The Death Kart.

how could this ever go terribly wrong..? lol, looks.... interesting, fun, nevertheless. i'd romp it

Fantastic. I'm digging this. I saw your FB post about hacking a car in half, and was dying to know what was up...

willis923 wrote:

how could this ever go terribly wrong..? lol, looks.... interesting, fun, nevertheless. i'd romp it

Trust me, I ask myself that every time I come into the garage and see this thing.


Other news, took the intake manifold to give it a good soak in cleaner so a couple pictures.

Alright, I'm bored and just removed most of that terrifying excuse for a roll bar so it's time for a lesson. Never, EVER use square stock anywhere in a cage, unless you know exactly where stress will be coming from and adjust it properly. In this case, it would be impossible to predict the point where it would roll until actually rolling it and even then there's variables. Round stock is the only stuff you should be using. Not just any round stock though, purpose-built rollbar tubing is a whole lot stronger than any muffler pipe, water pipe, or electrical conduit, and you won't find it at the local hardware store. This is special-order stuff. Your main choices are seamless, drawn-over-mandrel (DOM) mild steel rollbar tubing or there's a cheaper but much less robust alternative which is seamed (commonly called ERW) mild steel rollbar tubing. As long as you bend with the seam, go a little bit thicker and have plenty of gussets you'll be fine with ERW. DOM is mostly used when keeping weight down is more important but this Kart is so light that it's not even worth it. Plus it's easier to get good welds with a thicker tube. As for width of the tubing your two most common sizes are 1.50" and 1.75" but again, if the cage is properly triangulated and gusseted you'll be safe.

On to mounting points, if you weld your tubing right to the floor it will just punch straight through the unibody in the event of a crash/roll. That's why it's very important to have a solid plate at least an 1/8" thick and as large/flat as possible welded to the body, then you weld your tubing to that. Tubing near these plates should be kept as straight as possible—any bends near the attachment points can significantly compromise strength.

Now for the fun part, actually bending your cage. All bends should be smooth and consistent and show zero abnormal crimping, crushing, stretching, narrowing, or other jenk. A single, continuous piece of tube, properly bended as needed, should be used for all major cage elements. This means if your main hoop comes up a few inches short, just build a new one that actually fits--don't try to extend it with short bits of tube grafted onto the ends. Spliced tubes, hoops made from multiple intersecting sections, and damaged tubes scavenged from other cages are always a no-no. The typical Harbor Freight bottle-jack bender isn't nearly strong enough to properly bend rollbar tube. A good, professional-grade hydraulic bender using the correct dies and reasonable radii is the least that you'll get away with so I hope you've got a buddy who's a steelworker. If you've got access to a professional mandrel bender, so much the better. As far a cage design goes, heres a really good link. I know there's a lot I'm leaving out but if anybody takes interest I'm open to questions.

"Hey man, I've got to make a run to the store, be ba...what are you doing?  Dude, what did you do to my car?! I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THAT!"

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Nice roll cage tips though.

This thing is going to the CarCraft Summer Nationals! Hopefully... I finally got a tracking number for the ECU so a video of the thing actually running is soon to come. Also, I've decided not to use the 3000GT suspension. The rear is already stiff enough to make the ride quality terrible so adding the suspension off an even heavier sports car is not in my best interest. Instead I'm just going to cut up the front half of an UTV and try to adapt the original Kia rear shocks to adjustables. 22 days to get it running and driving. Tic Toc.

Never mind, picture didn't work...