I'm gutting out my 91 Z28 and I'm a decent welder. Is the install of a 10 pt roll cage terribly hard or would I be better off going to a seasoned shop here in Ky to have one installed?
- Thats how my car launched on the 1/4 before the UMI rear suspension upgrades. Hense the reason for needing a roll cage now. I got kicked off the track. Whoops

 

Getting a kit is the first step. The kits are cheap. Installing them is what costs money. No kit is a simple direct weld in job. Tubes need to be cut to length and notched. You'll need a MIG or a TIG welder. Arc and gas welding isn't allowed.

How hard it is to put in depends on how much interior needs to be removed from the car. Plates need to be formed and welded to the floor so that the tubes can be welded to the plates.

If you send it to a chassis shop, estimate $100-$150 per point to install a cage plus materials. The more interior that needs to be removed, the higher the cost can go.

I put a Jegs kit into my car. At least it started as a Jegs kit. It was a 12 point spec'd roll cage. I never installed the forward tubes through the firewall so there were only 10 points. The difference between a 10 point kit and the 12 point kit is that the 12 point kit also includes a knee bar which joins the a-pillar bars across the dash area and includes the extra tubes to make X-bars for the doors. I added a sill bar along the inside of the rockers joining the main hoop to the a-pillar bars at the bottom. My 2 rear bars originally went to the rear hump above the fuel tank area. This winter I did a back half on my car and now have 4 main bars going to the back frame rails and 2 other reinforcing bars near the front of the frame rails.

Technically my cage is now a 14 point and I still don't have the tubes going through the firewall although I do have some tubes going from the front of the strut towers down to the front of the frame rails.

 

I put an S&W 10 point cage with swing out side bars in my car.

I don't have a shop so it was done in the yard with car sitting dead level, true and square on jackstands.

From starting of taking interior out, to finishing put the interior back in after the cage was in... It took me 3 mo.

Now remember I was only working on it 2 to 4 hours a day and no amount of time on days it rained.

Installing the cage wasn't really hard.. Just takes alot of time to do it.

You'll need something to cut the bars with and a hacksaw won't do it lol. I used a miter saw with a steel cutting blade in it.

Then you'll need something to fish mouth/notch the bars with. I used a 4.5" angle grinder

Mig welder and sheilding gas
Hammer
Tape measure
Level
Square

Here's pictures of mine front start to finish.. 2 albums with 2 pages of pics in each album

http://rides.webshots.com/album/535313828Bdmlrh

and

http://rides.webshots.com/album/547435884gnIcmV

Over look the sloppy welding on alot of the pics in 1st album.. My idea was to flux cvore tack weld everything inplace then call a pro out to mig weld it fully.. Turned out the welders wanted way too much to do the work, so I just bought a mig welder, ground the sloppy flux welds down and mig'ed it all myself

 

Thanks for the advise.