Content > Pasi's BMW E30 M3

Finally had the cage ready last week, the final product is what I was looking for. Strenghtens the chassis quite a bit, give as much room inside as possible and is as light as possible. Unfortunately we discovered during the cage build that the front of the chassis had been bent by the previous owner. Few sad minutes later a friend called that there is an Autorobot ready at ML-Auto premises. Cage builder left the front of the cage still unattached to the struts, so we could first fix the aligment and then weld the cage to the struts.

Autorobot job is quite cruel to watch. The poor thing is pulled to straighten it’s deformed parts. I visited the local BMW dealer to get the measurement papers, so we had the correct values to start with. After few hours though, the front was again within a millimeter. So there wasn’t that much time wasted since we had such a helpful guy to do the chassis work. So off from the Autorobot to a trailer and back to the garage to prep the car for paint.

So now it was time to cleanup the rollcage from any welding debris and smooth the rough edges. Also I decided to cut out all the now useless bolts from inside, that used to keep the wire harness in place. The amount of time you can spend on these small things before paint is just ridiculous, but it’s a shame if there is something wrong after you have the fresh new paint on. A new tow hook adapter was welded in the front, where a alunium OMP tow hook can be attached.

Next steps were to drill holes for the Sparco seat sliders. I decided to cut the factory bolts from the floor and drill new holes directly to the floor. This give more head room for taller drivers and since the Sparco adapters have good amount of height adjustability, I can bring it up enough for myself also. Under and behind the seat I drilled holes for the 6-point harness. Rear of the harness is attached to the crossbar in the rollcage. The crossbar actually works also as stressbar to the rear suspension struts, since it’s as rear as possible to the rear firewall. So there was no need to make two bars and add the extra weight.

After test fitting the seat I noticed that the steering wheel is way too up. Cup of coffee later I started to make a height adjustable fitting for the steering column attachment :). Here are two pictures that pretty much tell the story. This will allow me to have the correct seating position without any compromise. I’m pretty happy with the result. Next up is the painting, but before that there might be some modifications still to the rear struts to accommodate coilover struts :).

Some more details of the cage.