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Attempting a Roll Cage build in AWD colt.

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antilag_200

20+ Year Contributor
226
33
Oct 28, 2002
lansing, Michigan
Hello everyone, I wanted to share this rollcage build on a unique car, my AWD 1991 eagle summit. Enjoy.

This weekend was a tough one, almost 20 plus hours of fabrication of bars for the installation of a 10-pt Rollcage.
I am using 1 5/8" chromoly tubing for the majority of the bars.
At first I wanted to go behind the dash for the A pillars, it would be very challenging to keep the heat in the car. Something that I was not willing to do, Thus the bars, come in front of the dash. These are as tight as we could make them, and In my opinion look pretty cool. The down angle that come to the floor is not very severe, and I think it will be plenty strong with the rest of the bars in there if an unfortunate event were to occur.
The main goals for the cage, were to have it as tight as possible to the lines of the car, yet be noticeable enough to make it look quite obnoxious as well .. you know the whole "WTF" Factor :) .
On to the pictures
Clean up for the weld plates
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The bender of doom, the really large angles ( like 40 degree plus bends, where a real work out)
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The A-pillar bars Which were a pain to math out. These were a little over 72 inches long, with multiple bends, including off-plane bends. The fun part was mirroring one side to the next.
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Main hoop with cleanup. Notice, how it is basically a square, this was done intentionally for a little extra clearance, for the swing outs and regular seat belts. Plus it allows for the A-Pillar bar to be quite high up on the hoop for head clearance
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This header bar took over 3 hours to build as the notches had a bunch of compound angles in them. This was a total bi*** of a bar, because the A-pillar bars were moving away from each other, plus there were bends in the Header bar too which further complicated the angle. At one point thought it was a total loss, but we were able to make it work. With some math-this notched up really well.
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And what it looks like with the hoop and A-pillars tacked in. This will give a firm foundation for all the other bars to attach to.
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Side view
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So all the bars have been bent up, including the door sill bars, swing outs and rears. I do have to notch all this stuff which takes quite a bit of time and then final weld everything in .Probably another 30 hours more to go before it is all said and done. The weight of chromoly bar and steel plate added to the car is just over 72 pounds. Enjoy
 
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Many many hours later , the cage is progressing along
Floor plates welded in , I mig welded these in
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Next I cut out the roof supports and cleaned up the glue, found two holes in my roof
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Next were the sill plate bars which were a bit of a challenge as well
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And finally driver side door bar
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5 more bars to go
 
Last night I f-ed up one of my rear bars, ( basically notched it in the wrong place at too severe of an angle, rendering the bar useless... I m pissed, maybe I can salvage it and make a strut tower bar or something. At almost $0.80 per inch, I can't afford to make mistakes and waste material.
however I did finish up the other "d" bar.. check it out
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Cage is complete.
All that is left, is welding in a couple of gussets, and the seat belt mounting tabs. Once those are complete I am going to paint the cage a hammertone Grey or silver.
Onto the pictures. The two rear down bars, come out at 43degrees from the main hoop, they then change direction on the 15 degree plane which attaches at the floor where the "unibody frame rails" exists ( that angle is 32 degrees). The Notching and cutting on this was a pain ( Ended up screwing up two bars of pipe ( 4 foot sections of chromoly, because of my stupidity).
I love this picture, showing all the bars
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some of the weld details.
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my bad ass Punisher gussets.
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and of course you can't forget about this little gusset :)
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With the seats in it. I do plan to have a horizontal bar, in between the two rear bars and then eventually tie that to strut towers.
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Total build time, is a few ticks above 73 hours of work. I would imagine that the painting etc will take a few more. But I am glad to put this one behind me.
Taking It out for a drive yesterday was awesome, this thing is significantly stiffer than what it was before.

Hope you have enjoyed the build. Big Thanks to "faster than you" Racing for all his help, expertise and friendship.
 
Thanks for the positive comments everyone.

Yes it would be difficult to keep the heater and vents, as the Dash set up on these things is really odd. With a 1g it is a lot deeper, so there are ways to sneak the dash bar in and avoid the heater components.
 
What are your plans if the heater dies or ducting goes bad and need to remove the dash for any reason? Cut the cage out? I'm thinking of doing a cage in my 2g awd talon but don't really know how to go about getting the dash back in with a full cage.
 
Good stuff Warren! Always love an AWD CSM! Those gussets are pretty cool!

I actually just had my buddy finish up the 10-pt cage in my car... FINALLY. We just added to the 6-pt that was already in the car, so it's all mild steel. A little heavier than chromoly, but nothing a little more boost can't make up for! No heat in my car so through the dash it goes!

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What are your plans if the heater dies or ducting goes bad and need to remove the dash for any reason? Cut the cage out? I'm thinking of doing a cage in my 2g awd talon but don't really know how to go about getting the dash back in with a full cage.

I can still access the heater and blower with the dash in, those are relatively easy to get to . The ducts shouldn't ever need to be replaced. Basically in a 2g, you would just keep the a pillar bars as tight as possible to the body itself, then notch your dash around the bar.

Good stuff Warren! Always love an AWD CSM! Those gussets are pretty cool!

I actually just had my buddy finish up the 10-pt cage in my car... FINALLY. We just added to the 6-pt that was already in the car, so it's all mild steel. A little heavier than chromoly, but nothing a little more boost can't make up for! No heat in my car so through the dash it goes!

Mike, how is it going ? Wow your car is coming along nicely :) See you at the shootout, maybe have a few beers.
 
First of all great job and as a guy with a colt with a 4g in it. These cars are crap when it comes to rigidity. Now i am ot criticizing or saying you did anything wrong. i have a question why didnt you got to the strut towers with the cage. I see everyone join the strut towers with bar and then go off of that with the roll cage. Btw that 1g bars are cool too
 
First of all great job and as a guy with a colt with a 4g in it. These cars are crap when it comes to rigidity. Now i am ot criticizing or saying you did anything wrong. i have a question why didnt you got to the strut towers with the cage. I see everyone join the strut towers with bar and then go off of that with the roll cage. Btw that 1g bars are cool too

Thanks. I didn't go to the strut towers for a couple of reasons. I had a splitting issue at the strut tower itself, as these are modified to accept the 1g awd suspension without using spacers or welding eyelets to the struts. I ended up placing these down bars directly to the "frame rail portion" as shown in the picture, because this to me is a much more rigid position , than the strut towers. My biggest concern, was that I didn't want to deal with a tube punching through an already weakened area
 
From what ive seen tubing ranges from 5-10$ a foot, depending on type. Theres a shop local to me that will sell 1 3/4" chromoly for 9$ a foot, and 1 5/8" mild steel for like 7 a foot. Fortunately i know a guy that buys moly in bulk and he hooked me up for 5$ a foot!! But thats at least an idea for you. Interested what the op paid for materials too!
 
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