Blog 02 - FC3S Saito roll cage install

I've wanted a bolt in cage since forever ago. I'm a sucker for Japanese spec drift cars, and this seemed like the missing piece to complete the interior of my FC, and boost the stiffness of the chassis a bit while remaining a "bolt in" piece of kit.

Here in BC Canada, finding stuff like this is pretty rare for RX7's. I had seen only a couple others pop up on marketplace in the 8 years of owning my car. Both times, I was a broke student! So when this one popped up a couple hours away, I jumped on it.

The cage itself was in pretty good shape, but had some rust from sitting in the previous owners yard for a while. He worked for an importer, and I guess this had come over in an FC they bought at auction.

Right away I had to see how the front bar would look. And once I got the car home for the summer (a few months later), it was time to do a full mockup.

I took the door sills off and slid the carpet out of the way, then put everything together. It all seemed to fit pretty well.

The one sacrifice I had to make was no longer having a working sunroof. This would be kind of a shame since I literally rebuilt the working mechanisms of it a few years back, but oh well... I wanted the cage more!

I looked for ways around this, and cusco/saito don't even make a sunroof model cage anymore... I found a Japanese blog post (above) of a guy who had the same issue. He actually made the main hoop shorter:

I thought about doing this, but the cage was already at a good distance from my head while in the car (I'm 6ft), so I decided against it.

I do eventually want to make the sunroof work again, and I think I could make a belt drive mechanism to relocate the motor further back, as this is the main thing in the way of the cage. One day...

Next I marked out where I'd need to cut the factory sound deadening for the mounting plates of the cage (above). After it was cut, I had my fiancé hold the cage in the right place so I could mark the holes out with a sharpie.

I center punched the middle of the holes, then drilled them out.

Confirmed fitment with an M10 bolt I had laying around. Don't mind the gross red primer I used 7 years ago haha/

Next, we cut the holes in the carpet for the cage to pass through:

This proved to be a difficult task for the main hoop. I had kind of figured out where things needed to be cut after doing one side...

The front bars went smoothly.

The hardest part was notching the rear interior to fit the rear bars. I was able to use my belt sander to notch both the plastic panel, and the lower carpeted one.

It fit pretty well. Not perfect, and could still use some trimming the next time I have the interior apart again:

The cage did not come with the bottom mounting plates to create a sandwich, so I took some measurements, drew them up in fusion, then made a cut file for my plasma table.

I hit cut and let the magic happen.

After removing slag/deburring, they turned out pretty good.

Where the front bars mount to the chassis floorpan, there is some pretty serious corrugation/bends. I added a spacer to the bottom plates to make sure the cage wouldn't bend this metal when the bolts are tightened down.

And test fitted them:

The rear plates that go inside the rear wheel tubs needed a slight curve put in them to fit.

All looked good, so it was time to powdercoat those black!

After those, it was time to sort out refinishing the cage. I drove to a couple local places to have it powdercoated, and no-one really wanted to touch it (maybe because it was a small job).

I found a guy about an hour away advertising his services on marketplace, so I shot him a message. The next day I drove the cage to him to be chemically stripped, blasted, and powdercoated satin black. He did it for $400 CAD which I thought was great value.

It turned out great:

Of course, had to quickly assemble it to see the final product:

Quite pleased with how it turned out

Since we notched the interior panels/carpet out already and drilled the holes, it went in nicely without scratching the tubes up!

Got the plates installed with fresh hardware and nyloc nuts (above).

Inside was looking good too:

I drive this car on the street a lot, which I why I went with matte black colour. Should blend in a bit and not be (as much of) a cop magnet!

If this were to be a track only car though, definitely would have gone with chrome/silver.

Some more pics from the back:

I got an OK condition black headliner from a buddy, so the main hoop it just pressing up against it where the motor would normally go. It ended up looking OK I think.

Installed a cusco rear strut bar while doing this install as well!

Now, time to clean the interior... Thanks for reading!