Noted. I had planned to start with a 4 point welded to floor plates. When I decided to upgrade, I could cut the main hoop at the floor, drop it through the floor to weld the tops, then build riser boxes. Having no cage design experience myself, does this sound like an awful idea?
Surprisingly enough, “time” is the hardest part for most people. I am extremely lucky to have not one but two shops at my disposal. Tools? Almost everything is from harbor freight. As much as people complain about how much garbage there stuff is, we have had VERY few items fail and the ones they did, they replace no questions asked in the store. I have a surprisingly little amount of money into this car. Quick tally in my head puts me probably around 10-12k in parts as it sits, and I have most of the stuff I need other than wheels. The whole point behind this build was to make it cheap, but quality-- if that makes any sense. Skimp where it makes sense to do so, but do it right where its important. Unfortunately, that comes back to the “time” part of it. I work on this car well over 30 hours a week, every week. That adds up to a LOT of time.
The problem becomes that you have to cut off the rear legs off the cage that drop down to your rear shock towers or frame rails. Which means you lose some material and it makes it more difficult to keep it really tight fitting. When I purchased the Z it had a half cage in it, which made it a huge bitch to finish out the front end stuff and it never fit perfectly. It’s easier to end up with something that you are totally happy with if you just do it in one shot. It’s totally doable to convert a half into a full, it’s just a lot of work.
I’ll have ti think about it and see what is available. I really like how I had my miata (6 point with just the lower door bar, same as Harveys) but I am limited with my funds. Paying a cage builder to do that would double the cost versus a 4 point
Thanks. That question is flattering. I have no formal education in anything In have done-- fabrication, welding, or working on cars. I learn pretty quick by just doing things. My step dad is an ase master tech and has a shop. I did a little work with him for a year learning some differentnt techniques but for the most part I am self taught. He had never touched a subaru before I got into them, so I ended up teaching him a lotnof the subaru quirks. I’m not as good as this thread makes me look, as I have taken enough Subaru’s apart that I can look at a bolt and tell you where it goes. Tell me to pull a motor on a Nissan and things might be a little more time consuming. I used to watch a LOT of American hotrod and west coast choppers also. Haha
I’m not sure a 4 point cage is a bad thing for now. The idea is for it to see more street time than track time, at least for the first year or two. As a street car, I think the 6 point might be adding unwanted attention and more hard objects for you to hit in an accident.
To hack the 4 point out and start over wouldn’t be a big loss. From what I can recall, the cost goes from 800 bucks for a 4 point to over 2000 for a 6 point. One reason to do it now might be that having the windshield out will make it much easier to do the front bars.
All of that being said, maybe a kit-cage is the way to go.
Stuie is very patient, and doesn’t mind spending hours and hours researching something small to make sure he’s doing it right, vs slamming parts together. I’m not sure that his style would make for a profitable automotive employee, but it’s good for the project cars! He’s also spent hundreds of hours helping me with my STi time attack car, various other Subaru’s and his previous 06 STi.
The train that was carrying some of my parts got de-railed so I didnt get a lot of them.
I did this hose the opposite orientation. Cut and cut and still kinks. This sucks. It seems like my only options are to find a different hose that will work, to add a metal coupler section to make a tighter bend, or to put in a non-STI crossover pipe. Blah.
Made a new exhaust hangar bracket. Forgot to get a completed pic. I picked up a gas lens and cup for the tig. What a world of difference. I was able to use ridiculous stickout to get the inside bead of the bracket without any major issue. Lacking a bit of penetration on the outer edge…didnt want to blow away the corner. Im not good enough to keep the puddle on the edge of corners-- once I touch them it goes downhill from there.
Made this bracket for the power steering fluid reservoir. Im not sure what im going to do with this. The stock return hose doesnt fit with the non-sti style upper radiator hose. I bought a bulk length of PS return hose and every way I route it seems to make it kink. I wish there was an alternative to the crappy designed return inlet on the pump so I could change the fitting and either -an it or run it in a different direction.
At this point I just started to get angry and went home and today I took a break from the car. I hate the part of a project where you get frustrated with lack of perceived progress and hitting more and more obstacles. Tomorrow some pieces come so I can finish up the coldside IC piping.
I got the elbow I was waiting for so I finished up the coldside piping. I was worried about the clearance between the new Tial BOV and the brake booster vacuum line, but I made a bit more space by finagling things around.
Made a new bracket for the power steering fluid reservoir. The other one was a poor design on my part, as I did not even make sure it would work before I made it. After some consulting with Harvey, we decided to raise the reservoir up higher and were able to make the hose not kink or hit the radiator. Im getting more comfortable welding aluminum now that I am getting more torch time. Starting to “click” and my hands/eye/foot coordination is getting better.
I got the power steering high pressure line finished after waiting a while for the correct fitting.
Just the back story on that-
I originally ordered all of the fittings based on a forum post that I found on nasioc. Unfortunately, the one fitting was wrong. Initially, the plan was to keep the OEM hardline from the rack to where it pokes through the subframe on the passenger side. The fitting that I bought was 14x1.5 male to -6AN. The fitting on the OEM line is male as well, so I should have ordered female, not male. At that point, rather than order a new fitting, I decided to just take out the OEM hardline all the way to the rack and run AN the whole way. The oem line is probably the most difficult thing to take out in the car, and i destroyed it with my removal. The fitting I had ended up not being correct for there either so I had to order a new fitting anyways. Rather then get a new oem hardline, I just got the right one for the rack side. I ended up with this fitting.
I tossed that in the rack. It goes that fitting to a 45 degree to -6an to a straight end to a 14mmx1.5 banjo on the pump. The AN is wrapped in DEI heat wrap where it passed by the turbo parts.
Spent some time on some stuff thats boring and doesnt need to be in here.
Finally got the parts needed to finish installing the oil cooler. Advance auto sent me 2 45 degree -an fittings rather than one. I decided to run the lines different than I had planned and just ran both 45’s off the sandwich plate.
Great progress is being made on this dude! Awesome work! I really need to invest in a planning board - I am all over the place when I go in my garage lol
Got a few things done. Mounted the front abs tab things. Swapped out the rear cabmer bolts for regular OEM strut bolts. I re-routed the battery cable-- goes through the firewall now rather than following the harness under the driver fender. Harvey and I planned out the cold air intake
I went to advance and browsed their radiator hose selection for 25 minutes and came up with nothing to fix that issue. Harvey and I decided that its worth pulling the coolant crossover pipe off of a legacy to see if it will fit because, short of welding on -AN fittings, there’s not any other good options.
So, a few weeks back I made this.
Now that the car is on the lift, I decided to do something that doesn’t require the lift. Typical for me.
