Im preparing to dive in and start building a 2door to race around with you guys and have some fun. My name is Brandon, im 26, and I have absolutely no experience racing and have been somewhat into the rockcrawling scene here in utah with my 4door kick. I will be taking my time with this since I cant work on it at my place and have school, work, and a 2yearold I have to watch quite often. I found a couple guys that have 2door sidekicks locally here in utah for $100 but neither one has a motor or trans so I will get one of them and start building what I can until I can get the funds for a motor and trans.

I have is that I have a custom hybrid front axle from a friends rig that is similar to a samurai hybrid rear but made to sidekick width with custom made chromoly shafts, 5.12 gears, detroit ez locker, control arms from the RRO samurai coil kit, full histeer(unknown manufacturer), and setup for airshocks.  Question is should I swap it under the sidekick or stay ifs?

Welcome in! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help assist.

As for solid axle, maybe if you was going to race a Samurai but I think it'd be a step back on the Sidekick... but then again, maybe not???

-Eric

the more ive talked to people the more turned off I am about doing an sas on my 4door or on the 2door so im just going to try and sell the axle or trade it off for some stuff for the 2door.

Can I use a harbor frieght pipe bender to bend the tube for the cage?    A friend of mine used one on his tinny's exo cage  and the bends looked great but he thought that there might be some race specs preventing even a slight bend and I would need to find a jd2 bender.

the more ive talked to people the more turned off I am about doing an sas on my 4door or on the 2door so im just going to try and sell the axle or trade it off for some stuff for the 2door.

Can I use a harbor frieght pipe bender to bend the tube for the cage?    A friend of mine used one on his tinny's exo cage  and the bends looked great but he thought that there might be some race specs preventing even a slight bend and I would need to find a jd2 bender.

On the bender, take a look at the other team builds and get a feel for the cage quality and builds. The way the Zukiworld Challenge works is we partner with Sanctioning bodies and promoters and attend their races as a class. We spec out the Suzuki / Performance part of the vehicle but all safety aspects go through the other organization. So, I'd suggest looking through a couple of the available specs from VORRA, BITD, and the new organization HDRA that should help.

Spend the money and time on safety. People do get hurt and it is serious when you have a problem miles and miles away from anyone.

-Eric

Brandon - On the roll cage I built the roll cage for Team Trouble Racing, and a sport cage for my Tracker.  We have been using a tubing bender which makes rolled bends.  That is the easy part, getting a good job welding & bracing is much harder.  Preparing each weld area is very important for good penetration and better welds (good welds also look good).  A vehicle rolled at 60+ will be testing the strength & iintegrity of the roll cage a lot more than most rock crawler are.  If you are not familiar with welding in all positions, your roll cage for a race car is not where you want to practice.  These things can roll anytime (even out behind the house), find a local shop to work with on the cage.  On Project Trouble I listed where I made the bends for that roll cage, and will give you an idea of what is involved.

I hope you can find the time to run over to the VORRA 500, extra help and support is appreciated when racing.

Can I use a harbor frieght pipe bender to bend the tube for the cage?

You want to use a tubing bender, not a pipe bender.  It is a good way to make sure you do not cause any issues with the tubing being slightly deformed and creating a weak point on your cage.

Pipe Bender:

The bent pipe or tube is prone to deformation on both the inside and outside curvature. The pipe or tube is often deformed into an oval shape depending on the wall thickness of the material.

I look forward to the build and seeing you on the track!