FC RX7 5.0 race car thread

[Teeson1111]

I had the same issue with the exhaust hitting the u-joint but ended up putting spacers under the trans to lift it up a little bit maybe 1/4" it did the trick. Kinda nice to hear about your issues so I can address them before I get to them.

Car looks sweet sideways! Can't wait till mine is ready to DD!

thanks
ya my fit issue could have been avoided had I put the X pipe further forward. And lol, that is the idea if this thread, learn from my mistakes.

I feel like gutting my lexus all of a sudden. Awesome build so far. Can't wait to see more.

thanks dude!

[Teeson1111]

strap in kids, this is gonna be a long update. Sorry it took so long, I was waiting for photo/videos to be posted.

So went down to Monroe for Evergreen Drift Octoberfest open drift.

IMG_0438 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

We ran 3 layouts that day, I tech'd for tandem so I got to run caged tandem layout on the 3/8ths bank layout, did a bit of short track and then we eventually all did careless tandems.

IMG_0441 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I had a bunch of my non car friends come down for the day, they had seen videos and such and wanted to go for a ride. So i had about 10 passenger rides to give that day lol. When we ran caged tandem we would get 15 min of basically hot lapping and then go back to waiting for an hour plus and get 15 more min. I swapped passengers while letting the car cool so that kinda worked. Nic (red kouki) gave me the kick I needed to start running proper tandems with him and Tyler (grey/purp s13 vert) and man that was fun. got really close a few times, had a few close calls but made it out alive each time.
Short track I spent a bit of time on, could just link it but its so hard with a useless E brake.
Cageless tandems were great though, did a bunch of tandems with nic and Tyler again, then I was able to (and before it started raining) get some good runs in with Rhys (beige s13 coupe) and Alex (multi colour coupe). Loved the layout too.
Car ran pretty good, starter was heat soaking real bad though, got stuck coming off track onto the pit area and had to push it in and let it cool.

before that day though I had put an extinguisher in and 2 tow straps. Lol I didn't forget last time, and this time they had a tire wall up on the top of the bank.

IMG_0427 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

So before Pumpkin Smash I set out to deal with the hot starter issue, and try and get more air through the rad in order to run longer.

so I did some ducting in front of the rad

IMG_0418 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

should have used some thick aluminum on the lower one, as it started to flap around at speed.

IMG_0419 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

but fully seal and rubber insulated around the rad.

tweaked a few other things, I gave myself full control of the Rad fan as the ECU sucked at it. Numerous occasions it shut the fan off in staging. This is a lot to do with the fact I deleted the CCRM from the factory harness, when the ECU doesn't have a communication link it just does its own clueless thing. This is something I could either fix with the Moates chip or have full control with the switch. Went for the switch as I lent out my Moates lol.

Don't have pics but I bought some DEI heat sleeve and a starter blanket, put it on the starter main power and the starter trigger wire. This helped a good bit too.

Took a few days off work to prep (and sleep in lol) and then Friday we rolled down to the ferry and made our way.

IMG_0530 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0531 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0532 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo cred: Anthony Bell

was good fun rolling down like 15 cars deep, we had rented an airbnb house like 30 second drive from the track.

IMG_0493 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I've never driven Western before, only watched/passengered. We ran the classic pumpkin smash layout, pumpkins included in the hairpin. Wasn't really my favourite, its very technical and has a decent amount of danger areas.
Tapped the wall spinning out at the last corner, bent the frame quite a bit, wrecked the hood, pushed the rad fan into the crank pulley, wrecked the front bumper and head lights.

IMG_0499 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I also ripped the main engine ground off, but didn't discover it until much later.
This would start to wreak havoc on my weekend. The engine was still grounding through the mounts I guess, hot start was back in full form. Engine would cut out at 3-4k rpm especially in 3rd gear or under high load in 2nd. My temp gauge wasn't reading right and the fan was crippling the electrical system when i used it.
I thought I was having major cooling issues, so we pulled the car straight ish with Neils truck, pulled the thermostat and carried on drifting.
My mom came out and went for a few rides, took a few other people out as well.

