custom cages

[Godspeed]

Yes thats me , didn't I have an E46 front bearing off you recently ?
My car was featured in Total BMW mag a couple of months ago.


My engine is full spec

New 2:5 Evo block
New Evo crank
Pauter steel rods
Wossner forged pistons
12-1 CR
29mm spec head
Gp A valves & springs
Under bucket shims
320 BMW motorsoprt inlet cam
308 BMW motorsport exhaust cam
48mm TB's
Carbon air box
DTA pro 8 ecu distributorless ignition
Custom manifold and system

Was dynoed on an engine dyno at 313:5hp at 8200 rpm

Drenth 6 Speed sequential gearbox
AP twin plate clutch

New BMW motorsport 75% diff
New BMW motorsport 5-44 cw&p.
New BMW driveshafts

It goes quite well

[Taffy]

passed you a few weeks ago Ian up by the Bridgend outlet with the car on the trailer, just sent you an email mate

[Andyboy]

How about the quick release style with tie wraps??

[northloop]

No pictures as yet, but my builder sent me this update.

Managed to get the sunroof finished up. Closure plating all finished and clears the cage bars. Repaired holes in floor. Considering a bit of tidying up on the rear valence where the battery box is...

Started to mock up the main cage hoop and forward A post bars. Dash will have to be totally removed, so started on that. Sadly windscreen will also have to come out.

Main hoop is both too tall and too wide for the car. Bugger. This would be worse if it was too narrow and too short, so there we go..

Have looked into it and this can fairly easily be fixed by cutting some off the bottom and altering four of the bends. Not the end of the world anyway.

Two 45mm holes need to be drilled in the floor to allow the cage to drop through and facilitate welding of the top bits. Have scouted these out and this means removing both the brake lines and fuel lines from under the floor as they are in the way. All good fun!!

Mocked up the floor reinforcement for main hoop and front A post bars - no problems there. Hooray!!

Next jobs:

1 Finish dash removal (not a 5 min job!!)
2 Remove brake & fuel lines from floor
3 Alter main hoop
4 Screen out
5 Start welding in cage!!!!!



Pictures to come shortly.

Gary

[JimmyC]

the 2 hoops we just got are the same!!!

rachet strap round then to pull in ;) jobs a goodun and chop the bottom

brake lines and fuel lins should be ok, but petrol tank should come out based on where you are welding, or your alot braver than us!

Good progress though!!!

[ollielsd]

what a heap of a cage!

[Cabrio]

All a case of how much work you want to put in to the job, how good a welder you and how much time and money you have...custom cages are great but you have to know what you are doing...they give you the bends you sort it out...no picture on the box or instructions.

As for bolt in issues above they do bolt to the floor normally at 6 point and sometimes 10...so a good diy mechanic garage etc can fit...they are all different qualities and tend to get what you pay for.

Good luck with the builds...what championships/races do you all plan to do

Cheers

[Cotty]

I have a custom cage in mine as well , but I bought the shell with it already fitted

[northloop]

Ok a quick update.

The dashboard and front screen have now been fully removed. It would appear that the car has at sometime in it's life had a fairly major electrical fire. This is easily identified do to the bodged repair job. Luckily we have a donnor car which is being robbed to sort mine out.

The cage will not fit the car. The main hoop appears to be 6 inches too wide Before we start cutting things about I will mail the pictures from this thread and the schematic I got when ordering the cage to my builder to make sure we aren't missing a trick.

More to come shortly.

Gary

[JimmyC]

Ok a quick update.

The cage will not fit the car. The main hoop appears to be 6 inches too wide Before we start cutting things about I will mail the pictures from this thread and the schematic I got when ordering the cage to my builder to make sure we aren't missing a trick.

More to come shortly.

Gary

as I said above:

the 2 hoops we just got are the same!!!

rachet strap round then to pull in ;) jobs a goodun and chop the bottom

Now in one car

[northloop]

Jimmy did they supply you with the long bar which goes from the top of the main hoop on one side to the bottom on the other? That appears to be missing on ours. Also were you supplied with 1 or 2 harness bars? The drawing shows one but the other car in this thread shows 2.

I will pass the rachet strap thought onto my builder

Thanks

Gary

[JimmyC]

The 2 were bought as bent (incorrectly!!) sections and uncut 3m lengths of bar

I think that an additional harness bar is an extra but no idea

This last run has really gone down hill

[northloop]

I have passed this info onto the guy doing the work for me Jimmy, thanks for your help.

If i'm in need of more info any chance I could have your phone number and he could give you a ring? (if required)

Cheers
Gary

[northloop]

The cage is now in the car So there is progress ......... Plenty more to do to it yet, including getting the missing sections, but at least it's in.

Did you guys who had bits missing have success with getting them sent from Custom cages? If so do you have the contact name of the person who helped you?

[irishrally2006]

hi gary. nice to see ye having fun with cage. we nearly ready for first event next weekend. will post new pics when car finished. not sure what the guys name we were dealing with but we only got some of the bars but we got 2 harness bars & we did get the bar for across the main hoop in two parts. the cage is a master cage when finished but a lot of phone calls & headaches first. would you go back for another cage again??????????????? il give u a buz some eve next week. cheers ronan

[northloop]

A few progress pictures.

