Well guys working in the auto industry is kind of sucking right now. Leaves me with lots of extra time. I pay enough for my morgage that leaving my 6,300sq ft shop empty seems like a very expensive waste. I'd like to let anyone that needs a cage or any other chassie fabrication done that I'd love to help you out.
I'm not exactly some super duper vermont sports cars or anything, just some dude who works on cars for a living. I have only been building cages for a few years, but I do have a couple of cars in the shop that are almost done, and would be a way to judge the kind of work that I do. How about a RA legal cage for $2500 plus materials. Would that help some more people get real cars built? Usually have bear on tap and good music going in the shop, feel free to call or come by to shoot the shit and talk about cars. Hope this post is alright with every body around here. Dont want to step on anyones toes or brake any intra-net rules. Thanks to all you guys OBrian Mason 503-887-8026

Thats a lot of dough for a cage ain't it? damn near Dave Clark money?

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Michael LeCompte

Obrian is legit. Had him do a few things on my GTX. he can definitely fab a badass cage and has a nice shop.

i would like to get my car back out to you to do the center console work and a few other minor things soon, but it is probably going to be another few weeks. I dont have a lot of money laying around these days either. haha. hopefully soon though...

Thanks Jack, loved working on your car. Guess I still have a sweet spot for the mazdogs. OB

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thats a lot of dough for a cage ain't it? damn
> near Dave Clark money?
>
> Michael LeCompte


A bit more, actually...

Unless you have a Porsche race car, then it ain't enough, lol

$2500 aint bad, imo.

I've been quoted (blind) between $3500 and $5500 for the subarat.

both of those were last year though, so maybe times have changed a bit. the weird thing about all this, is that some places aren't suffering. I asked my tuner (who has a small 3 man business up in wine country) how he's been doing, and he said they've never been busier.

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2009 05:32PM by Jon Burke.

Those prices are more in line with what I usually see. The problem with my little bis is the new car dealers. Those guys are just scared silly right now. When they aren't selling I'm not working. I would like to help some body out with a nice cage, at a friend kind of a price. That would help me pick up some extra mula. While my real business is slow. Keep me out of trouble at the same time.
Anyways I didn't think it would hurt to try and lend a hand to anyone who needed some help from some body with a little extra time, space, tools, and beer. OB

dave i think you quoted me like 3k for an ae86 cage....

anyway, my GTX has a Clark cage in it, which is tighter than a catholic....never mind and i guess kind of considered the benchmark cage here in the PNW. like i said i have seen obrians work and it is pretty damn nice would definitely hold its own to daves stuff. not trying to talk dave out of business or anything, just that obrian can get it done too. he rips out some killer seam stitching too...

OK boys, not trying to stir things up, but.......call it educational since of anybody active here there's only a few, like Mark Bowers, and Gene McCollogh who've been looking at rally stuff longer, and I'm going to guess I've seen more really good top level stuff on my business trips toEuropean rally businesses and dropping in on club and regional and WRC events.

I really didn't want to say a thing really but....
Note on cost and tightness.
It would seem that maybe just a weeeee bit more effort could be put into getting the main hoop in both examples to follow in near contact if not touching the A pillar and the B pillar and that IF the tubes were in contact or near contact, then the elaborate to make, and therefore expensive to produce and weld in long perforated gussetts would not be needed-----and therefore the cage price could be significantly lower at no loss of strength of cage/bodyshell.

Sorry but I have never liked or seen the point of those elaborate gussets which I've generally only commonly seen on roadrace care with obscene budgets, and people trying to capture the "look" of elaborate stuff.
But truth is that it is no better than a tube in contact with a few small tabs connecting.

Aside from the cost escalation inevitable connected with connecting tube with those big gussets, I am always concerned in a rally car for outward visibiltiy and a big giant FAT combined A Pillar, massive gusseting and tube that close to my eye makes for a fucking HUGE blind spot just where I need to be seeing when approaching corners---right the fuck in the way.

And since I consider SEEING at the absolute most critical part in decision making about what I'm going to do, having more of my vision blocked than the original A pillar is not a "desirable" thing.

I mean we already have several very expensive places to get elaborate, creative, gild-the-lily (and pound the pudding while padding the bill) cages only a few can afford....


And secondly, and generally, I know the FIA regs allow for some variations in design and the unfortunate way that some people in the Mid-west mis-read the rules makes for some problems BUT:

To me it seem s that nearly ALL of the guys doing cages singnificantly fail to understand or fail to remember the most simple ideas about forces and vectors--- the direction forces come from and where they go.

And, it seems, in a effort to get creative, people are making decisions that while meeting the letter of the rule, do a poor job of how they work in the 99.99999% of the time before a car is rolled, and are of questionable value during the roll.

In short it seems guys are wondering about the WHY of every tube, every gusset.

I have no idea why this situation exists.
No idea what can be done so that boys out there fabricating broaden their understanding and begin doing those slightly better designs or executions that are so much simpler and better and less costly...

