Install the bolt in Cage, Is a bolt in Cage better than a weld in cage? pros and cons, lets talk!

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Let me show you what's on cuz enough is enough.

[00:00:05]I'll take a face full of baby just to make a statement. I know there's no turning back.

[00:00:13]Oh god. Adrenaline wasted so I know there's no turning back.

[00:00:21]I'll do what it takes. I making mistakes like that.

[00:00:26]>> Well, today is a licorice day.

[00:00:29]buddies. This is the second day in a row I've been working on this one in licorice. This time it's the peelable ones.

[00:00:39]Oh wow.

[00:00:44]I might be getting diabetes. It's okay.

[00:00:47]These are going to be our friend.

[00:00:51]Oh no.

[00:00:54]That's right. We are cutting out every single thing that is wrong with this car. And what that is is all this damn Toyota wiring.

[00:01:08]>> Any of that when it's powered by Chevy.

[00:01:10]>> That's right. How to make a Toyota reliable.

[00:01:13]Drop a Chevy in it. Nah, I'm just joking. A lot of you guys are >> There it goes.

[00:01:22]A lot of these guys are saying that the best motor that you could put in here is this motor. But then I'm also getting a lot of comments saying that oh my god that >> I don't know. Pins needles.

[00:01:38]>> Pins and needles.

[00:01:41]>> Yep. They're good. Pins and needles. But yeah, a lot of people are saying like, "Oh, taking the Toyota motor out of that's the worst part to taking out the the most most reliable thing." Buddy, the most reliable thing inside this car is me. There's a couple plugs that we're going to save. Um, but most of it is just scrap. So, let's cut all these out, take out uh the heater core, and we'll be right back.

[00:02:10]I'm just going to get a grinder and just cut it with a [ __ ] grinder because that [ __ ] sucks.

[00:02:15]So, we got the windshield out. We got the dash out. We got the heater core out. We got all the wiring out. We got everything out. Got all the chunks of stuff out. And if you guys might take a look, I built a gas tank bracket for this. Um, it's just bolted in. I realized this thing still had factory gas tank underneath it.

[00:02:38]So, that had to go. And then, uh, we built our gas tank bracket. We got the, like I said, we got all the wiring out from behind the dash. It's just on a pile over there. Took the windshield out. And, uh, here's what we're going to do now. We're going to go get our NG Customs cage and start getting it in here. Now, a lot of you guys uh remember the NG Customs cage, and that's because it is the cage I've taken down to Meltdown every single time I have gone. I think this cage is super reliable and I'm going to go get it for you guys so you can see it.

[00:03:13]So, we've gotten the NG Customs cage out. It's catching my hand. There's one upright.

[00:03:18]There's a door bar. There's a bar across the roof. Inside here, we have another crossbar.

[00:03:26]We're going to go over here.

[00:03:31]We have two more. Well, one more upright, another door bar, and then there's the other crossbar across the ceiling. And then down here we have the gas tank protector. Now, these rules say it can be 28 in. Last time I went to Meltdown, it was limited to 24 in.

[00:03:52]So, some of the questions I get asked about these cages a lot is, do I think these are better for a custom Well, that thread's a little damaged. Do I think these are best of better than a complete custom oneoff cage that you weld inside a car and then you scrap it?

[00:04:21]Well, there's two ways to look at that. You can say that maybe that's why these bolts are damaged. You can say, well, this one's better because it can be used multiple times in multiple different cars, which is an advantage. But then you can also say that it's not as strong as the other ones, which is true. This is not as strong. It does not reinforce your car as good as the other ones, and it does have a lot more points of braking. But I think my total investment into this, I I think I bought this one used for 500 bucks and then I built this, which was another basically 100 bucks that I cut apart and reused. So I think maybe 200 bucks cuz there's two of them. I think I'm $700 into this and this has been in like I'm going to say 10 different cars, maybe more. That $700 could not have done 10 cages and cars, even if I built the cages extremely shitty and cheap.

