Ledfoot2 dropped his TA with us Thursday evening. He will be racing with us next year.

Sunday morning now and he is on his way to pick up the car.

It's a basic 6 point CMC cage wit an "X" in the back, NASCAR style driver side door bars, an 'X' on the passenger side with a kick out for added room and bracing from the A-Pillar forward to the firewall.

Been taking a few pics along the way and will get them up shortly.

Very pleased with the quick turn-around.

Awesome LF2...

I just picked my car up from Houston yesterday...

I guess you need to get down here to run the valley event on Sept 27th

look forward to seeing the pics.

As promised ...

The cage turned out great. I could not believe how quickly the dynamic duo at LAW Motorsports got it done. It was really nice knowing that they had worked out the most effective and efficient way to install a cage in a F-body.

If anyone is looking to get a cage done, I would highly recommend them. I would do it again in a second, and they live 400 miles from me.

As for CJ-TA....how about running your fancy caged car in a NASA race in August at TWS? That is what I am aiming for. If I can't get everything sorted out, I will just run it in the Time Trial group.

Nice!
I knew it does not take months to drop a cage in... despite what all the west coast builders have you belive.

If I can get a couple engine parts back by that time.. it's on! It's going to be stupid hot!

We use a combination of pre-fabrication techniques and custom work. The floor plates, main hoop, A-Pillars, rear down bars can be be cut and/or bent to fit ahead of time.
So, does the cage follow exacting body lines? No ... but it doesn't cost 4 grand either. LAW Motorsports will install a basic 6 point cage, meeting minimum CMC specifications, for under $2000, turnkey.

Don't be fooled, though. There was over 60 man-hours put into that cage from Tuesday to Sunday. And hat's off to Rayman for the prep work he did, although there were a few surprises. His prep work made it happen.

And each time we do one, we tweak the design and make generous notations on a spread sheet to make the next one go even faster and fit even better. For instance, we made a few notes this time to get the A-Pillar bars to fit closer to the actual A-Pillar in order to make them blend better into the body lines, helping the driver's line of sight.

Oh ... did I mention it was 103* in the shop Saturday afternoon?

In the second picture on the right side (passenger) it looks like there are several plates welded in behind where the tube there meets the chassis. Are those to add something later?

Nice work!

Costas
cars and such...

Thanks ... we appreciate the kind words.

We land the rear down bars right above the spring seats, where the weight of the car is supported. The floor/chassis has a very small foorprint in this area on that side as the floor "rolls" away from the flat section.

We just felt that the floor plate was too small in the area to land 2 tubes (we don't like landing a tube on a tube, unless absolutely necessary). We also use as much of the allowed 100 in/sq mounting plate as possible.

I have a template made from cardboard for the overall size and then cut 2 "slots" in the plate in order to "roll" the mounting plate over the curvature of the floor. We then seam weld the plates to each other and the floor.

Does it add anything? At the very least some peace of mind ...

We also added a small bend in the passenger side "X" to give a passenger more room. It moves the intersect point of the "X" out about 6". What's your thoughts on this? We toyed with the idea of welding some gussets in there, but ran out of time. It's an easy addition later.

Edit:
We also cut and sent enough tube home with rayman to add A-Pillar supports if he decides to add them at a later date. He and I displace a significant amount of air and I have a difficult time getting in and out of a car with those supports installed. He had similar concerns.

Makes sense! That same pad (right rear) just looks (likely from the camera angle) more than 100 sq inches. But I agree with you completely, always use the most pad you can get away with. Any reason you go with several pads and not just one pad?



I think it is smart for sure. I can't think of anytime that you would ever NOT want to push the cage on both sides all the way out to the inside edge of the door skin. In a side impact you've got more crushable structure further out and that makes good sense to me. Does the passenger door still have the doorbar or was it removed? As far as gussets, add them when you can. We did some rallying for several years and looking at those cages and talking to the crews was a real education as nearly all the top teams had honestly 'field tested' their cages many times. Their stories of what failed and when/how (sometimes with pics!) and why they led to the xxxx upgrade were very interesting.

Good work is damn hard to find, and good work FAST is nearly impossible! If we weren't doing our LeMons car cage ourselves, I'd be shipping that damn car up to you pronto!!

Costas
cars and such...

"He and I displace a significant amount of air and I have a difficult time getting in and out of a car with those supports installed."

Hey! I resemble that remark! I prefer jolly as a description myself.

It's close, but under the 100 in/sq.

The plate begins life as a single piece, I just cut slots to help easily bend it because of the gentle curvature in this region. We have no real elegant way of shapping the curve without it appearing beaten to death. Also, the seam weld, which includes integrating the floor pan, prevents a "drum" effect.

On big surface areas, we cutl ~3/4" holes and rose bud weld the plate. Thanks Alan.
We've learned a lot from Alan Blaine. I'm sure he is sick to death of my continuos stream of questions.

You guys make me sick! Fantastic looking cage. Welcome to the Tx race group Ledfoot!

Nice Job Mitch and Glenn... They built my cage a couple of years ago.

Nice work guys! Wow.