Dave has a flat window coupe. You have a bubble back window. Your cage would be designed differently so the rear bars could extend all the way back to your crossmember above your differential. This would make the cage more effective and your frame more rigid.
BUT if you go this route, your looking at a lot of work and your car will be out of commission while your building the cage.
Dave did a lot of cutting, welding and bending to get his cage the way he wanted it...well worth the time and effort but its not easy.
AND unless your going to race your car, in my opinion a full cage is overkill. Just my .02

 

Ya I expect it to be quite a task, I just like the price of these alot better than anything Ive seen and it seems to be the most for the money. I have access to a machine shop and all the tools and welders I would ever need. I have never done anything like this in a car before so its a little scary to think about cutting into my floor and drill into my frame, but it seems worth it. This is the one I think will work.
http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/store...10002_55764_-1

I do plan on racing, I am going for a mostly 1/4 mile setup but I also want to do some road courses down the road (no pun). I wana do it right!

 

Vetteitbe87, yes thats the kit I got, but I modified it alot. In hindsight, I wish I would have at least tried to mount the main hoop to the lower part of the frame in front of the tires like it is designed for, rather than shortening it and mounting it to the kick up area of the frame. The reason I didn't was because I was worried about losing leg room, but I have since seen C3 rollcage pics where it looks like the seats still go all the way back, probably a custom hoop, but looks very similar.

I made mine removeable because I didn't like the idea of a permanent, welded in cage for lots of reasons. Caught some flak from some of the hardcore racers, but the NHRA rules do allow for bolt in 'rollbars' (5 point with swing out bars) from what I read in the '06 rulebook. I haven't had it tech inspected yet, so could learn of some other problems. Other than some less than perfect welds on a couple of places, I am very pleased with it.

If you do this, plan on having it in and out of the car about 100 times and pay particular attention to 1) the door panel/seat clearance for the swing out bar, 2) battery compartment doors have enough clearance to open, yet your seat belt bar is within NHRA rule specs, 3) Door open latches are accessible, 4) keeping stock seat belts functional was a pain, but I managed it, 5) keep the hoop as high up as possible, as there isn't much headroom anyway. Mine is barely touching the panels behind the Ttop panels at two points on either side. I plan to remove this panel if necessary on the driver's side to add the required foam. 6) With the bubble back window, you should be able to move the hoop a bit back further, tilted back or whatever, just watch the rules for for all your dimensions if you want it NHRA legal.

Think my 5-point rollbar is good to 10.0 with a fullframe car? Not for sure on how this works with vettes, but the IRS will need work to go that fast with slicks anyway, plus my car will never go anywhere close to that fast.

Frankly, as someone that doesn't know how to fabricate, it was pretty tedious and in hindsight, if I could have found someone to do this for 300-400 bucks labor, I would have done it.

 

Dave, Thanks for all the help, I have a small amount of fabrication experience just not too much with cars. But bending pipes and welding Im all over. It will be a couple months before I will be able to do this project so Im trying to work out as many problem as I can before I even start. I will stay in touch and let you know what I end up doing. I cant wait!! Thanks again!

Austin

 

You did a good clean job. Would be hard to find someone you trust to do the same job for $400.

I'm going to have a go at doing one from scratch, but with hoops like the shark bar (I have a vert). I have a local steel supplier that has a bender. They have set me up before when I've built cages for my son. The owner's son is running Craftsmen Truck and the owner ran her own team (so her son could race) until this time last year so they understand what is going on.

 

Sounds good guys, definitely post your project pics once u get going.