[00:05:26]So, as you guys just seen, we just pulled out all those bolts. We're at 24 in.

[00:05:45]very loud.

[00:05:49]We're at 25 in.

[00:06:01]Okay, what are we at there?

[00:06:04]Going to take a wild guess and say 28, 27 and a half. Our rules say 28 as far as I'm concerned.

[00:06:14]That's good. So, let's get this thing in the car. Well, we have to put a couple bolts back in and then we'll get it in the car. Oh, so nice. If this was a regular cage, I'd have to cut it, get new steel, reweld it. It wouldn't just be simple. Undo three bolts.

[00:06:39]and go from there.

[00:06:41]But let's get this back in the car.

[00:06:58]Well guys, in a period of about 1 hour and 30 minutes, we have the cage fully installed. Uh the big thing with this cage is to make sure the space on the top crossbar and the space on the top the bottom crossbar are the same. We're 55 1/2 in. So that's good. Um because we did make it wider and the c this camera is a little bit different than any other Camry we built before. We are having to modify our gas tank kickers up to the halo, but uh it's not that bad. Uh we just we're just cutting them and then reworking them. Um I'm out of 3/4 inch hardware.

[00:07:37]So we're going to go buy some. But um we got that side pretty much tack welded in and uh it's looking pretty good. Um no real complaints. Everything went in super easy. Um I'm pretty happy with this.

[00:07:53]So that is one of the main advantages of these bolt-in cages. Let me go around and talk to you guys again. There's a little bit more work that we're going to have to do to this cage off camera, mostly because I just don't have the hardware here. But we're going to go buy some halfinch hardware. We're going to go buy some 3/4 hardware. And then this is done.

[00:08:13]This is what I really like about this cage. Um, it's quick install and you can just take it apart, collapse it. It stores in such a small space. Um, if you guys ever have the chance to buy a fully adjustable bolt-in cage, I would highly recommend it. Highly. Uh, the guy that made this one, his name was Nick Green.

[00:08:37]He used to own a company called MG Customs here in Ontario. And unfortunately, he doesn't make them anymore. So, about once every two weeks, I uh search on marketplace just for these cages. And if they ever pop up, I go buy them. I've got three now. And uh I should have bought more when he was making them. I actually pay more for the used ones than I did for the original one from him. So kind of funny, but um I've had zero complaints over the years with these cages and I think they're great. Um some of the welds are starting to let go. I'm just going to reweld them. There's a lot of spots that need a little bit of touching up that I'm probably going to do when I'm welding the back of the uh crossarss in, but these are going to be removable. So, is this cage as good as a fully welded in cage? No.

[00:09:28]Strength-wise, no. Costwise, easeability, reusability, yes. I think that I would rather sacrifice one thing to feed another so much more. And I love this cage. I am a firm believer in these cages. Um, there's a company out there that was making them and I should have bought some of theirs, but they were a little bit different, so they weren't compatible. So, that kind of sucked. But, uh, no, I'm overly happy with this and I think that it's going to be another good run on this cage. So, with that, I think the cage is done. We do have to go buy hardware. Don't worry, the cage is done. Um, it's the exact same cage I've ran at Meltdown every time I've gone, so I know it's going to pass the rules. I don't have any worries about that. And uh now that we're getting to this point, we might see if this thing runs. We're almost maybe one or two more videos away from seeing if this car actually runs.

[00:10:34]You know what? Maybe we will do the trunk before we hear this thing run. I think it's going to run. I do have to find my ECU, though. I do not know where my ECU is.

[00:10:48]H whatever. We'll figure it out. But thanks for watching, guys. We got uh quite a bit done here today. My goal was to get the cage in, and I'm just a little bit of hardware short from getting my goal done. So, I'm pretty pleased. Thanks for watching, guys, and we'll see you back here later on Zach's Workshop.