E30 Zone

Now that i'm properly addicted to the 'ring, I'm weighing up the posibility of fitting a full roll cage to my M3.

How much did you guys spend on your cages and how much of your own work did that include?

Ideally I'd like a weld-in one that ties into the front struts, rear subframe pickups and diff.

mine was a bolt in job from safety devices, it picks up on the front struts the rear struts and the beam, it has 20 points in total and i fitted it myself. it cost around £950 iirc.
Kev

Weld in from custom cages, picks up front & rear turrets, £750 to buy, £500 to fit

Jason

Kevo, where did you source your SD cage from, i'm looking for a bolt in one to. I assume that the mounting plates still need to be welded tho

yes the plates need to be welded in still, if you look through here you'll see my install.

http://www.bmw-rallying.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31

as for where i got it from, a place called PDL motorsport, the number is 01246 240632, if you mention me (kev from south wales), you may get a little discount. the guys name is phil he's tidy to talk to and will fill you in on everything. oh and by the way, what ratio lsd are you after?
Kev

Hi guys im also looking for a roll cage at the moment but looking for a 6point one mainly for track days

any recommendations, i have seen a OMP one on the demon tweeks website that doesnt seem to badly priced

Can recommend ETA Motorsport (opposite Brands Hatch) for a fully welded roll cage. Matt does a sterling job. You deliver a car, he strips is, does the electrics, cleans it all up inside for painting (a HUGE PIA!!) und you drive it out of the workshop all fully done! Mine is now in the 2nd season and I don't know how prices have changed with the ongoing steel price hike, but expect to pay at least 2.5k if you want the diff and all that stuff.
I would ring him and let him know what you are after for a quote. He's bloody busy though...

Hi Uwe. Yeah I was looking at your build pictures on s14power looks impressive and almost exactly what i'd like. I was afraid you were going to say a figure that high.

What effect does it have on the value of the car do you think? I'm not sure whether I might be better replacing my car with one already modified in the way I want?

i was speaking to x-sport this week. they make cages for a few of the pbmw cars, and very well priced. i think there mainly weld in ones thought.

caneswell wrote:Hi Uwe. Yeah I was looking at your build pictures on s14power looks impressive and almost exactly what i'd like. I was afraid you were going to say a figure that high.

What effect does it have on the value of the car do you think? I'm not sure whether I might be better replacing my car with one already modified in the way I want?

To be honest I don't care what it does to the value of the car. I wanted something to improve the safety. If it saves my life whan I need it, it was worth every penny IMO. Every modification you make is a £££ lost anyway. A lot of people get scared when they see 2.5K for a cage (..."but I can have a sparco for 599!") but trust me it's a LOT of work to weld a cage in like mine. The car was fully stripped for a start, windows out etc, the sunroof deleted, dash modified. Inside completly CLEANED, no studs underseal seamsealer left, ready for the paint shop. And the most impressive thing was for me Matt sorting the electric out! EVERYTHING worked when he put the car together and has ever since. I took the car out of the ETA's workshop and went straight to the nuerburgring and had a fantastic weekend with no problems. Beat that for less money....

i can also only say great things about ETA'S work, 2 cages done from Matt and both are as requested and again i drove in and drove out 3 weeks later theres no body that can offer that service for the money trust me i have looked into this.

I reckon on around £1,750 upwards for a good cage including install

Thanks for the reply Kevo, don't get on here much over the weekend! LSD wise i think i've got one sorted but should that fall through i'll pm you.

Back OT ETA sound pretty good and not far from me at all. The guide price of 2.5k does that include painting too? My cars already stripped (sound deadening an all) apart from the dash and i wouldn't really need the car painted on the inside so there could be potential svaings there, also wouldn't require such an advanced cage as my car will spend most of it's life on the road with the odd tack day here and there, guess the best thing to do would be to call them

painting was extra.....

[quote="SteSE"]also wouldn't require such an advanced cage as my car will spend most of it's life on the road with the odd tack day here and there, quote]

It doesnt matter how many track days you do it only takes one crash.

I have a comprehensive cage in mine but that's because it's what I wanted. I would suggest if you buy and fit a cage to PBMW standards you should have some degree of knowledge in the fact that you're getting a strong cage built to do its job.

northloop wrote:

SteSE wrote:also wouldn't require such an advanced cage as my car will spend most of it's life on the road with the odd tack day here and there, quote]

It doesnt matter how many track days you do it only takes one crash.

I have a comprehensive cage in mine but that's because it's what I wanted. I would suggest if you buy and fit a cage to PBMW standards you should have some degree of knowledge in the fact that you're getting a strong cage built to do its job.

The only thing OTT on my cage are the mounting points to the rear subframe and to the diff (not connected). But I agree with northloop, what's the point of fitting a cage if you cut it down to the bare minimun?
I have seen a few cars flying over the Armco and I sometimes think I should have added MORE bars to the cage.

