Looking for help with a cage.

Looking at a few cars as in already caged cars? Unless the car has previously passed a Lemons tech inspection, then walk away. The cage is absolutely something you don't want to skimp on.

Sometimes cages made for other series (Champcar, AER, WRL) will pass muster here, but those cars really don't belong down in the Lemons pit anyways.

You didn't post your location, but there are quality fabricators around the community and around the country that can build a cage for you.

If you want to buy a pre-raced car, the forums here are a good source of candidates that already passed tech.

If you want to build a car from scratch, then just worry about the $500 rule and make sure that the floor pans and frame rails haven't completely rusted to dust.

PS - circle/dirt/derby track cars are almost never good candidates.

Thank you for the replies. I am in Fl on the space coast. It was a car that was being built for a circle track. So maybe I will keep looking, the price was good, and to me it looked ike a decent cage, but maybe it will be better to pass on that.

we are building a car now and we are having the cage done, my team mate has a fox body that he bough with a cage, that had to be ripped out and a whole new cage put in it wasted time and money. just have the cage done for you unless if is a Lemons etched car/cage

The first few cages we did from scratch. We started with the tubing and went from there. The Javelin we went with pre-bent but did the installation ourselves

If the car was built for circle track absolutely send pictures to John Pagel.  He actively discourages people from starting with one of those.  Another challenge with those cars is they sometimes cut out sections of the crash structure and replace with tubing in the front and rear end, which is not allowed.

Click contact above to get his email.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but since you mentioned the above and if you would care to weigh in: cutting crash structure is one thing, but I'm assuming reinforcing or enhancing structure would be OK (inside the original contours if the vehicle), correct?

Slightly different than what he's talking about, but you want to talk to John Pagel if you have a question.

Part of the issue with "reinforcing" the factory crash structure is that cars are designed to take impacts in specific ways. EG: "the crumple zone". If you tamper with that, even with the thought that you are reinforcing or strengthening the car, you could be incidentally making the car more dangerous.

Imagine someone that has welded pipes between the firewall and bumper to "strengthen" their car. Now imagine that person drives straight into a wall at 80mph. Where do you think that pipe is going? Chances are, straight through the firewall, the driver, the seat, etc.. Not a pretty picture.

Don't take internet advice on this. John Pagel is a consummate professional, which is why his word is the one to seek.