Went home that night and tried to do what i could in the dark, didn't get too far. Went to Lordco the next morning to see if I could get a belt that was smaller, instead i had to get jump started to make it back to the track.

Day 2 was "The Sheldon" layout, and while this was similar, i liked this layout better.

IMG_0622 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Jaws Photography

IMG_0626 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Johno Love Media

IMG_0527 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Neil Marcus



Photo credit: Ryan Benoit
(http://dodologic.com/2015/10/smashin...couver-island/)

Car ran like poo, cutting out randomly and still having cooling issues. Then my clutch master started pissing fluid and couldn't find another. But I said "drift it anyway"
that was a mistake.

IMG_0512 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Anthony Bell

In the weirdest accident ever, I rolled the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtlSsjCVmfo&app=desktop

Thanks to Rod Squad for the vid, don't get the backstreet boys but whatever lol.

came around what should be a big 3rd gear sweeper, I was leading, but because the car didn't want to 3rd gear I had adapted to going in hot and e brake sliding late into the corner and dropping into 2nd and scoot by learning curb. This time however I initiated, started sliding and the car gripped up. I tried to be a hero and save it buy re-initiating, then with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the e brake I hit a bump on the far outside of the track and the wheel jerked out of my hand. Then knowing this wasn't going to end well, grabbed the wheel aimed for grazing the big tire and hit the brakes. Somehow the tire bounced the front end of the car up and on its side which let it roll on its roof.

IMG_0513 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Anthony Bell

IMG_0538 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Trevor Ball

As the car was rolling I flicked the shut off. It rolled so slow, like in slow motion. Hung upside down for a few seconds, checked on my passenger Leo and waited for staff to get there before opening the door and getting out. Heard one say "Oh good its the caged rx7". Ran to the back of the car and flicked the main battery cutoff and kinda just took it in for a moment. Gave Jordan the car behind me a hug, lol he couldn't believe what happened in front of him either.
I was 100% fine, didn't even get an adrenaline rush or shock or anything. Leo sacked himself on the harness but he walked it off after a min.
flipped the car over and check for leaks of any kind, found none so I was told to start it up. Fired on like the 3rd turn, good to go. Was told I could drive it out, so I hopped in and then heard "do a cooker" so I proceeded to do a burnout in a car I had just rolled over.
Mixed reviews here, I got applause and in trouble. pushed the car outside after and started to assess more thoroughly.
Hindsight it 20/20, that was a pretty dumb idea, but it felt right in the moment. Apologized to the staff and we're all cool.

IMG_0627 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Photo credit: Johno Love Media

Car was pretty intact, so the obvious decision was to drive it home.

IMG_0507 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0509 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

cracked windshield
no signals
headlights aimed useless
no wipers
noises everywhere

lost one of the mufflers when we were almost at Neil's shop, went back and got it.

towed it home the next day and took a better look at things in the daylight.

IMG_7280 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7281 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7282 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7283 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7284 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

while it doesn't look terrible at first, theres a lot of small things that are tweaked and bent and broken. Fixing this shell would be more work than starting over I think. I also can't know anymore that the cage is 100% like it was before the roll. Was planning to change a lot this winter anyway. Was offered 3 shells at the track and am working on getting one as we speak. Gonna re-use basically everything, but aim for a little more street oriented build. Racecar was what I wanted 3 years ago when I started but I've changed my mind since then.
The next one will have a roll cage, the safety equipment did its job this time around and I want the same level of safety in the next car.

Now that I know what I'm doing, and have made some friends in high places, the new car is gonna be built better, quicker and made easier to drive. I'm seeing this as a chance to start over and I'm ok about it.

Drifting hasn't scared or deterred me. I may not be back driving for a good while, but I can't wait to get back to it.

