Roll Cage Components. A Bad Experience.

When I first got my kit from RCC, I was a little disappointed at the remaining level of fitment that was required. A lot of the recommendations from this forum assume you have enough experience to figure it out, which we eventually did. The cage kit was complete and well built, but it's definitely not a Lego set.

I assume he made the cage based on your car model and you didn't have to send him any measurements? Send me a forum email if you'd like some right-now advice, and we can exchange phone numbers. I'm certainly not the best person to ask, but I've done this before and might be able to get you going in the right direction. I'm just dicking around in my garage today, so I've got time.

As I recall, you will need to trim the main hoop to length on the bottom to set the correct height, notch the halo to fit the main hoop, and notch the A-pillars to fit the halo (this last bit is the biggest pain in the ass). The front-rear position of the main hoop will depend on how your driver's seat is mounted. The door bars, dash bar, and main hoop diagonal should all fit as-is, as long as you get everything else set right. You'll have to use the door bars to set the position of the A-pillars after you get the main hoop and halo tacked in. After the diagonal is tacked in, you install the seat and notch the harness bar to fit at the proper height vs. the shoulder belt holes in your seat. The backstays will be the last step; they will be notched already where they meet the main hoop, but will have to be trimmed to length where they hit the spreader plates.

Above all, don't fully weld any joint until you have every piece cut and notched to fit. I would avoid welding any joint at all until you absolutely have to, but if you don't have access on top of the cage and don't want to cut access holes in your roof, you may need to tack the halo to the main hoop, tilt the main hoop forward, and fully weld the halo to it before you raise the assembly into its final position for the last time.

If you can't get it done on time or you lose your welders for the weekend, get everything else ready for tech that you can, and bring the whole unfinished shebang with you to the track. You can't get your entry fees back at this point, and there will be plenty of people there who can help you finish it on Friday if you supply beer and welding supplies.

Speaking from experience, our cage came from RRC.  We had the cage with months to spare but did not have a welder until the last minute.  As stated before, we did have to do some cutting and notching to get it to work.  Our cage was not fully welding by the time the race came around.  Frank and Bob from EVR finished welding the cage for us and it only cost us a refill for the welding gas and a brisket, not bad considering.  With their help, we were on the track.  Lesson learned, if we ever have to build another car and get a cage, we would still order from RRC but do it as one of the first things we do and have the welder work on it at his leisure.

BTW, our cage did not come with instructions but given enough time, we figured out where each piece went and marked them accordingly.

I don't think i've ever seen anyone claim that the pre-bent kits from RCC, S&W, or any other place will just drop together with no work. They ALWAYS come with tubes over length so that you can get a good fit to the car. It's up to the installer to do the final fitment, and I have seen this warning in most roll cage threads.

What is your car? If it happens to be an E36 I have the instructions that were sent to me from RCC along with the packing list that shows lengths correlating to individual bars. I can send it along. If it isn't, I can help you figure out what is what. If you can snap a picture of all the bars that will help.

Re: RCC in general. I did not have a great experience with their customer service. I ordered an E36 cage almost 2 years ago. I was clear that I was in no rush to get the cage, so the fact that it took a couple months didn't bother me. However, when I did get it I found a few issues. A few bars that were marked on the packing list were not there, and even though I asked for slightly fancier bent X bar door bars, only the driver side came that way, the passenger was traditional x. If that doesn't make sense, this is the style of door bar I wanted

I contacted them a few times about the issues and got radio silence. In the end, the missing bars were all straight pieces so I made them up by just buying a stick of DOM. The passenger door bars I replaced with bars I bent myself. Ended up having to do both door bar sets over since the ones sent for the drivers side didn't fit in without being unreasonably high (like borderline impossible to get in and out of high).

The kit did go together easily enough, and fit very well. The disclaimer there is that the RCC cage was the second cage I've built myself. The first was one I cut and bent myself, so I was well versed in trimming and notching tubes. I'm very happy with the cage now that it's installed, but the customer service from RCC left a little to be desired.

Because it depends on where you put the main hoop in the car. If you mount it an inch further back than he intended, and added an extra degree or two of rearward lean, the halo will suddenly not fall where it needs to in the car if it's already notched. Bars are all left intentionally long so that you can adjust for slight variations in placement from where he assumed they'd be.

I don't know about RCC, but I can highly reccomend SW racecars.   We brought out car to them for the measurements, and the cage fit perfectly.   Obviously there was still a lot of trimming and notching to be done, but the bends were all spot on.  They supplied more than what was needed for a Lemons legal cage.

+1
prices are great, everything is notched and bent to exact spec. Yes, delays are not nice - but RCC does provide a valuable service, just not in a timely manner

My cage came pretty quick I think it was 4 weeks. I don’t consider that a long time for something custom made to your order

I have chimed in on this before but we have gotten 2 cages from RCC and are planning a third right now.  Jim's shop is small and I do know he had a situation last year where he lost a key employee and his dad got sick in the same week so he had to shut down for a period of time.  He's been good to us, stepping through measurements, and making helpful recommendations.  He always answers the phone when I call and has actually followed up on the last cage he sent to make sure it fit ok (BWM e12).

I think its all about expectations, if you are looking for a super fancy cage that has some very specific details you really are better off taking the car somewhere and getting a cage put in where you can supervise the work yourself.  If you want and affordable, basic, safe Lemons legal cage and are able to make some small adjustments on your own RCC is a great option.  He runs a small shop though, so when he gets backed up it takes time to get cages out.

We can weld and notch but the bends are a pain to sort so we see it like we are buying cage material and are getting the bends pre-done for a little extra.