Festiva roll cage question

[DriverOne]

There have been too many accidents reported here lately, with people as much as losing their loved ones, and to be entirely honest, I truly believe NOS-tiva is still with us because of that roll cage he's got. That leads me to a real question.

All joking aside, what if I replaced all my pillars, the ridgeline all the way around the roof, run supports under the windows (and remove the interior steel except to keep some panels in place)... You get the point. Re-frame the Festiva INSIDE the original supports and so remove the interior steel. The body at that point will only look like a Festiva on the outside, but you won't see an actual roll cage inside the car - at least like you would in a race car. I'm entirely serious, and if it's feasible in the least I'm going to try it. The frame on my car is repairable, but to what end? For those of you who don't know, my frame rail rotted through in the same place on both sides of the front seat floor pan area.

The excessive side would be to replace the roof panel with carbon fiber, and even fender panels, etc., but God knows I don't have that kind of money.

So what problems might I run into while doing this? Can anyone give me any real insight on what I'm about to do?

[jjk1224]

I don't think removing the interior frame and replacing it would be worth your while. The interior structure does not seem beefy enough to accommodate any sort of stock that you might see on most traditional roll cage setups. In the end, you might even be risking the integrity of the whole vehicle and cause it to be even more dangerous. Instead of tearing everything out, I would just reinforce select potential problematic areas.

[econoaddict]

Just my opinion but to do it right and come out safer it would be a huge undertaking. Removing the structural integrity and trying to reproduce it via "hidden" roll bars is alot more complicated than it sounds, especially on a unibody.
There is a bunch of good info on the net about cage building.
Something else to think about, all the rollbar joints that are up tight in corners and pockets will need to be welded all the way around the joint to be functional.