IMG_0505 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

shoutout to the homies, that was a killer weekend. thanks to everyone for making sure I was ok and that the car made it home. and putting up with that belt squeal, haha it'll be fixed on the next one. 10/10 would do again.

May not hear from me for a while, but you can bet that will be because I'm busy planning/buying/building a new shell.

there is a perk however to wrecking your drift car, the daily gets cool parts

IMG_0618 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0624 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

already swapped some stuff over, and I'm working on doing more. need something to do right now haha.

will post more photos and vids as they come up

[DER E30]

That sucks dude!!!

Glad you're not giving up!

[Nagah]

Your crash was absolutely epic!

[Zach Thomas]

That sucks!! Glad to hear you're okay though, hopefully the next setup will be even better!

Edit: doubt you'll want to try anything with the drift car but I have a roof clip that was cut at the tops of the pillars. If you want it it's yours. I will also probably have a complete sunroof assembly with broken cables. Just throwing it out there!

[Skervey]

Wow that is a crazy roll over! Without the video I would have never seen that happening. Good to see the roll cage do its job! Also glad to hear you are going to use a new car, as cheap as FC shells are that would be the best choice. That way you are only out a roll cage and fluids and other parts you cant swap onto the new shell.

As much as I don't like to see 1.0 get in a wreck I can't wait to see 2.0 being built!

Keep up the momentum!

[SnazzyQ]

Holy fuck dude. Glad you're ok man.

Also you get +5 internets for deciding to do a street oriented build now

[cressidodd]

Wow! crazy, was just creeping this build thread and did even clue in that this is the rx7 that flipped at pumpkin smash until i saw the pic of it flipped lol. glad your okay! was pretty awesome watching it slowly but surely tip over onto its roof.

Excited to see what you have planned next

[hinrichs]

damn dude sucks about the roll, but glad the cage did its job and protected you and your passenger.

[Teeson1111]

That sucks dude!!!

Glad you're not giving up!

lol never

Your crash was absolutely epic!

aaaaahh wouldn't say that. not the image that comes to mind when I say "rolled my driftcar"
good luck repeating that crash ever, but i appreciate it!

That sucks!! Glad to hear you're okay though, hopefully the next setup will be even better!

Edit: doubt you'll want to try anything with the drift car but I have a roof clip that was cut at the tops of the pillars. If you want it it's yours. I will also probably have a complete sunroof assembly with broken cables. Just throwing it out there!

Next setup will be better/styling I hope. and naw, gonna cut this shell up a bit and try some crash testing for the bash bars. haha why not right?

Wow that is a crazy roll over! Without the video I would have never seen that happening. Good to see the roll cage do its job! Also glad to hear you are going to use a new car, as cheap as FC shells are that would be the best choice. That way you are only out a roll cage and fluids and other parts you cant swap onto the new shell.

As much as I don't like to see 1.0 get in a wreck I can't wait to see 2.0 being built!

Keep up the momentum!

exactly. thanks, will do

Holy fuck dude. Glad you're ok man.

Also you get +5 internets for deciding to do a street oriented build now

thanks man, yay for safety equipment
and woo!

Wow! crazy, was just creeping this build thread and did even clue in that this is the rx7 that flipped at pumpkin smash until i saw the pic of it flipped lol. glad your okay! was pretty awesome watching it slowly but surely tip over onto its roof.

Excited to see what you have planned next

you were there? it felt pretty surreal in the car. when it popped up I'm like "yup were gonna roll" then it slowly happened. how did that look from where you were?

damn dude sucks about the roll, but glad the cage did its job and protected you and your passenger.

thats what its for, don't wanna go without one.

[danny33]

damn, thats crazy. at least you're okay though. pretty savage that you drove it home after lol

[Teeson1111]

some shots from Neil:

22973660691_be7b27a506_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22973635301_cea58f4205_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22962494075_845feff721_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22774518870_f8007bf45a_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22570354599_6e3039abc2_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22570350389_a0d619988a_o by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

this is with my mom riding shotgun

22544145857_bb7d430fbd_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

22339808654_0f5f2745d4_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

before I tapped the wall

22339783264_e50a2bc4c5_b by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

and after

[Skervey]

Cool to see more pictures!

