN.....get rid of your side airbags. they hurt a lot worse than the wall.

anyway, i already have seats & harnesses. i think it's time i make this a dedicated track car & put in a cage. i have never had this done before.

the car will probably only ever see DE's, but i can't completely rule out W2W in my future. it looks fun....

i am weighing / costing out my options. there is a bolt-in cage for the boxster from stable energies for like $1500. if i go the custom welded route, what are the options / factors i need to consider?

roughly what should i expect to pay (if i strip the car) for something equivalent to a spec boxster cage?

anything else i should be considering? i really appreciate the help.

crash video will be posted hopefully today with a play-by-play. take care.

 

Have you considered looking for a car already built?

 

There are cages, and there are cages. Personally, I would not bother with a bolt-in, but then I've been accused of being a cage snob. I would expect to spend $3k to $5k for a custom welded-in cage. If you do weld in a cage, make sure it is legal for the class that the car would run in if it were to race. Even if you don't race it, a future buyer would want a legal cage.

 

Take the car where many of the top teams send theirs - Robinson Racing. http://www.robinsonracing.net/
They are the best around. Tell them you want it to be PCA-NASA and SCCA legal. That gives you and any future owner options for where to race.

 

Not sure what you are running, but I got a rough price for my '03 996 at around $3,000 from Robinson Racing. They are up in Cumming in the same office park as Motor Werks Racing. I've had one more than one racer recommend them to me. Historically they are a NASCAR tube frame builder. They did want the dash removed to do the work.

Motor Werks Racing can also do one for you.

 

And while they are at it, yank out the air bags.

 

thanks guys. airbags are definitely coming out. i am dumbstruck by the damage it did to my arm.

 

Guess I had better get mine in ASAP

 

below pic is my arm. 100% of the damage was the side airbag. if it wasn't installed, i wouldn't have a scratch on me.

also, watch the video at this link & tell me what an airbag would do to you if it caught the bottom of your helmet.....

 

Ouch! I saw a 911 put on its lid Saturday at 10A in the dry, too. No cage. Give Goldcrest a holler and see what they say, they should be back in the shop from Detroit.

 

Sorry to hear that you hit the wall. I tried to come by your car and see you to compare notes over the weekend, but never could find you with your car.

Anyway, I am considering just getting an SCCA Solo I legal roll bar installed in place of the stock roll bars with B-K extension that I am running now. As I understand, you can then run time trals and hill climb events. The Dragon hillclimb is coming up at the end of June, and that is all they said that I would need to do to run my Boxster there.

Once you put a cage in it, it would probably be unsafe to drive on the street due to the potential of head to side bar and/or front bar contact.

Good luck.

 

^ this.

as the "sport" becomes popular, i see a lot of YAHOO's in advanced group. there are more and more incidents. so, at least for me, even DE, i prefer a full caged car.

 

Sounds like you were lucky to me. I saw an airbag brake a guys arm down in NJ and it caused a compound fracture to boot.

 

i believe it! initially i thought it could possibly be broken. fortunately, i already have some titanium in that arm.

after reading this, i will go the full cage route. i will probably still drive the car to & from the track, so i'll get some of that FIA roll bar padding as well. got a wife & kid now; need to be safe.

Video codec on the fritz; i'll post it when i get it working.

 

Before you start dumping a lot of $ into building a track car, the previous suggestion that you consider finding one already built has a lot of merit.