Hi everyone,

I am from Ontario, however will be moving to Vancouver sometime next year. I take my car to the track very often, and the time has come that I build the car into a more track dedicated car. Hence, I am looking to either put a rollbar or weld in a custom bar.

My problem is however, i do not know of any race fabrication shops in the pacific northwest. Does anyone have any links to reputable shops that weld custom roll cages in the region?

Thanks in advance.

 

Group 2 in Magnolia (Seattle), they have done a custom cage for at least 1 S2000 I know of and countless other cars.

http://www.group2inc.com

 

I had my roll bar done by Chase Race in Duvall. He mostly serves the rally community.

Cascade Autosport is probably the best known name in the area. http://www.cascadeautosport.com/

And down in the Portland area there is the guy who sometimes posts in here under the name "caged russ".

 

what about speedware in redmond? or are they just for yuppies

 

Stay away from Speedware. I second the recommendation for Chase Race, which does a lot of custom cages.

Full disclosure: I drive a green and white Chase Race car, although I wasn't paid for the privilege.

 

Speedware Motorsports
Fordahl Motorsports
Chase Race
Cascade Autosport
Racetech Fab

 

Awsome, I will definitely look into those places.

Thanks guys!!

 

It will go better if you have a better idea of what you want.

Are you going to remove (or have you already removed) the softtop? Are you going to replace (or have you already replaced) the OEM seats and belts with race seats and harnesses? Do you want a bar that can be expanded into a full cage in the future? Does it have to meet any particular specs for any particular organizations (eg. SCCA, Conference, etc.)?

 

The softtop mechanism will come out and be replaced with a hardtop. I am thinking of stripping out the hardtop and cutting out the interior aluminum roof panel so that the cage can be built higher/further away from my head. I visited the shop buiding cthree's cage in Ontario when his car was getting race prepped and this is what he did to his car, definitely something I would like to do.

I will be using a race harness, however since I still need to drive this car to the tracks, I need OEM belts still intact since I think it is illegal to drive on the street with a harness. I am thinking of using rollbar clamps to hold the seat belt mechanisms. I probably also need to fabricate special mounts to hold the hardtop in place.

I am plannng to build a "half cage" that can be expanded into a full one in the future. The cage has to meet SCCA solo I rules and basically just the track day rules.

Btw, does anyone know if crossing the US/CDN boarder is problematic with a half stripped and caged car? ..i will still be driving the car to the tracks as I cant afford a trailer yet.

 

IMO, stripping out the hardtop is not of much use, but feel free to do it if you want. You should have plenty of clearance either way.

I don't think it's actually illegal to do so here in Washington. Maybe it is, but I've never heard of any cited for it. And if they were, I expect a judge would toss it anyway unless you got that ticket as part of something else (like street racing, for instance).

The "half cage" is essentially what I did too. You face the choice that the dimensions of the tubing are supposed to be the same for every bar in the cage, but that the dimensions allowed for full cages are slightly smaller than those allowed for just bars. So either you end up with a cage that is stronger (and heavier) than required, or you end up with a bar that may not be quite as strong as required for bars alone. Depends on whose rules you are following, how heavy the car will be when prepped for particular race classes, etc. You have some reading to do, if you haven't already done so.

People drive full-up race cars across the border. I assume it shouldn't be that big of a deal. The border folks are usually looking for 1) your identity and 2) whether you are smuggling anything. They aren't trying to enforce the local traffic laws. Main issue would likely be if it looks like the car is being chop-shopped. Be sure to have a copy of the registration and title and such to prove that you legally own it.