Just a fun fact, I got a chance to put my car on corner scales the other day and thought you might want to hear how it did.

Whole car with no driver and 1/4 tank of gas came in to be 2720lb. Its 55% front and 45% rear. I know your set up is a bit different but if you figure up how much the interior weighs and roll cage, then the EFi over carb might give your a good idea about your car.

So im glad to say that the internet was wrong and the swap does not kill the handling of the car!

[Teeson1111]

Woooooooooooow, it has been a long time.

Many things have happened since I have last posted, lots of work to my daily, lots of shows and events and lots of ideas and inspiration has been taken in. For all the skimmers and pic people I apologize for the next part becuase its going to be a lot of reading.

I kind of had a fall out with social media and really posting my work/car anywhere on the internet. I don’t really care what people think and I wasn't into hearing opinions of how I should spend my time and money etc. It wasn’t like I had a bunch h8ters telling me things or people knocking me (lol I’m not at all a big deal) but in general I was just the state of the internet and cars. So i didn’t post anything for a while, I just put my head down and got to work. The elephant in the room is why i’ve decided to re-shell instead of fix the old one and keep on drifting. Well, let me explain; I had 3 options well 4 really.



1. Fix the roof, bash it and glue a windshield back in.



2. Cut a roof off a clean shell and weld it in



3. Re shell into a different car without roof/front end damage



4. just quit all together and part it out.



Obviously number 4 wasn’t going to happen. Fixing the roof and having a missile car? no, thats not my thing. I don’t like beaten looking cars and they are often frightful to drive. I will say too that pictures do not do the damage justice. It was much worse once you saw it in person upon close inspection. The cage I believe was largely unaffected, but the front end was ruined, and basically every panel of the body had a dent in it. The more i dug through the chassis the more broken stuff I found. Now i could make the car 100% again, fix every panel and weld on a new roof, but frankly a roof swap is beyond my body work skills. I could learn but i don’t think i would be happy with the final product. I could pay some one to do it, but thats also not really my thing.

I have learned a lot from building the 1st car, and my fab skills and knowledge only continue to progress. I take pride in what I do, I put effort into things no one sees and I don’t take shortcuts very often. Owning a missile car is not something that interests me. There was a decent amount of things I was unhappy with or felt like I rushed on the last chassis (with the intent to go back and re-do). Don’t get me wrong I love drifting and do miss it/have missed it this summer and really want to get back to doing it. But I know I can do better work than I did all that time ago. My driving progressed, and so will my car.

My view on how a car should be built and what I like style wise has changed drastically over the last 3 years. When I built the 1st car I was after a pro-am style race car with license plates. Now Im more about the street style D1-esque cars that drive well but look good doing it. Ive learned that you don’t need a high horsepower light weight fully built car to go out and drive well and have fun. I also have lost basically all interest in other motor sports. AutoX is still appealing but I am building a drift car this time, not a jack of all trades type.

Thats what its about at the end of the day is having fun. Part of my fun having is in building the car, not just driving it. Progressing in my knowledge in building and car setup is fun to me as is getting better as a driver. People have accused me of giving up on learning how to drive and building a car that only looks good but that just ain’t the case. I drove that car as hard as the steering angle, lack of functional e brake and frankly terrible drift spares would let me. My plan for the winter was an angle kit hydro and better wheels, parts of which i had collected.

I also knew full well that I couldn’t afford to drift a car and build a car. I needed a large majority of the parts to mockup and build things as well. While the image the internet paints is that I’m rolling in money when building these cars, thats far from the truth. I find ways to bring costs down where ever possible and take the long road if its cheaper. I also have the gracious help of friends along the way and in turn I try to help them where my skill set is.

