Looking for a cage builder to build an E-prod style SCCA legal cage in the northeast. I’ve called a few and most want $4,000+, I found a guy that will do it for $2500 but still looking for a more reasonable offer. Anyone have a guy? I don’t pretend to be a welder nor do I have one.. I know the miatacage.com cage is common, but my car is open with no windscreeen so that’s overkill and no need to cause more wind resistance/tumbling before the wing is in play…

 

If you are ever in central Florida, I know a guy that will do a miata for $1000 to $1500. I can't attest to the quality of his work b/c I've never seen one crashed, but a bunch of local guys have used him.

 

Metal costs for piping is expensive, Time for designing and making a custom cage is expensive. $2500 for a custom cage does not seem that bad in 2025. I had gotten quotes at least that price and higher 5+ years.

Miatacage is $1400 shipped. I would bet any competent welder would charge over $1k to weld it in. That is assuming you bring them a car that already has the interior completely empty and ready to drop it in.

 

I also thought $2500 seemed reasonable, but I live in an expensive part of CA and have a very bad memory for what I paid for my cage, which I did in two stages a couple years apart.

I’m honestly not sure if the more expensive quotes are blow-off prices or the going local rate. It might be that those prices come from people who don’t do a lot of Miata cages and would have to spend time designing rather than just building something they do every week. Maybe they’re busy enough they just don’t want to deal with that and are asking a high price to make OP go away.

Honestly, when I have multiple quotes for something at around the same price, that tells me it’s realistic for the time, place, and service. The lowest quote, being an outlier, gives me pause - why is it lower, and will it go higher after he gets started?

 

So I have a guy that’s 10 min from my house that offered to install a miatacage.com cage for 1k which seemed reasonable to me. But I was looking more for an angled hoop with diagonal bars to the dash bar more than a full cage with forward hoop (sort of like Supermiatas OGK) but taller since I don’t fit in a Miata… I know I can have whoever does the cage do a floor drop, but just trying to keep it simple…

he also offered that same 1k to do a Rhodes or SW and while those cages are much cheaper, they don’t offer driver comforts of access to dead pedal or angled door bars.

 

I have caged hundreds of Miatas in my shop and at Piper Motorsports where I used to be their head fabricator for many years in Northern VA (near Summit Point Raceway). I don't know how someone can charge $1000 to $1500 when the tubing, welding, grinding materials alone could cost half that amount. Some cheaper shops might not even use the right tubing (rollcages require DOM tubing vs circletrack/demo derby cages which commonly have ERW tubing) which is why its cheaper and outright dangerous. Piper Motorsports is still in the business if you are interested. They will be on the high end of the cost scale but the welds will be pretty and the cage will be done right! Miatacages are ok but find a good welder to install it and you will still be looking at over $3k.

 

You dont want any of those prebent kits unless its the MIatacage but as you want a Prod style cage I again suggest Piper. We all raced prod cars there, I attended the runoffs in one and many of our cars are still running. I see our cages in Jesse Prathers shop all the time in his videos.

 

Even the $4k cages don’t sound like a bad deal. If I trusted the guy offering $2500, I’d take that in a heart beat

 

Having been shopping for a cage in between spec Miata and FIA . 4 grand seems cheap.

Pretty sure most shops have gone up a couple grand in the past couple years and the amount of fabrication is huge.

Quality material is expensive, proper fit & fabrication takes lots of time and really good TIG/MIG welders are artists.

TFB Miata PM me..............