dies for cage building

[zboss]

Building a main hoop for a 69 Camaro out of 1.625 chro-moly. What radius are you guys using?

[Blake Foster]

5" or 5.5"

[djorgensen3]

I think mine are 6" but don't hold me to that...

[BBC71Nova]

I looked into this before purchasing my 1.625" die as well. The advice I got was to buy the smallest CLR available that is spec'd to bend the minimum wall thickness tube you are bending.

I was bending 1.625" .083 wall which happens to be the minimum wall thickness on the JD2 Model 4 5.5" CLR die so that's what I got. So far, so good. I've bent some 90 degree bends and haven't noticed any issues.

John

[Vince@Meanstreets]

Keep in mind that some race club rules have .120 wall thickness minimum. Making the chromo useless

[Chad-1stGen]

Also, some sanctioning bodies specify a minimum bend radius. For example the SCCA specifies that the bend radius must be a minimum of 3 times the diameter of the tubing. So 1.75" diameter tubing must have a minimum radius of 5.25"

[zboss]

I had meant to reply several months back, but I forgot...

Thanks for the suggestions guys. A local shop uses 6.5" for theirs, so that's what I went with. I agree with your consensus, a tighter radius would have been better. But I'm happy with what I got. I'll probably run a few drag strips a bit more than the autocross, so I went with a NHRA sportsman style cage. I'll do some autocross for fun, but I don't plan on being competitive at it. Any one know what radius bends fits a nitrous bottle? This is the first tubing I've ever bent, it was pretty enjoyable...

[Vince@Meanstreets]

nice work!!

[Sieg]

Well done Sir!