Safety Devices Rear Cage For 996
Discussion
A work in progress !
After a slight false start when the factory managed to ignore the instructions about what I wanted, the replacement arrived on Friday:
I ordered it through GSM Performance and they have been brilliant at sorting it all out. Full marks to them !
I don't need a cage, but I do want proper harnesses, and this is the correct way to attach the shoulder straps. In for a penny etc. Speaking of money, the Safety Devices cages seem to be excellent value for money. The OEM Porsche bolt-in cage is over a grand. There are various boutique American brands but they're up around £2k once you include shipping & taxes. This one weighed in at £536.69 including delivery and the optional silver powdercoat. It would have been under £500 in plain black. Also, the Safety Devices cage mounts to the strut tops & the rear seat crossmember, that's slightly further back than the OEM cage, so less likely to interfere with the seat position. I have the seat a long way back so this is important to me.
First step of the install - strip everything out. I tried to shortcut this but it was futile. You really do need to do this.
Test fit the cage and.... the rear mounts don't quite line up. D'oh. Back to the garage to fettle those holes by a few mm !
Pretty much in position. This is proving way more work than I expected. I knew it was a fairly big job but I had at least assumed the brackets would line up. An afternoon of repeatedly taking the cage in and out was exhausting.
At this point I gave up for the day. It'll probably be next weekend before I get back onto it. Next step is welding in brackets for the main hoop and they're going to need some tweaking too.
After that, all the trim needs to somehow go back in. I'm not going for the uncompromised stripped-out look. I think it'll look pretty smart once finished. And functional.
After a slight false start when the factory managed to ignore the instructions about what I wanted, the replacement arrived on Friday:
I ordered it through GSM Performance and they have been brilliant at sorting it all out. Full marks to them !
I don't need a cage, but I do want proper harnesses, and this is the correct way to attach the shoulder straps. In for a penny etc. Speaking of money, the Safety Devices cages seem to be excellent value for money. The OEM Porsche bolt-in cage is over a grand. There are various boutique American brands but they're up around £2k once you include shipping & taxes. This one weighed in at £536.69 including delivery and the optional silver powdercoat. It would have been under £500 in plain black. Also, the Safety Devices cage mounts to the strut tops & the rear seat crossmember, that's slightly further back than the OEM cage, so less likely to interfere with the seat position. I have the seat a long way back so this is important to me.
First step of the install - strip everything out. I tried to shortcut this but it was futile. You really do need to do this.
Test fit the cage and.... the rear mounts don't quite line up. D'oh. Back to the garage to fettle those holes by a few mm !
Pretty much in position. This is proving way more work than I expected. I knew it was a fairly big job but I had at least assumed the brackets would line up. An afternoon of repeatedly taking the cage in and out was exhausting.
At this point I gave up for the day. It'll probably be next weekend before I get back onto it. Next step is welding in brackets for the main hoop and they're going to need some tweaking too.
After that, all the trim needs to somehow go back in. I'm not going for the uncompromised stripped-out look. I think it'll look pretty smart once finished. And functional.
ATM said:
What 996 do you have?
1999 C2.
ATM said:
What seats and harnesses are you going for?
Seats, I have a pair of Bimarco Futuras. Apologies for not going down the well-worn GT3 replica route 
It's not a brand I'd heard of before, but they're FIA approved for peace of mind, and they're particularly tall which is a big plus for me. And they're great value for money.I'm planning on having Schroth harnesses, but all the different options for attaching the things are doing my head in so I'll try a few options and see what I settle on. I don't have the OEM bucket mounts with harness attachment points. I have one of the Design911 HD mounts but it's really intended for use with the 3-point belt and so only has a mounting point on the inside. I could put an eye bolt on the outside but there's not really space to fit another on the inside. And I'm not hugely keen on welding new mounts in but it might come to it !
rubystone said:
what race series are you entering?
I'm not. I've been doing Autosolos this year and would like to do sprints next year, but only at a low level. Like I said I don't need a cage, this is just for attaching harnesses / my own reassurance.ATM said:
Looks like you're ballooning round on grass. Is that the idea?
That was a fun grass autotest I did in the summer. My car was pretty useless. You need small, light, and softly-sprung. The fastest cars were MX5s and small hatchbacks. It's not about power.Cunno said:
Like your cage, can you tell me what it weighs please?
At a guess, "a lot", it's no lightweight. I'll try weighing it later.sundayjumper said:
ATM said:
Looks like you're ballooning round on grass. Is that the idea?
That was a fun grass autotest I did in the summer. My car was pretty useless. You need small, light, and softly-sprung. The fastest cars were MX5s and small hatchbacks. It's not about power.ATM said:
More dangerous than juggling recently unearthed 2nd WW hand grenades apparently
Slippydiff said:
ATM said:
More dangerous than juggling recently unearthed 2nd WW hand grenades apparently
sundayjumper said:
Slippy's still feeling sore that he was wrong in a previous thread.
Anyway, 17.3kg for the cage plus about 900g for the weld-in brackets. And whatever the bolts weigh, if you're going that far.
Well the Porsche one i believe replaces the rear seats and is a very good fit. Rear seats are about 15kg anyway right?Anyway, 17.3kg for the cage plus about 900g for the weld-in brackets. And whatever the bolts weigh, if you're going that far.
sundayjumper said:
Slippy's still feeling sore that he was wrong in a previous thread.
Au contraire, there was no right and wrong, I merely asked a question, you got on your high horse and made a big song and dance about it. Karma's a strange thing isn't it ?When you first rolled this thread out (and it went unanswered for several days....) I drafted a suitably drôle response. It remained a draft 'cause I thought better of posting it. It centred on the fact that you said the SD stuff was good and reasonably priced, but you kind of unravelled that theory when you said it didn't fit
Strikes me you're making huge meal out of fitting a poorly fitting product, this when an off the shelf item would have saved you a chunk of time, been resaleable in the event you changed cars, or ever sold the car.
Still if nothing else, we've learnt you know best, even when all the evidence garnered during your less than straightforward fitment routine points to the contrary
Well, I think we're more or less done. No photos of my welding because I'm not proud of it. Let's just say it's "functional". Here's a pic of the top mount:
At the top you can just see the edge of the third bolt that goes through the turret horizontally. Bolt head is on the other side, of course, so that the thread is kept away from the elements.
After all the swearing about alignment, once it was all bolted up and the trim refitted it's not bad at all. I have this much clearance on the driver's side:
Whereas on the passenger side I have this much clearance:
Trimming the rear carpet defeated me though, much too difficult too late in the day. Ended up like this:
I'll keep an eye out for a spare one and do it again one day.
Then I was able to drop my seat in and loosely attach the harness:
RACE CAR !
Hopefully this will be of some help to anyone considering one of these in the future.
FWIW, if you want one of these, SD probably have my original one available from stock for a good price after I returned it - identical to the above, but with saddle brackets for the optional front cage & single door bar.
At the top you can just see the edge of the third bolt that goes through the turret horizontally. Bolt head is on the other side, of course, so that the thread is kept away from the elements.
After all the swearing about alignment, once it was all bolted up and the trim refitted it's not bad at all. I have this much clearance on the driver's side:
Whereas on the passenger side I have this much clearance:
Trimming the rear carpet defeated me though, much too difficult too late in the day. Ended up like this:
I'll keep an eye out for a spare one and do it again one day.
Then I was able to drop my seat in and loosely attach the harness:
RACE CAR !
Hopefully this will be of some help to anyone considering one of these in the future.
FWIW, if you want one of these, SD probably have my original one available from stock for a good price after I returned it - identical to the above, but with saddle brackets for the optional front cage & single door bar.
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