seam welding VS. Roll cage

[shortandsour]

ok after about a months worth of work im about 1/4 of the way through spot, seam welding. im doing this cuz i ddint want to put a cage in the car but damn this take a while to do. how does seam welding w/ braces, ie fender, tunnel brace ect. compare to a 8 point cage far as stiffness goes, if its not too much of a diffrence i think i will just finish my welding but dont want to doo all this work and just have to get a cage put in for minmial gains, over seam welding...

[MadScientist]

If you got this far I take it you removed the insulation and grinded the seam seal off everything

Its a bitch and takes forever. To be honest... Its done with a rollcage!! Your going to have gain over the factory sealed seams but if your doing all that work you might as well finnish it off right with a rollcage.

If your going really hardcore on the rollcage... weld some plate to the pillars to connect the rollcage.

Peace
Drew

[blu808]

Just wait till you have to do the underside of the car. lol

Cage will make the biggest difference. Even a 4 point will be more noticable then seam welding..

Fender braces are allmost manditory on a s14. s13 can pull it off though.

[d4vech3n]

Can you elaborate on fender braces for s14? I've seen them but haven't considered the need to be mandatory and don't understand why it would be more compared to an s13.

[Ian]

damn..i donno if my car will accept fender braces...i've had some pretty substantial damage to the front end so it's not 100% in spec yet

[driftstyre]

You should install a cage also if you have gone as far as to seam weld the chassis. Seam/Stitch welding the chassis is a further step in addition to a cage and adds to the overall strength.

David Lapworth in regards to P2000 WRC Impreza
"When the rallycar is complete it is roughly five times stiffer than the standard road car equivalent and I would say that 80% of that is in the roll cage and 20% in the bodyshell reinforcement"

A typical WRC shell will take 800-1000 man hours to complete!

[ghostuss]

around 200 a point for a quality roller cage. Seam weld is next to free if you can do it alone. I would do seam weld + a 6 point cage.

[S14DB]

Fender braces are allmost manditory on a s14. s13 can pull it off though.
I've heard the other way around. :confused:

[theicecreamdan]

if you have a welder then the fender brace is a trip to home depot for some box tubing and a couple hours of easy fabrication