u guys know anyone that makes a decent f-body 25.x cage kit ?
wolfe makes one but its over 5 grand, any others?

normally id buy the tubing and bend/build it myself as seen below, but unfortunatly i no longer have the ability to do so

 

Very few "kits" unless you're building a complete tube chassis car. Kits are the cheap part. Putting it all together is expensive because it's time consuming. Generally, you buy the build plans from SFI and build your own. The plans are only $35. They tell you what tube specification needs to go in each location. Actual position varies from car to car so nothing is 100% specific.

How fast do you plan on going? You don't need a 25.x certification until you get below 8.50. A basic MS cage will certify to 8.50. Below 7.50 and it needs to be all CM tubing.

Probably be a lot easier and cheaper to buy a roller with a 25.x certification and building one.

With an OEM car with basic modifications, 25.5 is used and is good to 7.50. A unibody car with modified floor and firewall needs 25.3 and is good to 6.50. Everything else is for a full tube chassis car.

Adding in just a funny car cage for a 9+ second car does add to the driver's safety but isn't required for a certification at those speeds plus it adds weight to the car and makes it a lot harder to get in and out of.

www.sfifoundation.com

 

building a x275 car so small tires and high speeds i want the 25.5

the chance i finding a roller anywere around were i live is very very very small.

and unfortunatly i no longer have the ability to bend my own cage tubing so i have to buy some sort of pre bent kit

 

$5k isnt bad for a kit...but id recommend only chromemoly for the weight and strength.

As bad as it sounds...if you cannot afford a $5-10k chassis/cage...you shouldnt even try to run X. Every chassis guy in MD and PA DE charges $2500+ for a good 8.50 cage...and then another $2500++ to make it a 25.5

 

bingo. you should be able to have one put in for around $5k. i believe that is around $1500-2000 in tubing. (that number is in my head but im not sure)
a year or so back, the cm tubing was nearly the same price as mild steel. you could do a mild steel cage with a mig, but it will weigh more since the tubing would have to be thicker. basically, half or most of the cost of the cage is the labor to put it in. a $5k cage is just a small part of a x275 car. there has been a few rollers for sale recently, you might come out ahead picking one of those up?

 

A couple things for note:
- In a full tube chassis car, CM is 100# lighter than MS. - Meaning with a lesser chassis/amount of tubing the "weight savings" is even less. The material itself is not lighter, you're simply allowed to run a thinner wall thickness thus it can be a little lighter.
- CM is has a higher tensile strength than MS, thus the "stronger" conotation. When you go to the allowed smaller wall thickness it is actually an almost tensile strength to the heavier wall MS(the NHRA/SFI rule books even state equivalent), but in turn has a higher tare rate, thus is more prone to fatigue over time and crack/break when stressed beyond it's design.
- NHRA is the only motorsport which requires CM at higher level classes. SCCA, off-road/baja circuits, pull-tractors, monster trucks, etc are all opposite the NHRA, requiring MS in higher level classes because of the likelyhood of mulitple impact crashes(roll-overs, collisions with other vehicles, etc) where CM is more prone to break after the intial impact while MS will simply bend further.
- The basic reason for NHRA to require CM is to require TIG welding, thus enabling inspectors to simply visually verify weld quality/penetration. In fact though, CM does not need to be TIG welded, in fact the aero industry almost exclusively uses CM & just MIG welds it.

Having been through a nasty crash with an OL10.5 car, and having done some pretty intensive after crash inspections on several cars, I personally will not run thinner wall CM in place of MS, in fact I won't run CM. My camaro has all the appropriate tubing to be 25.2/25.3, but is 25.4 because I used .120 wall DOM MS. - One more reason the NHRA can kiss my ....







All that aside, I haven't seen much in the line of 25.x "kits", but since I do my own stuff I haven't looked much. $3-5k will get you a 25.5 chassis built in your car from a reputable shop, thus $5k for a kit would be very high.

 

i cant find anything in my area well reasonable distance, otherwise i would just pick up a roller

just for the hell of it im going to have it priced out to have it done for me at some shops, but id much rather do it myself if i can get my hands on a bender/dies for not to much money

ive installed some cage kits before when customers would bring them and ive never really liked the kits,i much rather bend up the tubing and make my own

 

A bender is cheap. A good selection of dies can be costly. If you're only building one car, buying a bender and selection of dies may not justify having a shop build it. You'll also use up a lot more tubing making the chassis than you expect to need.

 

he's right, x275 requires deep pockets to be competitive.(not sure about your area, but around here it does) here locally you can get a good 25.5 cage put in for around 6k.

 

if the class comes here ill be covered , building a 434ci afr headed engine with twin 66mm turbos, should deffinatly get the job done.
already have some of the parts comming for it first purchase was a virgin unfinished gm tall deck rocket block but im going to get a diff block and sell off the rocket block

 

Just for note, most shops only have 3 or 4 different main hoop's that they use between multiple cars. - I've yet to see a kit that really "fit" like a good custom job.

That said, I'm ****-retentive about tucking a cage in, thus why I do my own work....