[LtBadd]

Screen repair...in most cases I'm making the wire or gap up with filler.

Good job Rick,

I'm curious as to why your tungsten is discolored? Does the Pyrex gas lens setup work as advertised and what flow rate do you use?

[Rick_H]

Screen repair...in most cases I'm making the wire or gap up with filler.

Good job Rick,

I'm curious as to why your tungsten is discolored? Does the Pyrex gas lens setup work as advertised and what flow rate do you use?

Too much stick out not enough flow....had to move it out and inch or so to get around a handle for one spot..weld stay covered but the tungsten turned blue. I usually weld with a #8 gl set up, 2o-25cfh works great and is where my flowmeter was set with my other torch. Cranked it up to 40cfh...after that.

[zank]

Playing with the macro lens on the camera today.


Eric M by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Eric M by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Eric M by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Steve P by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Steve P by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Steve P by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Roman S by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr


Roman S by Mike Zanconato, on Flickr

[Troy Boy 72]

Thats some beautiful work there Zank well done !!

[rick9345]

Camera work/welds

[Sandow]

Looking good. Are the lower pictures stainless or chrome-moly? Are there distortion problems with the threaded tube section after welding?

-Sandow

[BigD]

Big milestone today, my first cage is done! Just want to add some gusset bars and call it - between the hoop and the forward bars and one in the vertical plane of the strut tower bars. Instinctively I thought it would be best to brace it laterally but a racing engineer told me that this bar will primarily see vertical load.

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[Sandow]

So what race series are you doing? I know in Lemons, this would fail tech because the belt bar is offset from the main hoop. It would be fine if it was just for the belts and there was a second structural tube connecting the main hoop to the diagonal lower down though. As it is, there is very little that would keep the cage from crumpling inward at the bottom. We ended up with a belt bar in addition to the cross on the diagonal so it is a common enough issue. Just best to deal with the possibility before you get to the track. Or bolt the seat in for that mater...

-Sandow

[BigD]

Not for any specific series, just for my own needs. I do plan to run it in time attack. I've been thinking of adding a bar across the trans tunnel. Just curious, what does it say in the Lemons rulebook that would make this style harness bar illegal? I've seen many SCCA and Chump teched cages built this way, not always with the whole bar being offset but at least the driver's half. Especially Miatas:
http://www.izzyscustomcages.com/images/ ... _Kit04.JPG

My car isn't legal in any series except bracket and time attack, I build it to the spec of my imagination

[Sandow]

All the race series have different rules and sometimes you can rule spec a cage, other times you can't. E30s can pretty easily pass lemons and chump though. Lemons will let some things fly when there really isn't a way around it but they are usually regarded as being more strict then Chump. The miatas are notorious for being hard to cage but they really dislike compound bends when not absolutely necessary. I went back through their written rules and other than their diagrams all showing a straight bar linking the main hoop and the diagonal. It may not be well expressed but I've welded in some secondary belt bars at the track for people that failed tech for that issue so they do care.

I'd post real pictures but the car is at my brothers house. Our 89 E30 cage ended up like this (I drew in the red bars):

cage

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The other thing is that the belt bar should also be within 6 inches of the back of the seat so when the seat flexes in a rear impact, there is something to limit its excursion. A lot of people end up with a plate against the seat back at the end of a tube that is welded to the belt bar. For adjustable seats, you can have one tube inside another that can just be pinned at intervals.

Lemons is a ton of fun btw. Lots of track time on the cheap and if you don't care about winning you can run whatever you want and just take a mountain of penalty laps (1 lap for every $10 over $500 in appraised value).

-Sandow

[BigD]

I've tried Chump and I figured out an extremely competitive recipe but it just wasn't for me. Endurance racing sucks and so is building to class limits (just my opinion of course). I build my car how I want it and have fun. Thankfully time attack is very wide open once you get up to the top classes and I wouldn't risk this car in wheel to wheel anyway. But the cage has been long overdue but I wanted to do it myself as the rollbar is the only thing that someone else did for me and I regret it (but as I said some pages ago, back then welding was a black art for me). But the car gets up to very exciting speeds with alarming urgency so before I push it any further I need to make it safer (around 1000hp, breaks traction in 4th with 335 slicks):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3EXZtGs9jw

Right now my planned additions beyond the kit design (well, the sill bars and tie ins were already exceeding the kit design, it was meant to only have the two S curved bars which I don't like):
-gusset bars between main hoop and forward bars
-gusset bars from strut tower bars to forward/A pillar bars
-diagonal across the rear stays to meet the node where the hoop diagonal is
-bar across the base of the hoop over the trans tunnel

I'm also considering adding bars from the windshield bend of the forward bars down to the bottom of the forward bars, or the forward most node of the nascar bars (visibility permitting).

