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Cage costs?

Captain Bondo said:
Have to have had the cage homologated pre-2002 to do that I think.

If you're building one today you need 2 diagonals on the main hoop, FWIW....

Saying the FIA spec is meaningless is about as near-sighted as it gets. Obviously you need to build the cage based on the rules of your class (and some common sense doesn't hurt), but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very good guideline and applies to a pretty broad range of racing classes.
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Or for someone in a position like my brother and I, where we plan to run during HPDEs and just want a safe cage. I know for damn sure that if FIA GrpN cage regs are good enough for a car flying through the woods at high speed, it's good enough for our needs.

Edit: And a note on anyone looking to DIY their cage: We've got almost $2000 invested so far (tubing, bender, die, notcher), and only about half the tubing has been bought and fitted. Not to mention the time spent on it.
 
side intrustion

I've just built the cage for my rally car. (Aussie Cams spec- very close to FIA)

Make sure you have good side intrusion bars, the single bar in the newfoundland regs don't cut it for me as side on into something solid is common.
outside.jpg

Still more to add and probably heavier than needed but it cost me time and materials.
Also a few areas i would like it tighter to the body, but I had to reuse some of the original cage I cut out of the donor car.

Another area I concentrated on was the footwell, to protect the feet from the front wheel trying to enter the occupant area, and stiffen front towers.
LHSFOOTWELLWEB.JPG
 
Karl Buchka said:
Or for someone in a position like my brother and I, where we plan to run during HPDEs and just want a safe cage. I know for damn sure that if FIA GrpN cage regs are good enough for a car flying through the woods at high speed, it's good enough for our needs.
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Yeah exactly.

Also I realized I might be wrong about the date, the homologation date refers to the vehicle homologation date, not the date of the cage maybe...

Homologaiton is only good for 5 years though so technically 240's aren't recognized by the FIA as homologated at all? Dunno how that works. Diagonals parallel to the stays certainly has some practical benefits, but I can see why they're mandating they be parallel to the main hoop now...
 
Captain Bondo said:
Saying the FIA spec is meaningless is about as near-sighted as it gets. Obviously you need to build the cage based on the rules of your class (and some common sense doesn't hurt), but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very good guideline and applies to a pretty broad range of racing classes.
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It is meaningless not because there is something wrong with the specification for FIA cages, it is meaningless because there are 4 very distinct sets of rules for FIA cages which are applicable to different types of motor sport. And those rules have sub divisions.

The cost of a simple FIA compliant roll over hoop isn't going to anywhere near the same price as a a full 10 point Touring car or rally championship cage.
 
Is this for the 245 in the OP's signature? How are you going to make a 245 motorsport compliant? One of the things organisers tend to be pretty hot on with very good reason is the partition of passenger compartment from the area with the fuel tank in. Normally you need to completely close off the bulkhead behind the rear seat, regardless of whether the seat is still in place.

I've seen someone's ankle broken by a flying 10mm spanner in a big motorsport crash. If you use a 245 you're creating an awful lot of work to keep the inevitable tools, wheels etc from flying round the car. Using a 244 would make a lot more sense.
 
As best I can tell, all cage regs for production body-based racing governed by the FIA start with "Article 253 - Safety Equipment", with supplements relating to each individual class.
 
Fivehundred...while I appreciate your concern, reading the Targa Newfoundland rules and requirements would answer your question better than I can on this forum. You only need to "firewall" the rear of the vehicle if you're running an aftermarket fuel cell, which I'm not for this year's event. I plan on having additional bars across the rear compartment for tire and tool strapping, if needed, but also have the use of a support vehicle to shuttle tools around if needed. ie: they won't be in the car. Matter of fact, I'm going to discuss this car with the organizers next week anyway before I fully sink my money into it.

I said "FIA Spec Cage" as a starting point for the discussion. This was meant as a brief and GENERIC description of the type of cage needed, as opposed to some home-made, non-sanctioned, "let's take 'er off roading after school" type of cage. Meaning it needs to be a "REAL" cage.