Upon much deep reflection I realized a few things regarding the event I crashed at. For starters I need to get better at the head game that is involved, my mental state after 2 days of barely sleeping and long days of driving and such was not a state of focus. Even at other events before it I was pushing myself hard to get every last minute of track time and fatigued myself. Having a lunch break or food break is a great moment to slow down and relax. I get too excited and lose sight of where my limits and the cars limits are. Basically all of the bumps or off’s I had were a result of being too excited and throwing the car in too hard or similar. I need to focus on being a driver and be more responsible about it. I also need to be better at letting the car cool off and not driving it when it’s broken. After day 1 of pumpkin smash I should have taken more time to diagnose the car and perhaps would have found the broken engine ground. Instead I went back out and modified my driving style to suit. While thats great, I didn’t have the skill or the rest of the car functioning as needed to do that. In hindsight sometimes its better to throw in the towel and do better at the next event.



but

Now for the fun part.

Actually wait, theres tradition first



There is much new music to let you all know about but I'm going to start with Nothing But Thieves. Their debut album is amazing through and through save for one or two songs I still haven't grown to like. A few have made it onto a local rock station. Its good modern rock and gets into even a slower Muse like sound.

Before I get into what I've done, let me lay out the goals.

IMG_0631 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Thanks to the magic of Stuner I made this I think even before the crash. now obviously that doesn't do it complete justice, and I'm still unsure about a few things but thats the goal.

5.0 is going back in

All the suspension parts I had before Im going to re-use

Still like the 1552 wheels, want to use them again

Going to re-use the pedal set and as many things as I can from the old shell

Cooling system needs to be addressed, not only was it kinda low and in a bad spot it wasn't really keeping up for more than a few laps at a time.

Need angle. bad.

Need e brake that works. bad.

Going to have an interior and a radio and things; think street car with a roll cage instead of full on race car with license plates.

Would like to get away from a stock body look too, time for some broken fibreglass

I wasn't interested in ruining another stock front end, they are hard to fix and I can't fit the things id like in one.

Which brings me to the first thing that I did:

IMG_0563 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

You'll have to forgive me as my pictures are somewhat incomplete after all this time. I worked a decent amount under time constraints, picture taking and documenting kinda got lost after a bit.

IMG_1109 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

This time around I wanted to bend my own cage and get fancy. First however I needed to learn how to use the bender and bend some stuff. Did a mock tube front end on the rolled shell, planned to put it to use crash testing an idea me and Neil developed.

Have to take a minute to thank this foo,

IMG_0339 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I call him a good friend and I thoroughly enjoyed the month and a bit I spent working long hours on my car next to him doing the cage in his cressida. The shop and bender and many tools are also his. Here he is doing all important helmet clearance testing. No he was not expecting me taking this pic.

IMG_0564 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

So basically the initial idea was to have a piece that gets crumpled instead of the entire front end. Many people build these elaborate strong tube fronts joined to strong bash bars and instead they transfer the force of a crash to the important part of the car, the area between subframe pick up points. A piece thats easy to replace and cheap and easy to make is most ideal. This way if a small love-tap type crash occurs you can just replace a simple part and zip tie your bumper back together and carry on. It would stop a small crash from ruining your day as did the wall tap I had on day 1 of pumpkin smash.

We needed to figure out what strength material we could use and how fast of an impact it could be effective at. Having a cage shell similar to the one I would later build was quite convenient.

Rx7 crash test from Tyson Floris on Vimeo.

Here is a video I made with all the crash footage we have (hat tip Anthony Bell for use of his iPhone with slo-mo). Its crazy to see the rest of the body ripple and tweak, things you can't see with the naked eye.

We tried using 1/16th aluminium first, though I did not think it through very well and made the crumple zone 5" long.

IMG_0565 by Tyson Floris, on FlickrIMG_0566 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Instead of it crumpling it just bent up and out of the way and basically did nothing.

