Upgrading from 6 pt bar to 8.50 cage

swflastang05 said:

That's funny, I've never picked my son up from school in my car out of fear what the teachers might think and say.

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I pick my 8 yr old up from his private Christian school all the time. I do get some funny looks from some of the conservative parents but all the kids think its great when I come rumbling through the parking lot to pick him up. You can see the glee and excitement in the kids faces and it makes it all worthwhile.

He rides in a booster seat up front. I only have a harness bar but I don't like it sitting right in front of him when he is in the back seat. A cop pulled up alongside of me one day and suggested I put him in the back. I pointed to the bar and he just said, "Oh" and drove off.

07 Boss said:

Haha. The other day a kid pulled alongside of me at the light. He gave me a couple of revs. Without looking over I reached onto the passenger seat and put my helmet on. Then I pulled both shoulder straps from my harness/ on and locked them in. I think I scared him because he babied it off the line at the green and I just went my merry way.

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That's some funny shit there!!

07 Boss said:

Haha. The other day a kid pulled alongside of me at the light. He gave me a couple of revs. Without looking over I reached onto the passenger seat and put my helmet on. Then I pulled both shoulder straps from my harness on and locked them in. I think I scared him because he babied it off the line at the green and I just went my merry way.

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Now that's the kind of fun that makes for a great day....

Okay well since there's no motor in my car and it will be awhile before there is, I figured it would be great time to tackle the 8.50 cage install. Today I removed the 6pt bolt in bar and started the cage install. I'm installing a wolfe race craft 4130 chromoly cage, pre-jig notched and ready to weld in. Here's a few pics:

Interior is removed, ready to get started




Next, I spent a couple hours scraping that sound insulation crap off the floor where the 1/8" plates will be welded in. What a PITA!




Then started to mock up where some of the main bars will go and tacked them in. So far so good, it's not as bad as I was anticipating so far, although there's a lot more to go..




So far there's decent room to access the joints with a tig torch to weld them in. Wolfe located the joints in pretty accessible areas. The only ones that look like they may be trouble are the connections down in the kick panels. The only other issue is the rocker bars don't even come close to fitting, they're not even in the ball park. I'm gonna have to call Wolfe next week to ask them WTF. The only way those bars will fit is if I cut out the OEM seat mounting bars, which of course would then result in an issue when it's time to put the seats back in. Worst case I'll just leave those bars out, I'm thinking I will still pass NHRA certification without them since there is an OEM rocker frame type configuration there.

Wow it didn't take you long to strip the entire interior. I hope you have a map for all that wiring....Lol But its looking good so far. Are those bars your having the problem with easily modded to fit. How hard is to put some in if the inspector says something?

Do the rear bars go through the package tray and down to the subframe in the trunk?

travelers said:

Wow it didn't take you long to strip the entire interior. I hope you have a map for all that wiring....Lol But its looking good so far. Are those bars your having the problem with easily modded to fit. How hard is to put some in if the inspector says something?

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No, not really. It would require cutting about 3" (from the rocker back) off the OEM frame where the forward seat brackets bolt to the car, which would be extremely close to where the outer front bolts go, if not including that hole.

05stroker said:

Do the rear bars go through the package tray and down to the subframe in the trunk?

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Yes

A little update on this project.. I made some more progress, welded in a couple of the floor plates and tacked all the main bars in place, then I quickly realized this shit is a lot more difficult than it looks! I can hold my own tig welding in position at the welding table but cramped into a corner of a car where you cannot see or reach shit is whole nother story! I decided to spare my car of my learning curve and brought it to a buddy today to finish it up for me. This guy recently installed and got certified a full 25.3 chassis that he built from scratch, literally, he bent and notched every single bar and it came out great, so I will have him finish up my cage before I eff it up. I try to do most everything to my car myself, but there are some things best left to people with more experience, and this is one of them.

Here's an idea of how the side bars will look though:


I should have it done and back in a couple weeks, will post pics of the finished result. Then it will be off to inspection to get that nice silver sticker on the side of the cage.

Holy wire messes. The cage looks great. Wish I could do this

Yea tig in tight places like that is a real art. Flex head, short back stem, adjustable on the torch make it easier but still an art. I'm the same way, I hate to have other people working on my car. I'm no good at body work so I do have a body shop that's great.

Rapture said:

Holy wire messes. The cage looks great. Wish I could do this

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Most of the wiring is from the radio and gauges..and MVB transmission relay pack, line lock, LPM, TB, and the list goes on lol

swflastang05 said:

Most of the wiring is from the radio and gauges..and MVB transmission relay pack, line lock, LPM, TB, and the list goes on lol

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He is SUPER OCD on wires!!! Lol

05stroker said:

He is SUPER OCD on wires!!! Lol

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lol. Yeah those wires would give me anxiety.

Are you gonna organize them and rewrap them as part of your build?

If you do, how will you do it?

Rapture said:

lol. Yeah those wires would give me anxiety.

Are you gonna organize them and rewrap them as part of your build?

If you do, how will you do it?

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Yes actually I already did that, after those pics, before I brought my car to my buddy's shop. I removed some that are no longer needed, and re-ran some others, mostly just zip tied them together as neatly as possible. I don't want to wrap them in anything in case I need to access them in the future, unwrapping is a PITA.

swflastang05 said:

Yes actually I already did that, after those pics, before I brought my car to my buddy's shop. I removed some that are no longer needed, and re-ran some others, mostly just zip tied them together as neatly as possible. I don't want to wrap them in anything in case I need to access them in the future, unwrapping is a PITA.

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I completely agree. Makes me feel better to know someone else is doing this. I have been removing electrical tape on wires for a while now. Pain in the ass. Cleaning them is fun too. Electrical tape never touches my mustang again.

I wrap some abrasive areas in non sticky electrical tape. The OEM static type tape. Other wise it's just zip ties. Love those damn things.

Do you care to share what ones you removed. What did you do with the drain wire twisted pair in blue aluminum? I'm in the process of rewrapping mine in this thicker aluminum non sticky tape. Eventually I wanna do them all. Trunk done so far.

I know there is a few runs under the driver side dash and behind the stereo. Some of those aren't needed.

Rapture said:

Do you care to share what ones you removed. What did you do with the drain wire twisted pair in blue aluminum? I'm in the process of rewrapping mine in this thicker aluminum non sticky tape. Eventually I wanna do them all. Trunk done so far.

I know there is a few runs under the driver side dash and behind the stereo. Some of those aren't needed.

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I only removed wires that I previously installed but are no longer needed, all OEM wires in the harness are still there.

My car should be ready to pick up on Monday, then I get to paint the cage and put it all back together, and get it inspected and certified, but not necessarily in that order. I picked up a can of VHT black wrinkle paint and tested it out on some scrap tubing, I think it will work!

Here's a few progress pics, it's almost done now. I should be able to bring it home by the end of this week. We ended up bending the door bars to allow for more clearance on the seat backs. The NHRA inspector says it's okay to do that.

That's looking really good. That should stiffen up the chasse.