Thanks for all the input.
 
buerckner said:
Another area I concentrated on was the footwell, to protect the feet from the front wheel trying to enter the occupant area, and stiffen front towers.
LHSFOOTWELLWEB.JPG
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Just curious why you think that's necessary (other than considering you're running a Daihatsu or whatever that thing is -- no offense -- I can't imagine they're very stout).

Granted, this wasn't a rollover, but I was pretty sure that giant rock we hit was going to shove the wheel much further in. We had a knee bar and a stay going from the front hoop to the strut tower the wheel well only intruded about 1" at the corner seam. Besides the broken spindle, all we needed was a new A-arm (we run them boxed). I reused the rear bracket with the big bushing that mounts to the chassis.

This was at least 70 mph at impact. A very good case for why you should not cheap out on tires. (Very long story, some of it is covered in the Showroom Project thread).
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I hate this picture, by the way. I'm just glad it happened early in my racing experience.

Sorry for the thread jack.

And I love the fact that somebody's building a wagon race car. If I was to build another rally car, I would build one. But it would stand out amongst all the Subarus and FWD crap out there and crowds would love it. Cheers.
 
Dakar09 said:
Fivehundred...while I appreciate your concern, reading the Targa Newfoundland rules and requirements would answer your question better than I can on this forum. You only need to "firewall" the rear of the vehicle if you're running an aftermarket fuel cell, which I'm not for this year's event. I plan on having additional bars across the rear compartment for tire and tool strapping, if needed, but also have the use of a support vehicle to shuttle tools around if needed. ie: they won't be in the car. Matter of fact, I'm going to discuss this car with the organizers next week anyway before I fully sink my money into it.

I said "FIA Spec Cage" as a starting point for the discussion. This was meant as a brief and GENERIC description of the type of cage needed, as opposed to some home-made, non-sanctioned, "let's take 'er off roading after school" type of cage. Meaning it needs to be a "REAL" cage.

Thanks for all the input.
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It looks like an interesting event, should be fun. I'm sure a 245 can be made to work but normally with prepping any car for competition there is more than enough work to do without adding to your workload. I've only skimmed the rules but you do have to carry some gear in the car.

All I'm saying is that you need to give serious consideration to stuff flying around should you have an accident. The smallest things breaking loose can do serious damage. It is just easier to have stuff safely in the boot of a saloon than do the work to restrain it all in an estate.

If you have something as simple as a puncture and are behind on time you can get away with lobbing the wheel, jack and wheel brace in the boot on a saloon, you shouldn't, it should still be strapped down, but with an estate it'll cost you extra time. I know this stuff is boring but you should give it due consideration.

It will be cheaper to buy an off the shelf cage rather than building a one off. Safety Devices say they have stockists in the US.

http://www.safetydevices.com/stockists/motorsport
 
rallybrick said:
Just curious why you think that's necessary (other than considering you're running a Daihatsu or whatever that thing is -- no offense -- I can't imagine they're very stout).
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Main reason is to stop the from of the car falling off!!!! :oops: Seriously FWD rallying puts massive load on the strut towers. Other Charades had stress fractures from the tower to firewall area. The tower is on the other side of that plate. And I had a few short bits of tubing left over.

The donor car had the wheel pushed into the footwell in an accident before I bought it. These cars are made with pretty light gauge steel. The new car will have stronger front struts so is even less likely to loose the wheel especially say when hitting a bank or stump.

It would be less necessary on a solider RWD car, like say a 245:)
 
I've discussed the car with the head technical inspector of the event today and it's fine. The only concern is a portable fuel can in the car, so something will have to be done or the support vehicles, waiting at the beginning and/or end of each stage can carry my fuel and heavier tools. The event itself has 6-10 stages per day; some short, some longer, with transit stages in between. It's all tarmac, no off-roading (unless you go off course :oops:), so punctures didn't present an issue at all last year, for anyone. Tire wear did, but the tires were changed in the overnight rest period or on transit stages. I know that repairs may need to be performed mid-day, but again, if we can make it to the end of the stage (even limping) the support vehicles can leave us with our tools.

