Roll cage costs

I'm being quoted about $3000 for a cage to be installed into my 87 Scirocco. It would meet FIA spec.

Autopower weld in kits are under a grand right now. I would have a friend who does this kind of stuff all the time (races vintage, restores all types of vehicles, fabricates and welds as needed) do the install. 

The full on FIA cage would be nice. I intend to do AER(infrequently), COMSCC time trials(mostly this), autocross, and other events. Mostly non fender to fender competition.

Thoughts? Trying to keep an eye on the $$$$$.

Time has a significant contribution to the cost. If you can find a good kit and are willing to put in the time to weld it yourself, go for it. Just be prepared for it to be a lot of time. Never done an Autopower but we've done a few Miatacages, and there's a significant time cost.

As for the FIA spec - can you think of a situation where you'll say "boy, I'm glad I didn't spend the extra on the FIA spec cage!"?

There's no reason a DIY (or u-weld kit) can't be FIA spec.

One thing to keep in mind with weld in cage kits is that they're never going to fit quite as closely to the bodywork as a custom cage will.  If it's a car/driver combination that puts a premium on interior space, that may be an issue.

I race a '88 Scriocco in IT since 2009 and I built  the cage  myself. I only had the roll bar, halo bar, and door bars bent by a local race shop. All in cost for the tubing, bending and welding gas, etc. was less than $500. I believe that I could still do the same cage for under $1K today.

It took time but if you have access to someone who knows what their doing it shouldn't take you that long to do a SCCA legal cage. An FIA cage is a bit overkill if your not going wheel-to-wheel racing and in the US a SCCA legal cage will work for most any group you may race with with the exception of Lemons. They do require thicker wall tubing than SCCA.

I would not use a "bolt in" cage kit to start with as most every one I've ever seen places the roll bar hoop legs on the floor of the vehicle and use way to small of backup plates. I built a box and placed the hoop where the rear seat was in the same plane as the door frame "B" post.

Here's a link to some pictures I took while building the cage:

https://vwpartsforsale.shutterfly.com/pictures/89

https://vwpartsforsale.shutterfly.com/pictures/68

codrus said:

One thing to keep in mind with weld in cage kits is that they're never going to fit quite as closely to the bodywork as a custom cage will.  If it's a car/driver combination that puts a premium on interior space, that may be an issue.

 

The Miatacage kits take this into account by letting you fishmouth everything yourself. You can get a pretty close fitment, but good lord does it chew up the time.

If Miatacage parts are $1300 and Advanced Autosports is $1100 for the most common road race car, factor in freight shipping and paying someone say $150/hour to weld it up. It can be done for less, but $3k is in the ball park.

In reply to vwcorvette :

I had my 6 point cage custom built three years ago to SCCA  specs and it was $2200. Basic cage with "X" door braces . Not sure how much difference there is between the two specs but the cost difference could be due to better/beefier tubing/bracing. What car do you run with at COM events, I'll keep an eye out for you. I'm in the silver RX7,number 714. 

If your buddy is qualified and willing to take the time to build the cage then there's no reason to not have him do it.  I haven't looked at that kit but he may be able to build an FIA spec cage using that as a base.  I have built cages from scratch but if there's a quality kit available for a given car I'll generally start with that.

As far as price is concerned $3k is reasonable for a pro-built cage.  The price can go up significantly if there's tricky stuff to do.  For example if you want a cage in a car with a full interior and you drop off the car with the interior in it and expect to pick it up with it all back together it could easily be 3 times that amount.

When I built my Spec E30 I bought a cage kit from Kirk Racing. If I were to do it again I'd buy the main hoop and front bars from him if possible and fab the rest as we ended up changing/replacing several pieces and adding things. If you buy a 'kit' make sure you know what you are getting. Mine had no chamfered ends so we had to buy the tools to do the cuts. Building a cage is a VERY labor intensive procedure and I wouldn't do it again. $2500 was the going rate at the time so $3000 today for FIA spec sounds about right. Just make sure the builder has a good reputation and look at some of this other work.

If you're going racing, put a good cage in it, period. If you can't DIY, pay the man! 

This is my opinion.  Take from it what you will.

I see an FIA cage as being a rally oriented design, with a couple of problems.  First, in your Scirroco, is there room for the diagonal roof bars, and your head?  The required placement of the roof members is a bit iffy for me in a lot of cars.  They would be very nice if you go head first into a tree, but there are options that leave you well protected and provide more head room.

Second, I am a huge fan of Nascar door bars and a gutted door.  FIA has rules about egress, and I still think it's easier to get out of a car with Nascar bars than one with an X.

SCCA style cage using DOM tubing that meets FIA spec is my go-to.  The tube meets NHRA spec, and unless you are going rallying, the FIA spec is not required.

I recently had a pro shop install a cage in my miata. Base cost for an SCCA legal cage was $3,000 plus materials, which were around $500.

You won't be happy with a bolt in cage.  You don't need an FIA cage, but you do need a SCCA spec IT cage.  Material costs should be around $500.  Figure 25 hours or so to build the cage if you deliver the car gutted and ready to weld.  If you were closer to Cape Cod, I'd tutor you and let you use my stuff.  A buddy of mine just returned my bender.  He used it to make mounts for an outboard engine on a fishing boat.  Came out slick.  Looks like a boat motor hanging from a roll cage mounted to the back of a boat.

I recently checked roll cage tubing prices here in the Charlotte area (there is a lot of material used in the area and the prices are generally lower than elsewhere because of it). The going rate for 1.75"diameter*0.120" wall DOM tubing came in at nearly $7 per foot. That was to meet NHRA spec. The material used for most NASCAR stuff is 0.095" wall and would probably be a better deal due to quantity discounts locally, but that is still more than 3 times the price I paid per foot for the AMC Spirit Challenge cage we did a few years ago. Price for material is not an insignificant part of the budget. For the 8-point cage in the AMC we used right at 100 feet of material, so at todays prices that is nearly $700. If there is a pre-bent kit for less than $1500 I would jump on it. There is a lot of work beyond the material to get some thing that fits.

Just put a cage into our chump car. Here was the total cost:

$550 - ERM tube cage from S&W.
$900 - DOM tube cage from S&W since the ERM isnt going to be legal in anything but LeMons/Chump - MY berkeley UP
$500 - fabrication by a known LeMon's veteran which was graciously done in a day and a half.

and that doesnt include the seat back brace, dissassembly or reassembly(ours was already gutted) and paint.

So take away my total screw up by trying to be cheap and it would have come to $2,300. With my screw up it was a wallet killing $2,850. Not cheap but not super expensive. We also got oversized tubing for our car to ensure we had maximum protection(1-3/4" diameter, .120 wall DOM). We could have saved money and weight using the minimum required spec(1-5/8", .095 wall DOM).