im thinking about covering a roll cage in leather to match the leather seats. i've seen it done once, but it was in a Ruf built porsche, and a few years ago

what do you think about, good idea or not? any pics of it done in a third gen?

 

i think it would be cool to match it with the interior, on top of that it would look better to the eye to see the same material on the roll cage to blend in with the surrounding interior. just my 2 pennies.

 

yes and no.....since when did we decide on a cage?

 

with the on going quest to go faster in the coming year or so, eventually i am going to need one to race on the track.

i really dont want a cage in the car, but there are always trade offs when wanting to go fast.

im just trying to think of a way to make it look nice and blend in with the interior. since im working on some interior mods this winter, a cage would be easy to install now.

anyone have any ideas how to make a cage look good?

 

I think the leather idea would be a neat clean custom touch to help it blend in. The only drawback would be how technical the track you run is on the subject. Per rules any area of the cage that you "MAY" come in contact with must be covered by foam. But if it's like most tracks and your not breaking the sound barrier this little detail is often over looked. Once you get into the speed where you need to be licsenced is when little things become an issue. They also state that you must be able to see the welded joints and there can be no grinding or filler on the joints either. Our S-10 project the kid that started building it was just going for the pro-street look and had all the joints covered with bondo and smoothed. Once we had all the bondo chipped and sanded off it was easy to see why-the guy was a manager at Duffies and think this was the first time he ever used a welder. There were ever bit as bad as most muffler shops welding jobs.

 

mine should be finished very shortly pat....you can get some ideas then.

 

sweet, sounds good

 

yeah no tracks around here are very strict at all. the only one that is, is Norwalk. heck, i ran all season with slicks and no driveshaft loop
more then likely if i decide to cover it in leather, there will be a thin layer of foam to make it look smoother. how much foam is required?

does anyone know if chromoly can be polished?

 

Okay these are out of my IHRA rule book under the general information.
Anytime a roll bar/cage is installed it must have a padded headrest within 4" of the drivers helmet to prevent whipflash. It later states that a factory seat with a headrest is okay.
You cannot chrome a cage in any vehicle going 7.99 or quicker
Adequate padding should permit approx. 1/4" of compression
Hoop must extend 3" above drivers head wearing a helmet in a normal driving position. This is not possible with our cars, I have my hoop touching the headliner, my seat is reclined as far as it can go with the rear bar between the hoop in a 4th gen seat and my helmet is above the hoop by 1". Luckily this car had a sunroof and i have to kinda tilt my head a little so the helmet will stick up into this recessed area. I'm only 5'10" too!
Side bar must be included on drivers side and pass mid point between elbow and shoulder in the seated position.
For our cars being a uni-body the bar/cage must tie into 6"x6"x1/8" plates on top of and below floor boards with a minimum of 4 3/8" bolts and nuts. Basically making a floorbaord sandwich with these steel plates.
Welding may be performed on MS (mild steel) tubing with a MIG or TIG welder
Welds must be free of of sag and porisity. Any grinding of welds is prohibited.
Rollbar must have adequate padding anywhere the drivers helmet may come in contact while in the driving position.

Hope this helps. This is just the basics of some of the guidlines, they have pages of all the necessaries for the rollbar/cage alone that you'd be better off just getting the rule book.

 

thanks, it does help. i think i am gonna go ahead and get a rule book. i had no idea a roll cage was this involved

while wearing a helmet in my car, the helmet touches the t-tops the whole time. i thought a roll cage would be an easy project, bend some pipe, and make it look nice. but as i look into it more and more, everything has to be a certain way to be legal. its becoming a big PITA real quick.

has anyone ever had a track measure where the side bars are located? is that a very strict rule, or is it over looked a lot?

remember i am not looking at running 8 seconds. i just dont want to be kicked off all the tracks running 11's with no cage

 

Dont let it intimidate you, the cage is really simple to say the least. Like you said, your not having to be certified for going crazy fast. If you buy a kit cage, the bars will be the correct wall thickness and size, you just have to cut to length and make'em fit. If your buying raw tubing, then yes get a book since it will give you tubing sizes per each spot of the cage as well as wall thickness per spot. I've never been sonic tested for wall thickness nor have I ever seen anybody get called on their cages, but that's not saying it's never happened. If your running 11.49 or faster that's when they say a 6 point roll bar is manditory. If your running 11.50 then you dont have to have one.
Definately one of these things that it sounds worse than it really is!!

 

have to agree....i'm putting it in my car more for strength then anything. i doubt you'll be at too many events where the tech even cares.

as far as polishing you can polish cm, your looking at alot of money though. i was upwards of 1400 with my own when i decided to leave out the extra costs of polishing. stick with ms and save the money.

 

I painted my cage metallic black, and it blends in quite nicely with the black/charcoal interior:

 

i finally priced out moly tubing today......

i think i am gonna go with mild steal. after laying underneath the dash for 4 hours today making everything fit, i've decided a polished cage would stand out WAY to much. im trying to stay away from a painted cage simply because it would be hard to touch up in the car.

 

here is a link to my cage i still don't have my leather on it yet..


http://www.team3rdgen.com/modules.ph...view_photo.php

and this one ...had to do some extra work on the pass side rear bar to make it stronger where it mounts to the floor soo the T-TOPS would still fit...



http://www.team3rdgen.com/modules.ph...view_photo.php

 

sent you a pm

 

Who makes that cage? I like the way that fits in that car and i'm currently shopping around for one just like it!

Mike

 

dont use paint... use a epoxy enamel ( i think thats what its called)

its this really hard paint stuff that doesnt wear easily... so the areas where you rub it over and over getting in and out of the car (usually around the door bar) dont wear out and have to be touched up..... ive seen it in gloss black, semigloss black, gray and flat black... you'd have to search online to find it... eastwood might carry it i donno.. i only know about it because they were talking about it in the shop one day.... i just accepted the fact that the paint wears off..

as for what color, i think gloss black stands out too much in a car.... but semigloss is nice..
on a hardtop car, some people do it to match the headliner/interior and it doesnt look too bad either...
it usually doesnt look that nice when its matched to the same color as the outside of the car, but there are exceptions of course.

 

finally got it in pat....yeah stay away from cm....very expensive.

 

Kandied we need more pictures of the cage and seats!:hail: What color is the cage painted? Car looks amazing keep up the awesome work!

 

looks very nice Jeff. i was quoted about twice as much for CM than mild steel.

do you have the specs on the tubing? like the diameter and wall thickness?

also do you happen to have a pic where it meets the floor behind the front seats? can you still use the back seat?

 

yes it was definately twice the price....i don't have the specs on the tubing but i will get that as i didn't think about it. all that mattered to me was it being legal and working right.

yes i can still use the back seats if i wanted to however you know that i don't plan too. if i can't finish my setup by february though i will have to pick up a rear black leather 4thgen setup to use it. if your willing to climb through the mess though you can use it no problem once your in.

once the interior is finished i will have alot of pictures, i just wanted to take a few just to show everyone how it's coming along for fun. the cage is actually painted close to a med-dark graphite color it's metallic and will be the same color used on some of my fiberglass interior as well as my paint scheme. i left it up to the fabricator to pick the color and it turned out quite nicely. unfortunately it is one of those things that looks much better in person.

 

yeah thats what i meant, if you had a back seat

thats good news, even though the back seat hardly gets used, i dont want to lose all chances to use it


keep us posted as you get more done, im very interested to see the final product!!

 

man those are nice seat what type of seats are those.

 

corbeau trs leather....

http://www.soloracer.com/trsleather.html