I found DOM
Jimmy Cope Racing off of 49th St N in St Pete has .095 DOM, which is usually used in cars up to 3000 lbs. He also has a mandrel bender.

 

thats cool. So you just buy straight lengths and the bends and weld it all up yourself, right?

 

Not for most sanctioning bodies. many will will require AT LEAST the main hoop to be of a single unbroken bar bent to fit the confines of the chassis.

you want the LEAST amount of welded in bends as possible. go grab a rule book for any sanctioning body, almost all of them are available online. the rules usually specify a diameter and thickness and number of points for your given class/weight.

Good Luck
Jeff Lloyd

 

Jeff is right. The main hoop has to be one continuous bar with bends, so you can't weld straight pieces to 90 deg bends. The welds have to be top notch with full penetration. There are many rules to building a legal cage (SCCA and NASA), so get a rule book before you spend the time and money on a cage.

If your car is under 3000 lbs 1.75" x .095 DOM should be fine. If you use ERS the wall will have to be .122 because it isn't as strong as DOM. BUT, SCCA and NASA won't allow an ERS cage to pass tech, unless it was built and accepted into the cars log book before 2003.
If you are going to do any competitive racing, build a DOM cage.

 

I knew the main loop had to be one solid piece (i'm assuming with one weld)
I didn't think the rest of it would be a problem....
I'll have to find some rule books and find out... The original idea was to build a cage/chassis for weight and suspension.... but it might as well be legal if we're gonna do the work right?

 

I get all my cage materials from Alro for the record.

The most difficult part of the cage building (IMHO) is bending the halo bar or A-pillar bars, depending on what approach you are doing.

Patrick, you have a PM

 

mranlet just built me a cage with exactly what you are looking for. Going to be running in NASA as well.

here it is
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/s...h-mancage.html

 

4130 is chromoly but Alro metals is where we get all our metal for fab work.