I got my custom FIA weld in cage done at Chizfab in Fife, Scotland. Dude was a mate of mine and he rushed it through in 5 days and squeezed it through with other jobs too, and the result is still top notch. Very very happy with my cage. It's a 6 point, so front jacking points up A pillars to main hoop set back a bit from B pillar, with rear stays onto the inner arches (could have easily gone strut tops but I was to modify these in time so didn't want that). Diagonal in the rear stays, with harness bar at the bottom running close to the rear bulkhead. Also had a single driver's door bar. All for £650.

He can do any kind of cage you want but price will increase as work/material increases, totally recommended. He has the MSA guidelines and worked exactly to them for sizing on spreader plates/boxes and angles etc. Mine's only a basic cage but it satisfies the regulations of my championship and keeps me safe!

http://www.chizfab.com/

I bought a second hand new if that makes sense omp bolt in cage from ebay for £250. I purchased the door bars from demon tweeks for £86. I then welded the cage in.

For track days IMO i think a six point cage is sufficient and it's MSA, FIA approved and can be bought off the shelf for about £500. After all on a track day they are heavily controlled and you will only fall off if you start getting competitive which you can control. The green hell is different, i understand that.

However if you are going to race where the chances of contact are much higher then a more detailed cage i believe is the way to go. If i go into racing i will either build a new car with a £2500 cage as above or will use my track car and get a cage builder to modify and add sections.

You also want to look at the likely impact speeds you car may have to deal with as the cages and their racing values will give a good indication. For example for clubracing a 6 point cage is fine however for international racing you would need a 14 point + cage.

2 years ago in the Khumo a 325 lost it at 100mph at croft i believe and hit the armco and stopped dead. The car had a 6 point cage and the driver walked out of the car.

A agree you can't have enough safety devices on a car for the day that you have a big accident and any time you go on a track you could die, but for track days i don't believe you need to spend £2500 on a cage in an E30. If however you are running a car thats capable of hitting 140+ speeds like for example a CSL E46 then i agree a larger more pointed cage will be sensible.

Just some of my thoughts

sohlman wrote:I bought a second hand new if that makes sense omp bolt in cage from ebay for £250. I purchased the door bars from demon tweeks for £86. I then welded the cage in.

For track days IMO i think a six point cage is sufficient and it's MSA, FIA approved and can be bought off the shelf for about £500. After all on a track day they are heavily controlled and you will only fall off if you start getting competitive which you can control. The green hell is different, i understand that.

However if you are going to race where the chances of contact are much higher then a more detailed cage i believe is the way to go. If i go into racing i will either build a new car with a £2500 cage as above or will use my track car and get a cage builder to modify and add sections.

You also want to look at the likely impact speeds you car may have to deal with as the cages and their racing values will give a good indication. For example for clubracing a 6 point cage is fine however for international racing you would need a 14 point + cage.

2 years ago in the Khumo a 325 lost it at 100mph at croft i believe and hit the armco and stopped dead. The car had a 6 point cage and the driver walked out of the car.

A agree you can't have enough safety devices on a car for the day that you have a big accident and any time you go on a track you could die, but for track days i don't believe you need to spend £2500 on a cage in an E30. If however you are running a car thats capable of hitting 140+ speeds like for example a CSL E46 then i agree a larger more pointed cage will be sensible.

Just some of my thoughts

I hit 140+ with an E30 M3, it doesn't need a E46 for this.
a cage with more points will also make your shell considerably stiffer and better to drive. Which is some sort of added safety as well.
As soon you start to add the suspension turrets to your cage it get's expensive.
I fully agree that a 6 point with harness bars and door bars (maybe removable for daily driving) is quite good for "normal" trackday driving.

I thoroughly recommend x-sport racing. http://www.xsportracing.com/ They stripped all the glass out of our car, removed the seats and dash and fitted a comprehensive cage. It's a 6 point With legs to the a and b pillars and the rear top mounts through the rear bulkhead, theres a rear strut brace built in and also twin rear diagonals as well as a harness bar.

The a pillar bars go through the dash and we also have double "X" door bars, and the cage is tagged into the A and B pillars and the door tops. They also painted the whole cage in satin black. It cost about £1100.

They know e30's very well and have fitted cages in several cars in the pbmw championship, including 2 cars they run themselves.

door bars


b pillar loop




harness bar


rear strut brace

MJG, do you have any pictures of the chizfab cage? I'm thinking about getting the same.

I have one for sale in the parts section.

I am not the roll cage type, if anyone has a m3 interior complete that wants to do a deal with standard interior let me know.

I also very light Sparco evo 2 seats, again in the parts section.

Would ideally like to do a deal with standard m3 interior.

thanks

PZero wrote:MJG, do you have any pictures of the chizfab cage? I'm thinking about getting the same.

yeh me too.

xSport Racing in Basingstoke (see cragles above) - just got mine back - gone out to front & rear suspension turrets & pinned onto the frame in many places. Was £1600 they removed my dash & put it back in - I wnet to them as they didnt need a total strip - drove it there & back. They did lots more too (will update my (?) build soon) but they did it all well, with good materials & for a reasonable price. Recommended & I live in Doncaster so it was a couple of 7 hour journeys to do this

w17led wrote:I have one for sale in the parts section.

me too