Safety on a budget. Stock roll cage mods!

If you’re familiar with our YouTube video series, you may not think we’re the smartest bunch you’ve seen on the internet, and you’d be right.  We do, however, have just enough common sense to pay a little attention to safety.

It’s no secret that stock roll cages from all the OEMs have some real shortcomings when it comes to saving your butt in a serious crash, and there’s no doubt that if you spent as much time as we do surfing the internet at work, you’ve seen some failed roll cage pictures like these…

Yeah, it’s tempting to buy a new machine and start immediately throwing money at tires, exhaust, tuners, shocks, light bars, radios, etc…. BUT, smart money buys some safety upgrades first.  If you’re going to drive hard and fast you NEED 5-point harnesses, and you absolutely SHOULD upgrade your roll cage as well.

Of course there are a ton of options for excellent aftermarket cages that won’t fold like a lawn chair and will keep you much safer than the stock stuff.  Those get expensive though.  Maybe you don’t have the extra couple grand to spend on someone’s chromoly art work?  Is there something else you can do? Sure is.

Beef up that stock cage.

Even if you don’t have a tubing bender or a notcher, there is a TON of good you can do by adding some straight tubes with a cheap welder, a grinder, and some spray paint.  Head to your local steel supplier, get yourself some tubing of your choice and have at it.  You don’t need fancy chromoly or seamless tube for what we’re doing here.  Plain ole low carbon ERW (electric resistance welded) is fine.  You can do this on the cheap.  1.75” diameter x 0.120” wall is a common size for heavy duty cages.  Some choose to use smaller and thinner tubing for less structural areas like intrusion bars, and that’s okay too.  Just do something.  If you can’t weld, find a buddy who can.

We’ve done full roll cage builds like on the YXZ, but have also modified stock cages, most recently Nick’s Wildcat.  Check out our video on the Wildcat cage improvements below, and if you have any questions on where / how to add support to your particular machine please feel free to ask us!

Don’t die please.  We don’t want to lose viewers.