I understand your concern for strapping things down, and I can assure you precautions will be taken. I plan on netting the cargo area to slow anything that may come loose in the event of an impact before it reaches us up front.

But as Rallybrick said, I want the wagon for appeal and originality. Many 242 and 244s have been built to race, but this event gets international TV coverage and I think it would add a little "fun" to the event in the long run. Running my '02 M5 in it last year was fun, as it became known as the "Racing Limo", but it was in the slower, "Grand Touring" class, and became boring until we said "screw it" and blew all our times in the name of fun.

I'll look into the bolt in cages again, but I was advised against those or told to have them welded anyway, which made me lean towards having a cage fabbed from scratch.
 
Bolt in cages are 6 point, but door bars and harness bar are extra, with total of pre-shipping coming to just over $1200 USD. That, plus shipping and the time it will take to install it (taking time from my engine, brake, and suspension work) are pushing me towards the more expensive cage fab. I'm a single dad of an 8 year old, so my time with the car is limited to late nights and a few hours each weekend.

btw, fivehundred.....I LOVE the PV pic. Looks like a sweet build!
 
Sweet PV! Halda Twinmaster FTW! (Those things are worth some dough over here).

As far as the 245 goes, I would suggest that you to think down the road about what you want to do with the car. Building for 1 single race (not a series) may really limit you in the future and cost you more money to upgrade it down the road than it will to do now. Since it seems like there is some flexibilty with Targa, look at other series that you might be interested in and see if you might be able to build a cage that accommodates both without too much compromise.

As 500 noted, yes it's better to have a trunk in a sedan if you're doing a quick change on a stage, but there are many VW Golfs in rally all over the US and people don't seem to have a problem with the hatch backs. Since you're not running a fuel cell, I don't see a major issue with it so long as you keep everything extremely secure in the back. Good luck on this.
 
I'll check out Snapdragon, thanks!

Rallybrick, I'm right there with you. The discussion I had with Cagethis.com (thanks JohnV) has me leaning towards building a cage for different race series, particularly Rally America. It's a bit more money, but will allow me to compete in other events.

However, I've had several discussions with the tech inspector of Targa today, and I'm good to go with the wagon.
 
Dakar09 said:
I'll check out Snapdragon, thanks!

Rallybrick, I'm right there with you. The discussion I had with Cagethis.com (thanks JohnV) has me leaning towards building a cage for different race series, particularly Rally America. It's a bit more money, but will allow me to compete in other events.

However, I've had several discussions with the tech inspector of Targa today, and I'm good to go with the wagon.
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Many members of my club (Motorsport Club of Ottawa) are involved or have competed in the Targa Newfie. I'm sure that if you post your questions on the MCO forum you'll get some good answers: http://www.mco.org/phpbb/index.php?sid=a1d8032d0aef871220189f7a2b83032d
 
According to my calculations, 1 3/4 x .095" steel tubing is .494 square inches x 12" equals 5.928 cubic inches/foot. I think that steel weights .2879 lbs/cubic inch, so 5.928 x .2879 = 1.679 lbs/ foot of tubing or 21.679 lbs / 20 feet.

How many feet of tubing goes into a 6-8 point cage?:roll:


Edit;
1.75" x .065" = 1.189lbs/foot x 60' = 71.3lbs
1.75" x .095" = 1.675lbs/foot x 60' = 100.5lbs
1.75" x 1.20" = 2.125lbs/foot x 60' = 127.5lbs

You could use .120" tubing for the main hoops and .065" or .095" for a ton of triangulation and only add about 150 to 175 lbs to the car. The thin wall triangulation would add a ton of stiffness, but weigh little and if in a big wreck, the thin wall tubing would collapse first, absorb energy and allow the big bars to hang in there until the last moment before collapsing or ripping the welds.

Of course, I have been thinking that all bars should have a bend in them somewhere so that the tube will bend first, and tear the weld second? And hopefully collapse in an orderly fashion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghjiao8fByE
 
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