Hey hope you guys might be able to help me out with this. I am close to completion of my first 11 car! I built a front skidplate from aluminum and bolted to the front bumper and the bottom tube. I have seen a few cars in local and mexican races that brace the bumper using tubing from the part of cage that ties into top of beam. Is this precautionary or will my front end cave in the first time I do a big nose wheelie?

When we built the cage for 1146 (Desert Dingo)it was from sugestions and or recommendations of Eric S. If anyone should know what works, it'd be him! I put a tube from the front hoop thru the firewall straight down to the top tube on the beam. The bottom tube of the beam was also supported by attaching to the tube which ran front to back, welded to the pan. A vertical tube was welded between the two for laterial support. Before welding in, be sure that there is clearance for your pitman arm as it travels left to right. I'd enclose pics, but the car is not accesible!

I don't think that is what he was asking. We put a piece of 1.5\" between the bumper brackets right behind the bumper to make it stronger and to aid in case of towing. We then made some J shaped tubes that were connected to that horizontal tube between the bumper brackets that traveled under the front apron and clamped to the beam with half clamps. Then, the skid plate was attached over and formed over that structure.

We used 3/16\" aluminum and it did bend a bit on this one really big hit that essentially stopped the car from 20mph due to hitting a berm. That was about as big a hit I would think you could reasonably expect to take on that without totally crushing the front apron where the bumper attaches. It worked, and actually didn't get that much abuse.