Small think later and I had this:

IMG_0560 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

As you can see my welds aren't great. but I moved the joining points to the corner where the tubes all meet, the strongest point. The crumple zone is now only 2" long, and the aluminum inside goes all the way in. I also added a few degrees of toe out to help it crumple.

Then when the science testing part was over, my next question was "what happens when you crash really bad?"

So we ran into the wall I think 4 times as fast as we could with the bash bar and crumple zone folded out of the way.

IMG_0561 by Tyson Floris, on FlickrIMG_0562 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

The inner fenders folded up on themselves twice. The plates I made to attach the lower tube front to taco'd in and distorted everything behind them. Subframe still came out easy however, the FC front subframe is a strong piece. Other than that the tube front was forcing it down the top's were in decent shape. All in all it did far less damage to the rest of the chassis then I had expected.

But once the fun was over, Neil cut the roof off and took the cage out. Plan is to cut it up for internal bracing and other projects.

IMG_0001 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

This was right before he dropped a supra shell on it and took it off to the recyclers.

So actually some time before that, I had pickup a shell from my buddy Joey and stripped it down to almost nothing.

IMG_0777 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0779 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

(iphone = potato at night)

Bone stock, 86' or 87' (lol can't remember rn) S4, auto, 1 mismatch wheel, aftermarket stereo was the only thing not oem on it. Front brakes had seized after it sitting for like a month, so getting it on the trailer was not enjoyable.

But it was clean and straight so I take it. Of the 3 Rx7's I've been through to this extent its the cleanest of the three underneath. The paint is horrible and it has rust in 2 of the usuals (rocker/footwell and driver's side rear fender corner) but other than that its good.

Borrowed a set of rears of Neil and went to NissanFest (in a mazda), had a grand time with the boiz. We rented an entire house and spent the weekend not sleeping and watch the the island dudes (Husky Situations) clean up the team tandem competition.

IMG_0013 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

In among that I bought an angle kit from Villains. Nate's a solid dude, gave me a deal for bringing him 3 sets of FC cores. Got their dual caliper kit as well.

Immediately played with it when I got home

IMG_0062 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0061 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

There's so much stock stuff in the way, even with a spacer on. They use 40mm ball joint extensions so some fender work is going to have to occur.

Ideally I'd like to do something like this.

IMG_0063 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Villains actually buy fibre glass fenders, trim them and rivet them onto metal ones. This way the hood and door lines are still clean and you get a wider fender. I may use 2 metal ones but we'll cross that road later.

IMG_0242 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Once removing the wheel from the equation, and using the rack spacers I still had from Abercrombie I could get around 60* of lock out it all. rack still has room for more, this is my issue

IMG_0243 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

The tie rod hits the control arm. If I can get the wheel to fit then I'll still need some smaller tubular control arms to get more. But if I get even 50* thats plenty.

Got some body kit happening. Many in the PNW will have heard of Rocketz, I am impressed so far with the fit for being rep stuff. It obviously needs some work here and there but its no all warped or completely off.

IMG_1072 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_1073 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_1074 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I couldn't wait to see what it looked like so I taped it onto the daily. A week or so later I mocked it up somewhat properly with the M sports rep bumper I had just received. Many thanks to Anthony Bell and C&S performance for the deal they gave me. If you need parts or anything hit up C&S' website, he was able to drop ship me the bumper and all for a reasonable price.

IMG_1080 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_1082 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Right before it left I took some time to fab up a new radiator setup that will probably get used in a different car. Will update on that as it happens

IMG_0138 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr






So I dragged the car to Neil's shop to bend up the cage.

IMG_1076 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr\

A bunch of us ordered metal together, we had 700ft of 1.75" .095" wall DOM tube at one point.

Did the tube front on the other car first (kind of out of order here now) and then got started on the new cage.

IMG_0271 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

As you can kinda see I did the boxes very similar to how they were last time. But with some newly learned tricks from some experienced cage builders I was able to make it much tighter.

