Team RD #27 Race Car

The cage is complete! Right, right…pictures. I won’t even waste your time talking about what we did today, but before we start, just know that there are 20+ pictures so if you’re not on a high speed connection…go take a nap.

This pretty much sums it up:

From the back:

The side:

The other side:

Yep, that’s an 05 STI dash bar (stripped down a bit for weight) welded right in to the car:

And just for fun, here it is with the 05 STI dash in there too:

The roof:

The rear seat area (what’s a rear seat?):

Another random angle:

Alright, so you get the point…the cage is done, it’s beautiful and perfect. There’s some other things to look at more closely though. As you know, I’m not one to skimp in the details.

First up, how about the front strut bar that is welded straight to the firewall?

Then there was some last-minute weight savings to be had, so we cut out some random pieces where we could like this useless metal in the front fenders:

You probably want to actually see what we’re cutting without all the pretty sparks:

Now that might not seem like much, and to be fair, it’s not (maybe 2 lbs) but that stuff adds up! Here was our collection of metal we cut off the car over the past 2 weeks:

Yeah, the spare tire tub was FULL of metal pieces:

All said and done, there was well over 50 pounds of metal there, and the doors haven’t even been cut up yet. That’s another 50 pounds easy…

Anyway, let’s take a look at the seam welding. You don’t have to look hard…it’s everywhere! Every seam…every 2-3 inches. That’s a ****load of welding for sure, but wow is the car stiff!

That’s about it for now. The aluminum sheet for the floor of the trunk needs to be cut, fitted, and riveted in and then it’s off to paint. Once everything gets painted (inside, outside, and underside) I can finally start “working” on the car. The wiring will go in first, then the “interior” (dash, seats, steering column, pedals) and then the glass will be put back in. Once that’s all done it’ll be time for the “swap” if you can even really call it that.