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Nice to get some constructive criticism on some of my work from people who know whats up. I totally agree that a tight fit is the shit, and really hard to get just perfect without wasting $3.00 a foot DOM. The cage in Jacks GTX is really nice and tight. My cage building is constantly evolving and I hope improving. The merc picture is just that, a pic of one car I'm working on, not intended to be exactly what somebody might want or need. For some reason I pay way more attention to the stuff the guys in England build, maybe that's why doing lots of dimple died parts gives me a woody. Love those prodrive cars. I kind of thought that going out on a limb and blurting out a price, that seems pretty fair for the kind of thing I want to do would be OK. I definitely am not trying to start some kind of intranet trouble, ya know.
Even though I really have not been super active with postings on these sites dosn't mean that i have not been around for a while though. For sure I don't have the experience that lots of you guys have with actually running, racing, or just being involved with the real stuff. But I have been around at the PNW events for a few years though. That's why I started building my own cars. I was not happy with the cars that were out there. I Just figured I could learn to do better. I'm still working on it. OB

Nice to get some constructive criticism on some of my work from people who know whats up. I totally agree that a tight fit is the shit, and really hard to get just perfect without wasting $3.00 a foot DOM. The cage in Jacks GTX is really nice and tight. My cage building is constantly evolving and I hope improving. The merc picture is just that, a pic of one car I'm working on, not intended to be exactly what somebody might want or need. For some reason I pay way more attention to the stuff the guys in England build, maybe that's why doing lots of dimple died parts gives me a woody. Love those prodrive cars. I kind of thought that going out on a limb and blurting out a price, that seems pretty fair for the kind of thing I want to do would be OK. I definitely am not trying to start some kind of intranet trouble, ya know.
Even though I really have not been super active with postings on these sites dosn't mean that i have not been around for a while though. For sure I don't have the experience that lots of you guys have with actually running, racing, or just being involved with the real stuff. But I have been around at the PNW events for a few years though. That's why I started building my own cars. I was not happy with the cars that were out there. I Just figured I could learn to do better. I'm still working on it. OB

Here is my 2 cents worth:

I have to disagree with John on two points.

1) Full length braces on the A pillars add significantly more rigidity to a hard to protect area. Imagine hitting a tree with the A pillar while the car is sliding on it's side. Never happens right?!? I would want the A pillar and tube to be fully integrated so that the loads are transferred evenly across a wide area.

2) Assuming that the tube is tight against the A pillar, there is absolutely no decrease in sight lines with these full length braces. If the bracing does not extend past the edge of the A pillar it cannot block the view. It could be visually distracting but that is another matter. Now if the braces are an excuse for not having the tubes tight against the A pillar, then John would be quite right in his argument.

Weld quality: I am deeply disturbed by the quality of the welds that I have seen on many log booked cars. My two pet peeves are undercuts and cold laps.

OB: I can't tell if there is any undercutting on your welds but I can see that there are some potential cold lap areas. Most welders using Mig machines have the tendency to do many spot welds in a row instead of one continuous hot pass. These "stacked spot welds" do not penetrate the base metal and do not adhere to the preceding and following "spots". I myself have used this spot weld technique in some situations but it has no place on a loaded or critical structure.

William: I like you and I think that you have huge potential but you are a prime offender here. Hold the trigger down! The reason that your welder is screwed up is because you have burned the contacts with all those spot welds!

Before doing an important weld we should all do a test weld on similar material to check the settings of our machine. Then HOLD THE TRIGGER DOWN and complete the weld. If the weld cannot be completed without burn through then there is a joint design problem that needs to be addressed.

OK that was way more than 2 cents! Rant off.

Robert.
Not working and frustrated about it.

---

Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

Obrian,

Actually looks pretty good to me. (But this is limited when just looking at pix.) One thing in a tight car like a GTX is to pay attenion to the head clearance from the diagonals in the upper rear door openings that run from the main hoop to the half laterals over the door opeing. These are important for cruch protection of the forward part of the cage, but need to be as far from the occupants' heads as possible. You can do this in a tight car by:
- Making sure the main hoop is bent so that it mounts right up against the inner braces at the edges of the roof
- Moving the upper segment of the half-lateral downward and outward a bit so the the upper point of location of these diagonals moves further out. Placing this tube location usually involves compromises.....
- Put a slight outward kink in these diagonals. This should be done as near to the upper end as possible. This simple kink will do a lot to add head/helmet clearance to this diagonal.

On any tight car, one can look at CDS as an alternate material, and then use 1.5" OD CDS for the half laterals, The dies for 1.5" typicaly have a 1" smaller radius, and this can make a significnat impact on how tightly things can be fit against the body. Use the prescribed A pillar supports and the digaonals discussed above, and the cage will be strong with this tubing.

Man, that big X across the engine compartment must make maintenance really sucky....

Regards,
Mark B.....(who has hit his helmeted head pretty hard on a cage tube in a wreck)

C'mon John, look how cool those look!
If you already have the die, they are dirt dirt cheap to build. Like $20 in sheet metal will do a car or two worth of gussets.

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Grant Hughes

Yeah seriously grant. The most expensive parts the frickin die! haha

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.