IMG_0272 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

The top too. You'll also notice the sunroof assembly is still in there. The old way I did, while simple and convenient, leaked and actually lifted at speed a bit. So I swapped the working one in there with the seized one in my daily. Then gutted it and made in manual. Still need to be inside the car for it to pop up but no power assembly to break. Cuz it aint ever gonna come out now lol.

IMG_0317 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0318 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0319 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

After a few attempts to get these how I wanted (about 4 too many) they were looking good.
Not thrilled using up that much material but I wanted it perfect and the silver lining is that all those pieces can be cut up and used for internal bracing later on. I called it the "I don't want to talk about it pile". These door bars are closer than the one ones, they follow the car better. They are also sat at just the right angle so my view is the least amount impaired. Last cage I could see through the gap from the A pillar to the cage from the driver's seat.

IMG_0341 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Did some more stuff. Some of the coping I'm most proud of is where the X in the rear meets the transverse bar above my head. Having all the bars merge in one spot is much more difficult and takes more time but looks so much better and is stronger than not.

IMG_0340 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Front boxes are similar again, thought a little taller in order to drop the cage for how I did my door bars. Also happy with the solution I found to having the heater core and blower fan remain in place and have a cage fit around them, rule book legal. Tight fit though. I even got the fresh air vent pieces to fit (well hammer tap in lol) behind the front down bars.

IMG_0344 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

I wanted to do parallel style bars this time. I think they look cool and make getting in and out of the car easy compared to my stupid high X bars last time. I designed them to still allow the carpet and the door scuff plates to fit under them.

IMG_0346 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Debated a little on these. There's nothing in the FD rulebook saying I can't do this, even though the proper conventional way is straight vertical. I made to match the angle of the door bar going up the main hoop.

IMG_0503 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0508 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Checking driving position often, as well as making the harness bar the right height.

IMG_0511 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0512 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

While I liked the look of the cross bar I did last time, it killed a lot of head room and frankly just wasn't safe for my taller passengers. So I decided against doing anything up high. Contemplated doing bracing between the main hoop and front down bars but it would have ended up right over my head and then I would have to pad it and it would look dumb.

IMG_0510 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

For the rear I did a kinda busy setup. Wanted a strut bar but I know better than to run the rear down bars to it. Many people do this and it is 100% wrong and tech should never allow cages like that. It puts the weld in shear under the force of a roll over. So the rear down bars go to the bottom corner of the strut tower, a bar runs between them and then an X above that. I made small pieces to join it all together to the 'frame rails' that run along the rear of an FC. Last time I ran my down bars right to them. They are a strong part of the unibody and I felt tying it all together with the strut tower would make it good and stiff.

IMG_0507 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Then borrowed some big boy wheels (just kidding they are Rota's with a crack in them but they were an ideal size 18") to check wheel clearance before doing the forward intrusion bars

IMG_0525 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Then out came the engine and subframe, guess whats next

IMG_0529 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Here is Kris making engine noises

IMG_0530 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

FC's have a unique feature in that nothing past the strut towers is actually needed or really structural. S chassis for instance have tension rod mounts that have to stay there and are hard to make in tube. I see people make FC tube fronts but don't cut all this off and I don't understand why not.

IMG_0542 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

great time to show off that angle

IMG_0546 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0543 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0544 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0545 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

made boxes for the front lower, after learning what happened in testing to just a plate. Checked wheel clearance again and decided on angling the front lower hoop in a little bit. Triangles are good. Though its only about an 1" taper.

IMG_0548 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Then mocked it all up again with the fenders and bumper and decided on a radiator location that will fit, fit my ideal rad fans I haven't bought yet, be safe for it and that works with the rest of the tube front.

