Want to put a cage in my car. Options

[EastSideGuns]

Since I'm most likely going to get a larger, four door car as a DD next year, I've been thinking I should go all out on my Celica. Still allowing it to be street legal, just barely.

Originally I was pondering whether I should put a 4 point cage in, but now I'm pretty sure I want an 8 point cage.

I know it's going to be a pain in the backside, and I already basically know what to do after reading czwalga's rally car thread, but I have some questions still.

1. I have a sunroof. I want to get rid of it, but then again I don't. Pros and cons of having it?

2. I've gotta take all the plastic out and everything so the cage would fit right and so nothing catches fire while welding. Duh. However, I still want a nice interior. I'll leave the dash. Would it be real difficult to make some cool aluminum interior pieces?

Any input is welcome.

[Neon90424]

why do you want a cage? are you some sort of animal? jk Im pretty sure that making aluminum interior panels wont be that hard and they would just be riveted into the cage ive seen some pretty nice work with aluminum on cages.. jk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JA2aEvDCc

this one has a nice dash

[EastSideGuns]

Well I think I'm going to go bare-bones on the car, no A/C, power windows, etc. All for light weight, but still needs some interior accomodation.

[Neon90424]

u gonna 3sgte swap or something?

remember the celica still has to mantain some kind of normal balance between the front and the back if you take everything out you might be very prone to oversteer...might wanna move the battery to the back etc...

[EastSideGuns]

Actually I'm going to leave. The 7A-FE in for that reason. I'm going to rebuild the engine then squeeze a decent amount of horsepower out of it.

[SupraKid]

My input:

Putting a cage in a 120fwhp car is retarded, and yes, even with mods that's all the 7afe will put out if your lucky.

This post has been edited by SupraKid: Nov 18, 2011 - 8:05 PM

[czwalga]

I appreciate you going through my thread, but word of advice dont build a cage to build a cage.

All different types of racing require different builds. You could end up with a cage that really isnt legal for anything.


I have a 6 point with removable door bars in the rx7, to make it legal to run under 11.5 sec on NHRA tracks, but the celica's cage wouldnt be NHRA legal.

This post has been edited by czwalga: Nov 18, 2011 - 8:14 PM

[EastSideGuns]

My input:

Putting a cage in a 120fwhp car is retarded, and yes, even with mods that's all the 7afe will put out if your lucky.

I don't really care if it's retarded or not, I'd just like to personalize my car.

If it makes 120 hp, atleast it will be light.

[czwalga]

Even if you strip out the interior your weight gain will still be probably be around 100lbs. You're stripping out plastic and replacing it with metal.

[EastSideGuns]

I'm not planning on racing though.

[cheela]

so... why are u putting a cage in if your not racing???

[EastSideGuns]

Wow factor and self satisfaction.

[str8thugginit4ya]

Wow factor and self satisfaction.

I do really think what you're doing is crazy, but if that's what you want to do to be satisfied with your car, then so be it. I just think that's a hell of a lot of work to put in when you're not even going to be putting it to good use. Plus, if you want it to look nice for a wow factor, you're gonna have to spray the cage & everything after it's installed in the interior. Which is not hard, but tedious. Good luck with your venture my friend.


-Ryan

[SwissFerdi]

I'm all down for ambition, but I'm willing to wager that once you get down to the business of completely planning said cage, the effort might deter you. If it doesn't, then I'm down for seeing a bad as cage build.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Nov 19, 2011 - 10:29 AM

[EastSideGuns]

I just want to make a badass car. I have quite awhile to think about it until I get another car.

[czwalga]

Well goodluck. Have you thought about all the costs? DOM is around $7 a foot. I bought 140 feet, probably used 120-130'ish. But you could probably get away with around 100 since I added extra for the AWD.

The bender plus the dyes is around 600-700. Decent welder, gas tank (no way i'd build a cage with flux core wire), misc sheet steel.


It's your care but personally i'd never put a full cage in a street car, it's a pain in the ass.

[richee3]

I respect your reasoning for the cage. It's your car, you are aware of the work involved, and the fact that in the long run, it won't be as useful as a cage in Ken Block's car. What I don't understand is that you want to build a BA car, yet leave the 7A, and 120 hp is perfectly fine? Each of those things is contradictory. But again, I fully respect your reasoning. It's your car and we as a group would much rather see it with a cage than another Invader body kit. I say if you want a cage, build yourself a cage and the motor to back it up.

[jordisonjr]

So you want to strip all the weight, and you want to put all that weight back in with a cage? Makes sense..

[mkernz22]

You'd probably add more weight than save weight with the cage.

This is all just my input and opinion, but there is no "badass" to a car that has a cage that's only pushing 120whp, if that, and i dont feel like there's any wow factor to it since it's not actually going to help with anything. it's not really going all out if you just leave the 7afe in there, even if you turbo it.

[diegohiga]

I would save that money to buy a set of coilovers.