(your not a custom car builder if you put a cold air intake on your car)
I have been working on my v8 vw golf i want to know what you think ? i want to use this as a track car if possable. i have been reseaching differnt control arm setups and custom engine mount/x member.
didnt think you were still plugging away on this thing.
yea for the last 5 years i will never stop untill its done
First, check the rules for whatever club/class/series you plan on running this in. You have a 14 point cage right now, some only allow 6 point + foot protection other say you can’t go through the firewall; so check first.
For the cage, you want to make it so common nodes are used as start and end points for the bars. So you don’t want bars terminating in the middle of another bar. The bar you have going straight down from the A-pillar would be more benficial if it went from the bend in the a-pillar bar by the top corner of the windshield straight down to where the same a-pillar bar meets the floor. Same thing for the bars you have drawn in the engine compartment. I would put the bar you have coming from the top rear door x-bar back to the same point as your rear down bars. You also need at least one diagonal in the main hoop and there should be one in between the rear down bars also. Personally I would make the main hoop vertical, there is no reason to angle it like you have it drawn.
the cages is in the car allready. i have not done any bars through the firewall yet i want to setup the motor in its place so i know what room im working with. right now the cage is a 10pt cage from s&w with a extra diaginal bar in the rear hoop. good point about starting or ending the roll bars in the middle of another bar i didnt think about that. The reason for angle of the rear hoop is because the kit cage only gives you a small top hoop and its the angel of the b piller and the seat if it was strait up i would be siting on the dash lol. thanks for the thoughts & ideas
First, you’re working backwards. You need to decide what type of suspension the car will have then build a frame to suit. every suspension setup has it’s own geometry, mounting points, and opoosing forces and the chassis must be suited to them. If you’re going to be designing and building your own components you need a proper suspension program, even something like Suspro3d is better than nothing. Datums, CG’s, roll centers, instant centers, etc all need to be calculated otherwise you could end up with a wildly dangerous car.
Once that is ascertained, you can then work the chassis into the car. In that sense I suggest picking up some chassis theory books online and do some reading. You appear to be starting with an exiting unibody chassis, which will help you keep the overal tube setup rather simple and still maintain some decent rigidity in the overal chassis.
Also jig the chassis before you cut anything, as unibodies with welded in cages can be under some stress and if you relieve the unibody in a stressed area you can induce a frame twist. One that may be extremyl difficult if not impossible to eliminate without a frame pull machine.
It’s ALOT of math and work, and often for these projects it’s best to work with components that have already been proven and are readily available. There are a few companies out there that produce some rather neat and effective front/rear suspension cradle assemblies that can be modified to suit just about any application. They’re also mostly catered to big V8 setups. Fatman Fabrication is one such company that comes to mind. Also, using front Corvette C5 components and cradles is a SOLID way to go. One such company that does just this is Factory Five, and they use those exact components in they wild GTM supercar.
I’ve got about 4 years into designing my monocoque chassis/suspension setup in Solidworks for my kit car that I’ll be starting this spring. Hundreds of changes and revisions before any metal has even been cut. Take your time, definitely use the right setup tools, and you’ll have a solid setup. IF you have specific questions, shoot me an email @ r247motorsports@gmail.com
boxersix thanks alot !!! good info i wish we could talk someday to see what u think about my car.
If there is one area of automotive fabrication that I am 100% about, THIS is it so if you need my assistance or questions answered feel free to contact me. If you need me to come to your place to check things out mid fab for inspection, opinions, ideas, etc I’m down for that 
Without some of the details this was going to be my exact post.
You are undertaking a very in depth project;
I can’t tell from the pictures whether you plan to use the unibody or ditch it for an entirely tube frame setup with the VW shell on top?
Jeff made a great point earlier about building for a particular series or race class, if you don’t do this you can end up with a car that is worth close to nothing after you have spent A LOT of money/time on it. With how extensive the cage looks, you are headed for some very high dollar classes (i.e. multiple $20k sequential transmissions, $10k dampers).
The thousands of engineers that designed VW’s original suspension geometry had to make a lot of compromises, but still ended up with an intelligent and usable setup. To better what they did with take some serious calculation and testing with suspension geometry changes.
I would seriously recommend you try to hire boxersix for consulting work as you design the chassis, he is competent and educated. It’s also great to have a second set of eyes look over plans before any expensive fab work is done.
edit: I forgot to say that I am juiced to see how this progresses, has the potential to be awesome.