IMG_0549 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Bought an awesome radiator somewhere along the way too. Core is only 2 inches or so shorter than a fox mustang one, but its dual pass. It looks small because it has tiny little end tanks to fit the VW golf its intended for. But it fits in the space, though I kinda wish it was 2.25" instead of 1.5". Worst case if its not up to the job, I'll get a bigger one. The beauty of the tube front Is that I can make the mounts for the radiator removable and just build new ones as my setup changes.

IMG_0558 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Daily driving the same car you're building has its perks, I ran a string in the same location on the daily to make sure I wasn't going to interfere with headlights or anything else.

IMG_0556 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

When I was all done I had this.

Next thing to do was take it home for welding.

IMG_0577 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Since last time me and my dad had bought a decent welder but I am still not good enough to weld a pretty tech inspection passing cage. So Andy came out again and gave me a hand for a few evenings.

IMG_0575 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

However there is still tough spots to reach, but none like last time.


Just as my skills have improved, so has his. The cage was built much better and I had the order of what to weld much more figured out. It went much smoother than last time and the end result shows. Andy has started a local business doing fabrication mainly on jeeps and off roading type vehicles. If you're a local and interested in having a professional welder do some work for you find him on instagram at @604fabrication. He has even posted a few pics of this cage on it.

IMG_0599 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

a few evenings and a few Monsters later we were done with this. Now before I rolled it back into its tent to let the bare metal rust I wanted to prime it.

First had to clean it up and put it on stock suspension (don't want no paint on shiny things)

Here is the final product, bare metal

IMG_7287 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7288 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7289 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7290 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7291 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7292 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7294 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7293 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

Was able to weld the cage to the car in a few areas, goal met.


After I cleaned everything up, I brought it down to my sister who works at what I consider to be one the best paint shops in the area, Candy Autobody. They did a collision repair after a truck tried to grave digger my daily 2 days before FD last year. Funny how things go, she went to school after and got a job a bit later. Her boss allowed us the to use the booth for small fee on a holiday monday.

IMG_7295 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_7296 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0632 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

IMG_0633 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr


Some sanding and spraying later, we had a good layer of epoxy primer on everything that needed it.

Frankly I was great having a professional product that I couldn't do on my own in my garage. I take pride in doing as much of a build myself as I can but there are some things that I'm thankful can count on my friends for. In turn I trade them my skills in areas that theirs aren't. I had a conversation recently with a friend how cars aren't just built by individuals, they are built by a community around an individual. Even comparing ideas and drawing inspiration from your peers is all part of building a car, my car wouldn't be how it is without the people around me.

Now the cage came together in a whirlwind of just over 6 weeks of long days. Straight from work to the shop or garage and work till the absolute latest I could each night (while still being able to wake up for work the next day) to get it done. I'm glad its over but I did enjoy it and would do it again. It was busy but I was still able to have people come hang out and see progress as it happened. But as I type this right now I'm on a small break from working on it, just to recover my breath and make sure my lovely gf doesn't think I'm dead.

IMG_0655 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

One last pic from FD this year. While I think it was the worst FD I've been to yet, I had the most fun at it of any FD event I've attended. Without getting too into it FD has made some organization changes that I disagree with, I wasn't paying close attention to the event at all but to the people I knew there. The people who I don't see very often but we all congregate to where there is some awesome tire shredding going down with cars we song see very often. Best time I had was spent walking around the pits with some buds ogling race cars. I also got to meet Aaron Parker, who's someone I look up to in the car world. I spent time this spring reading his 250+ page on RX7club and grew to really respect his work and him as a person. Had a good 20 min conversation before he had to get back to working for Mike Whidett. Finally had a chance to say high to Denofa, as he eludes me every year haha.

Next up on my to do list is some rust repair and making the tube front mounts for basically everything. Headlights, fenders, headlight motors, radiator, coolers. Decent amount of work I have ahead of me. The cage isn't 100% finished yet either,

IMG_0554 by Tyson Floris, on Flickr

didn't think I'd be done without some gussets did you?

[extra_slick]

just spent half an hour reading through this thread.

twas a half hour well spent.

good build, good sir.