BUILD-OFF CHALLENGE: MichiganMat Options

[MichiganMat]

Hey er'body, Im MichiganMat from San Jose and Im building a 914.

Backstory:
This summer I had the pleasure of picking up a '75 914 chassis here in San Jose for a mere $300.
It came with with virtually nothing:
no driveline, no interior, no pedals, etc. Stripped, but solid, with minimal overhead and cost.
I've been building 911s for many years now and had an extra set of wheels and 911 front struts in my shed, so I thought hey, lets do this.
My brother and I are just finishing up putting an STi motor into our '67 912 too, so with that project wrapping up Im ready to jump into another.


The Plan:
Well, I got the car for cheap, and I've already got a perfectly good '75 911S to daily/rally/etc with, so the plan is to build a stripped down 914 racer for AX and track fun.
The car will be getting:
- Tangerine Racing rollcage, tied to 8pts, with nascar door-bars
- Rennspeed fiberglass body (fenders f&r, hood, trunk, and both bumpers)
- Mad Dog chassis reinforcement kit and hell-hole repair
- Resto-Design floorpans, seat areas dropped by 2", with custom tunnel
- Tilton pedals
- 5 lug conversion
- 16x7 Fuchs all the way around with 2nd option of 15x7ATE's with canti slicks
- /likely/ wrx drivetrain, but Im exploring my options...


Where sits today:
I picked up the car in May and I've since then I've put it on a home-built rotisserie, cut the pans, tunnel, trunk, headlight buckets, and front fenders out of it, and fixed the hell-hole area.
The pans were totally rotted, the battery tray was nonexistent, the fenders on all 4 corners had damage. Pretty easy to make the decision to start fresh, haha.
Today, most of the chassis kit is installed but I can't finish it until the roll-cage is put in. Tangerine is almost done with the cage so it'll be another week or so until I see it.
In the meantime, the plan is to clean up the wheel-wells, fix the rust in the longs, put in the trunk cross-sections, and primer the reinforcements.
Then I'll get to work on the tunnel, mod'ing the pans, installing the fiberglass, etc.


Anyways, hello, nice to meet you guys, and Im looking forward to the challenge!

[MichiganMat]

Cool build(s). I know you're still in mock-up phase, but can I suggest, from experience, that you consider bracing the door gaps, checking dimensions and consulting with Racer Chris before you finalize the cage? Welding that cage in can REALLY change the dimensions from all the heat. I believe the common practice is to actually have the car on jackstands when welding it in. But Chris would know the best method for sure.

Thanks, will do. I measured today and Im pleased to say my windshield-to-targa bar is perfect on both sides.

I am sympathetic to the weight of the cage flexing the longs while its on the rotisserie, so Im going to keep a close eye on it. Tangerines instructions are pretty specific on the installation too, basically tack it all up, then burn in everything but the feet, then cut the tacks on the feet to relive tension, then finally burn in the feet. Seems logical, heh.

Question for you: concerning the chassis kit, is it common to just stich-weld every few inches or should I be welding a solid bead around the entire outside the panels? Do you know?