When I started to build my street stock, I looked for information and help all over the internet. I tried several places to get some basic instructions on installing a roll cage and I did not find anything that I could use. So I thought with this page I would at least let people know what I encountered while building my street stock. Keep in mind I am not a car builder and don't claim to know anymore about it than I learned by doing it once. I am willing to share my limited knowledge though with others starting out. So that this page does not get too large, most of the photos I have will be links that you can look at if you want to but you will have to click to see it.
To start of course you need to find a suitable car that you can turn into a street stock. You might have one in your yard that you have been saving or you might find on in a neighbors yard that he will be glad to get rid of. However you will have to make sure that it will fit what you want to do. I considered several cars in various states of disrepair. Some would need more work to make it run and be a complete car than I was willing to do. I also waited too long to start my project and had only 3 weeks from start to finish. My first recommendation is to start at least 1- 2 months prior to when you want to finish. Longer if you are going to use a car that needs rebuilt to even run and be a real car. I also considered vehicles that a salvage yard was willing to donate to the project. I finally selected a running 79 Pontiac Grand Prix that was at a local dealer's lot that had a running engine and I was able to drive it home. The dealer was one that supports racing, his son races in California sometimes. He was willing to part with it for only $250. and I drove to the car wash to get the thick layer of dust off of it. The radio even worked, but not something I would send my wife on a trip with out of town. I parked at the house and then of course it snowed about 6 inches. 79 Grand Prix
Now where to start. I decided to get the interior out of it first and I put it directly into the bed of my pickup for a quick disposal at the dump. Your wife will really appreciate it if the interior is not laying around the garage or house for a few weeks. I did put the drivers seat back in after I had stripped the carpet and everything else out of the car. Take it all out It was still drivable and easy to move into and out of garage. The wife likes to have her Caddy inside when it is snowing. I like to keep the wife happy!! Wife & Caddy
I had decided that I was going to put the roll cage in myself and ordered one from a catalog sales place I found in the Circle Track Magazine. Of course by ordering the cage I now have 5 - 10 days to wait for delivery. So I decided to give the brakes a check. I installed new disks in front and tightened the rear brakes. Brakes
I was fortunate, my cage came in the following Monday. The kit was supposed to be made for the Grand Prix, however there were no instructions on where to start. The only paper was one page showing all the pieces that I had recieved and what they were called. One "Main Hoop, Front Hoop, Door Bars, etc. and that picture with the parts labeled is all that came in with the cage. I had also ordered a seat installation kit from another vender and it came with instructions at least.
The next problem is that I didn't own a welder. I asked a few people that put in roll cages what I needed. I was told right off that I needed a MIG welder as the ARC Welders would burn through the metal and were harder to use. So I started shopping for welders. Mig welders start in the $300 range and can go over $1200. I decided that other than the install my welder would have minimal use so I opted for the low end, also my pocket book said low budget. Next thing was that I have not welded in 25 years and I was not a good welder even then. So I had my son come out. This started my pit crew building. My son had welding in High School, only two years ago and had a hand for it. Also I found a friend with welding experience as well. Now where can I plug in this large 220v plug? I had another friend that had a 20 ft heavy duty cord for 220v and a plug that would fit where kitchen range plugs in. So I pushed the stove out and unplugged it and plugged in the welder. Told the wife I would BBQ TriTip for dinner. She didn't have to cook, she was happy.
We started trying to fit the main hoop and top hoop into the car, locating where the main hoop will mount on frame and front supports for top hoop. We found that we needed a plate to weld into the body to butt the main hoop. So we started to fit the plates to the body in back of seats and front of doors. Then we put the main hoop and top hoop in place and tack welded the two peices together. Then we tack welded the main hoop to the floor after assuring that it was upright with a level. Next we put in the top hoop supports from the front. We found that we had to really work hard to get the left front support in at an angle that leaves enough room for using the steering wheel. Make sure you check out the clearance you have between left support and steering wheel before you tack weld that support in. You also need to check for fit of the front cross support between the two uprights. Light tack welding saves you a lot of trouble when trying to fit. Welding Photos. With that done we installed the door bars, and then the seat kit. Everything was tack welded only. We did find that the welder did get a little hot when being worked steady. It had a built-in cut off and shut its self down for about 10 minutes while it cooled off. We were really making progress. Also one thing I might mention is that we had one spool of .8 mm wire and found it was not as good as using the .9mm flux filled wire. I used almost 2 rolls welding in body plates and tacking in the cage. Then I had another friend do the finish welding with a welder in his shop after hours. He had a large commercial welder and it really finished up the job nice. I could have finished with my welder, but it would have taken longer.
After the welding was done then I started getting the seat fitted in and the belts. I put in the roll bar padding and used zip ties to hold in place. I had some trouble trying to find something to use for weight. Our racing class is to be 3600 lbs and the Grand Prix only was 3400 lbs before I started and then after I was done and roll cage was in, it only came to 3200 lbs. I found some steel in the salvage yard that had holes like it had been made for weights for a fork lift or something. The pieces each were about 100lbs. I made a bracket that had uprights spaced to match the holes in the steel and set the steel down over uprights and the put a bolt through the uprights to keep the steel from bouncing up or coming off bracket.
Then I got to the track to test the car and the rules had said "stock" so I was surprised at the things I found there. The others had stripped the engine compartment completely to include rocker panels and side panels. They were running with no alternator, vacuum hoses all disconnected, even to the power brakes. No telling what kind of engine they had built. They also had taken all the spacers from the left front wheel and put in the right front wheel saying that was a "Stock Adjustment". They were running dual exhaust and 60 series tires on 7" rims. I did pop open the catalitic converter and dumped the pellets. Mine was still a little weak as I had a SB Pontiac 301, not a SB Chev 350. But I am working on it. I was able to make some 18 sec laps on our 1/3 miles paved, banked track. Some of the others were doing 17 sec laps though.
Race day was a lot of fun - ran two races......15 lap heat race and 25 lap main event. Finished both, which was better than a few that blew up or fell out for some reason. First Two Races
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