Cage progress

We took the car over to another friend's shop to do most of the cage fabrication since it is about triple the size of my garage, and he has all the proper tools too. Thanks again! The main hoop fits very snug, which is great. Looks like the whole cage will fit very well, tight against the A and B pillars. A few things are tacked into place and we are fitting more tubes day by day. It's a slow process because the fit of each pipe has to be close to perfect, and the tube junctions can be pretty complex in a few spots. My friend that's helping me is doing a great job though, he has a lot more patience than I do. It's also nice that he can work on it all day everyday since he's out of work right now :)

Prep for the Cage

The cage kit came a few days ago from Kirk Racing. It's basically the main hoop with a few pieces tacked together, then the rest is just a bunch of tubes (about 150lbs worth). We'll have to notch all of them ourselves, oh well. I thought I would get a little more for close to $800. I bought a tube notcher at Harbor Freight for about $40, so it shouldn't be too bad.

My buddy and I ripped out the dashboard in preparation for the dash bar install. I can pretty much guarantee that the dash won't ever be inside the car again...I think it would be a huge pain to try and fit it back in. I will plan on making a new dash after I buy an aftermarket gauge cluster.

Next we have to remove all the paint where the cage points will mount and plan the layout of each piece. I'm really glad i already cut the roof off, I have no idea how we could fully weld the cage otherwise.

Lexan windows installed

The rear lexan windows are finally in, it was a lot more work than I tough it would be. I first had to weld on a bunch of "anchor nuts" (thanks www.aircraftspruce.com !) to the window channel which proved difficult. The nuts have tabs on them, but the steel was very thin and hard to weld correctly. I bought a 4x8 sheet of 1/8" Lexan from Silver State plastics for about $100. 4x8 is plenty to do all 4 windows. After making a template out of cardboard, I used a router to cut the Lexan and a belt sander to smooth out the cuts. A little black paint around the edges finished up the project nicely.

I'm a little burnt out on doing the windows for now, but the fronts will have to be done as well, just for some shred of comfort when driving to the track in cold weather. Since I used anchor nuts, I can unscrew a few bolts and remove the window completely for track days if the club doesn't allow fixed windows.