[Sandow]

Oh, wow. That is a monster. I can see why endurance wouldn't be your bag. Lemons is more or less full contact racing lol. I think we average about 3 hits per race in the 5-10 mph category and a solid hit about every other race. Might be part of why they take the cages seriously... Fixing that kinda damage mid race is part of the fun for me and it is part of the game when racing rusted out crap-cans

Seems like you have a pretty good plan for it. Given your speeds, you might also consider a footwell bar going from the front hoop to a spreader plate near the clutch. It'll help keep your feet a bit more intact in a serious front impact.

-Sandow

[BigD]

Yes, sorry forgot to mention those, thats my next order of business with the gusset bars.

Yeah Chump is supposed to be contact free but a big chunk of the field has never seen a race track before and it's a tossup when you engage someone. Which sucks because our car was very well finished, fresh paint etc. I probably would have enjoyed Lemons more as a much more honest take on fun racing, which I didn't find in Chump (the amount of cheating blows my mind)

[Hollywood1]

Nice job Big D! I too have been working on some roll cages. Not as nice as yours but it has been fun. Here are a couple of pics. Thanks John.

[Sandow]

Yes, sorry forgot to mention those, thats my next order of business with the gusset bars.

Yeah Chump is supposed to be contact free but a big chunk of the field has never seen a race track before and it's a tossup when you engage someone. Which sucks because our car was very well finished, fresh paint etc. I probably would have enjoyed Lemons more as a much more honest take on fun racing, which I didn't find in Chump (the amount of cheating blows my mind)

Oh, there is a ton of cheating in Lemons too but it is institutional... You can bribe the judges during the appraisal to have them lower their added on penalty laps. They stencil a "Bribed" logo onto the car somewhere and you go off on your merry way. It is hard to take it seriously though since the top prize is $500 in nickels which doesn't even cover your race costs.

In the end there is only one way to be sure you won't get hit and that is to have a cool theme:

spirit of lemons

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-Sandow

[ldbtx]

Looks like somebody turned a Cessna 310 into a car...

[BigD]

Nice job Big D! I too have been working on some roll cages. Not as nice as yours but it has been fun. Here are a couple of pics. Thanks John.

Thanks John! Very cool tub, I've always wanted to try try building one but for road racing I built it out instead of in.

[Jobs4welding]

Aluminum welding

[Fe3c]

I only have a few hours of experience, so I figured I'd try making a welding cart out of some scrap I found in the desert. I still need to make a shelf for the tank, and find some wheels (going to snag some off of the shopping carts in the wash by the house). Overall, I am pleased with it. The metal was super thin, kept burning through, but managed.

[sedanman]

Experience aside, that is AWESOME vision, to see that in a bed frame, OUTSTANDING!

[Hollywood1]

Welder cart looks good. Finished all the tubes today, now lots of tig welding. Thanks John.

[AFR_Autoworks]

So it appears that there are quite a few cage builders here! That is very good to know. Pretty much all of my cages, with the exception of drag cars, get built to FIA specs. I honestly don't know one form of road racing that does not accept thier regulations. I would certainly recommend anyone who builds cages to familiarize yourself with those regulations. Allot of really good practices to follow, such as gusseting every junction that forms an "X". In the event of a crash the tubes that intersect will crush the tube that is one single piece. But enough of that... Here is a weld that I recently did on a tubular front end for a drift car I am constructing. This weld is 18ga cold rolled welded to 1.5" .095 DOM tubing. I have not had much luck with these welds in the past but I think I finally got a technique I am happy with!

[big gear head]

Looking good Hollywood. Are you not required to run a X in the door?

AFR, that looks great. What is the technique that you used?

[Sandow]

AFR, nice looking assembly. What are you using to clean the DOM tubing with?

-Sandow

[AFR_Autoworks]

I used the pulse settings on my Dynasty along with a lay wire technique. Settings were 1.5pps, 50 peak time, 25 background at 109 peak current. May try a slightly higher background on the next one but these settings allowed me to do nice long runs without warping the steel or heating it up too much. To clean the tubing I use scotchbrite and acetone. On this weld I did hit it with the wire wheel as well.