wlfpkrcn

Hi guys,

Here are some pics of my cage in progress. My brother an I are building it with a Pro Tools 105 tubing bender and their cage software. The bender is working much better after we welded it together to decrease the flexing. The only thing that has not come out the way I wanted is the front down bars. This is our first attempt at building a cage. Let me know what you think.

Eric

Speed Raycer

Any pics of how the halo is set up? Why did you decide on the Halo vs. full length downbars?

wlfpkrcn

We thought it would be easier to make and install. The next cage we do will be full length bars. Obviously with the halo we could not get the contact we wanted with staying close to the A pillar. It would have been a thin angle at the halo

Flynbryn

Here is mine. It is fresh out of the fab shop last week. It is constructed out of 1.5" .120 wall DOM. The car is being built to eventually run in NASA Performance Touring (PTS) after TTs this season. The goal is HPDE at CA Speedway in March. I took some ideas for the design (lower X brace) from the pics I've seen in this thread of FCs.
Since there are no rules on attachment points in this class the lower door bars are welded to the door sills and the Halo and front down tubes are also attached. It goes through the firewall to the shock towers to.

Flynbryn

The aluminum rear firewall to cover the fuel cell came out pretty trick. It is three pieces all dzus'd in for easy access. I'll take some smaller pics of that later. Everything except the cage and rear firewall has been done by me and my 6 year old son Dylan. That includes wide body kit, all the prep, body work, seam welding, All new wiring, fuel system, Wildwood pedals and MC, and the fuel cell, the well it fits into and alot of other stuf I can't even remember! Hopefully it will go to paint at the the end of the month. We took a perfectly good T2 w/400 RWHP and all AWR suspension, started the week of Thanksgiving and we've gotten this far. Well back to work for now.

cagedruss

I am glad to see the rear lower "X" tying in the main hoop to the rear. I have been doing that in RX7 for a few years. Really think that gives the main a healthy foundation for a side impact on the drivers side down low plus really stiffen the chassis up. Very clean! Thanks for posting!

Synaptic 3

'93 Work in progress.
Synaptic3.com

Synaptic 3

04 WRX Open class car

cpa7man

iTrader: (2)

Very nice, basically turned it into a tube frame car. Excuse my ignorance but what is that by the shock towers, some sort of dampening devices?
Where will that beast run NASA?

cagedruss

its the factory mounting locations for the top of the rear shock mounts. They are called towers because the are similar to a tower when looking at them from the shock/strut side.

Nice job!
Russ

Black91n/a

It's a pushrod suspension, like a formula car.

EProdRx7

I understand the desire to add rockers to the system and create adjustability in the ratio but why mount then so high in the chassis? Seems to me that the CG would suffer with them up there. Nice job though. I'm thinking NASA Super Mod.

DamonB

The motion ratio appears to be stock as the bellcranks look 1:1.

Only reason I can see to do this is to gain room inside the rear fenders for wiiiiiide tires. The coilover units are mounted sensibly in this case. The only other pushrod FD rear suspension I've seen was stupidly done in that regard.

Looks like an interesting project.

EProdRx7

Ok I hadn't thought of tire room. Those look to be very short shocks mayby a 1.5:1 ratio on the rocker? Regarless it is a dome scratcher and very nicely done.

Synaptic 3

The pushrod setup was done for a few reasons. The biggest reason is I'm running 335/18's in the rear and wasn't quite enough room for everything. I'm also doing a lot of research on race suspensions so this was kind of a hands on experiment to test what I'm studying. The whole rear will have a huge range of adjustment as there will be a couple more atachment points on the bellcranks for the rods and the shock eyes. Right now they are 1:1 where they sit. The rods also has multiple points on the upper arm. Is all this necessary? No, of course not. Like I said, I'm doing it to learn because it's easier for me to comprehend hands-on for other projects I'm working on. The dampers are mounted high because it was difficult to find a low place to put them. Not a heck of a lot of room around the subframe are underneath. The dampers are small, so it doesn't do too much to the CG. Not optimal, but it works for a 2150 LB car. Here is the upper control arm with pushrod pickup points if anyone's interested in seeing, and thanks for the compliments and interest. It's a long project when tryin got run a business too! Btw, anyone got a suggestion for fenders or bolt on flares for the front?

DamonB

^ You not running any sort of bearing inside the bellcrank pivots?

I think you should start your own thread in the Race section about your project. I'm sure many would like to hear more and then when we ask questions about it we won't be off topic!

Synaptic 3

I'll probably start a thread about it when it's a little further along, but this will be the last post on here since you asked about the bearings. I'm using a hardened Oilite plain bearing with precision ground shoulder bolts. A plain bearing will take more of a beating than a ball or roller bearing. It's a light car heavily sprung and valved, so I didn't want to take a chance.

-Aaron

Black91n/a

Good call, a plain bearing is much better suited for that application. Ball and roller bearings work best when there's actual rotation going on, not just a little bit of movement back and forth.

wlfpkrcn

Some more progress...








E

wlfpkrcn

Here is some pics of my brother in laws second gen IT car that will be used for enduros. This cage was built at a local race shop.

DamonB

That's why needle bearings were invented

Black91n/a

The point is for low motion, high load applications such as this a plain bearing is the proper thing to use. Rolling contact bearings, whether it be ball, roller or needle or whatever else are better suited when there's constant rotation.

jgrewe

iTrader: (1)

What about u-joints? They don't spin all the way around and they are full of needle bearings. Lets start a new thread if there is a bunch of info worth talking about.

wlfpkrcn

We finally got the right side of the car done. Everything is triangulated. Today we finished the boxes on the front down bars, petty, bar, door bars. support bar to strut tower from the front down bars, and a tube from the strut tower to the frame at the sway bar mount.

cagedruss

Finished this car last last week, would like to thank the owner for being understanding on the length of time it took me to finish it. Been really busy and it was put on the back burner.

Foot box each side has 2 forward tubes to one pad on the bulkhead


Small gusset added to help support A-pillar


Pic of final fitting of passenger door bar, thanks to Peter for the extra help last week.


A-pillar bar


Driver's door bar into the door skin


Gusset for A-pillar to main hoop


Rest of the shots are on the photo link below!