It's not hard to see that mine is a 4 door car which mean a few mods are required to fit the cage. The main hoop sits further back due to smaller front doors. No problem there. There is a strength strut at the bottom of the door post on a 4 door which isn't there on a 2-door. That has to be cut out and re-plated to make the door bars clear. Not too much of a problem. We have now worked out that all the bars were infact supplied, however the lack of any kind of drawing or instructions made things difficult to work out.

A question for you ....... What did you do with regard to wiring on the passenger side to get the tubes to the front struts? It appears the tube wants to go exactly where the loom is. Did you re-wire the whole car or what?

I would suggest this is not a DIY cage unless you are going to start with a bare shell like the white one on this thread.

Now we know it all fits welding will start in the next few days. It should be in pretty quick now.

A few pics









Gary

[JimmyC]

Hi Gary

2 major points to note before welding, the dash tube going under the front screen can if your not careful foul on the instrument cluster

Check this first by sticking the dash back in, as if its wrong you have big headaches!!

Before welding, you shoul bolt your seat in and build the cage around that, ofter the doorbars foul the seat unless you have the seat in first

As for the loom, the fuse box needs moving, what we do is remove the entire loom through the front of the car and put it back in with the fuse box inside the car on the PAX side

Take it the glass is coming out before welding??

Jimmy

[northloop]

Hi Jimmy.

We have learnt to take nothing for granted with the cage so EVERYTHING is being tried and fitted prior to welding

We will make a decision on the looms / fuse box and front legs shortly, but thanks for your info. We may decide to leave those bars out. I'm not convinced how much they actually do??

Yes glass is coming out prior to welding.

Next step after the cage is in off to the paint shop for a while.

Gary

[TRACKM3]

is that cage for a 2 door car as i thought the main hoop had to be welded to the b pillars ?

[northloop]

They dont make cages for 4-door cars so yes it's for a 2-door. The main hoop should be welded to the b pillar but the fillets supplied are pretty useless I would suggest. They are made of such thin guage material I doubt they would do much. We are going to make sure its filleted well in other areas effectively tieing it in position.

[northloop]

I notice there is a difference between the red and white cars on this thread. The main hoop goes to the triangle near the floor on the red car (as it should I think) and the white one goes direct to the floor.

We have gone with the triangle approach.....

[JimmyC]

triangle approach is correct

[northloop]

triangle approach is correct

Thought so

[irishrally2006]

hi gary. we left out the frontbars for now but we are going to do the same pull loom back and rewire somewhere under dash. well first event for us 2mor let you know how we get on on monday or tuesday and put up finished pictures

[northloop]

Good luck and I look forward to seeing some pictures.

[irishrally2006]

well we had our first rally last weekend. great weekend two hard days behind the wheel but a lot of fun. result 1st in class

here we are takine a jump at 100+

here we lost a bonnet pin so had to take of the bonnet or we would have had a few frights !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cotty]

Are the door bars in, if so they look a bit low compared to this

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... ustom+cage

[irishrally2006]

slightly sideways

another 1

and another

well thats about it for now and thats all the pics we have so far but have to say it was a great weekend and to say we could mix it with the big boys wit 30k &40k euros worth of cars in our class was great for a standard m3 with only a k&n air filter,z3 rack & grp4 rear struts. a guy in our class just bought a mk2 escort payed 42grand and we passed him & left him for dust came over to us and wanted to know what we had done under the bonnet? we told him it was bog standard he walked away not a happy camper. so next up is a cf air box so if anyone has one or knows where we get one please let us know please. cheers for now rusty. keep the revs up and the arss out

[e21Jason]

HI

Join s14.net (it's down at the momment) also http://www.bmwm3shop.de/ and http://www.m3grp.co.uk/

Jason

[maxfield]

C/f airbox alpha N and a nice set of cams will bring the car up a whole new level

[northloop]

An excellent result ......... glad to see the car is up and running and highly competitive.

I will update with some more pictures of mine in the next week or so. The race is on to get it ready and out to Germany for Easter.


Cotty the welding on that pistenhead cage is some of the worst I have ever seen. I would struggle to believe how strong it would be in the event of an incident.


Gary

[Cotty]

Cotty the welding on that pistenhead cage is some of the worst I have ever seen. I would struggle to believe how strong it would be in the event of an incident.

Not my car and I didnt weld it.

Back to my question have you got more door bars to go in yours? as the ones you appear to have seem a little low

[Godspeed]

Good result ,
are you going to be about on the West Cork rally ? do you want me to bring the wheels I have for sale with me ?

Cheers Ian

[ste]

northloop - I may have missed you already explaining, sorry if you have...

Why did you start with a 4 door shell? 2 door is obviously much better and the bare shell is the cheap part of preparing a track/race car.

[northloop]

Cotty the welding on that pistenhead cage is some of the worst I have ever seen. I would struggle to believe how strong it would be in the event of an incident.

Not my car and I didnt weld it.

Back to my question have you got more door bars to go in yours? as the ones you appear to have seem a little low

Mine arent fitted yet. I think you must be referring to one of the other cars.

I wasn't suggesting you did the welding by the way, just passing a comment on the weld standard