http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.ph...0756&page=1

Great thread! Anyone running CF stuff on their cars?

Tony

That guy is sitting on a gold mine of business opportunity. Maybe I should try fabbing up some thirdgen stuff......

CF is all well and good, but how much are you willing to spend to loose the last 200 lbs?

There are a ton more places to lose weight for way less money.

I'm going to give it a shot at some fenders, not any time in the near future though. Definitely a cool project!

fenders hell, theyre light to begin with. Make me a crossfire style hood

THe fenders are suprisingly light. The hood, roof, and doors are the places to start.

Hmmm, guess I've never really taken one off before! I hear the hatch glass is pretty heavy, maybe do that?

A piece of lexan and a couple of Dzus fasteners will fix that, too. I'd like a 'glass rear deck, though. Although not too heavy once gutted and pulled off the hatch frame, it does weigh about 10#. Even though it is in the back, where weight is needed, it is kind of high.

Doors and roof would be my choice for first attempts. Doors can be made pretty light, but they are way flimsy then. Ask me how I know. The problem with the roof on those things is it does provide a fair amount of chassis stiffening. If you have tube car, that's one thing, but a tub car, it is part of the tub.

But with lexan windshield and hatch glass, gutted doors and a glass hood, you can get the cars pretty light. Ours is about 2400#, and the car still has the full firewall, floorpan, body and fenders, as well as the regular plastic (heavy) trim pieces that make it look like a Firebird.

The thing about that is that they make lexan windows already, and the front of the car is the part that needs the diet the most.

The bad thing about a lexan hatch is that your hatch is no longer a hatch - it is a window. I think you have to screw it in directly to the body. In that regard a carbon version with a window might be cool if you can keep the hatch function. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

2400# is very impressive. Do you have a cage? I assume this is your CP car? Streetable at all? Gutted doors? Have any pictures? (can you tell that I'm excited)

Heh, I was more kidding around than anything about the carbon hatch, but in regards to the lexan hatch, seeing as most of the weight of the hatch assembly is the glass itself, possibly with a carbon decklid/spoiler and some stiffening around the edges you could get away with a lexan hatch that actually functions as a hatch...hmmmm...

Our Firebird has sort of a hatch, still usable. The deck is separate from the lexan, and it is held on the car by Dzus fasteners. Lift the deck off and undo the two Dzus fasteners on the sides of the rear window, and the window opens. It is bolted to the car with the factory hatch hinges. You NEVER want to open it outside, though, and it is very floppy when open.

You know, I really don't have detailed pictures of the car. I guess I should do that. It is pretty low-tech, though. We bought the car mostly ready to go. All we had to do was add tires. :-) It was built by several members of the Texas A&M Sports Car Club, and current and former citizens of College Station, Texas. Hardly a year goes by that I don't hear, "Yeah, I helped build that car." from someone from up around that part of the world. So what I have to say here is all from my observations and work on the car now that we own it.

The doors are indeed gutted. Just the outer skins that mount via the factory hinges (weight loss still possible there) and door latches. You have to reach outside the car to open the door.

It has a 6-point roll-bar in it, welded to the floor of the car. Tabs secure the loop to the roof. No side windows (although I'd like to set something up there for a little more water proofness in the rain) and lexan for the front and back windows. The car has a glass late-model stock car style lift off hood. Yet another piece you don't want to remove outside. The front fenders are Japanese knock-offs. Fit is okay, but they weigh less than the factory fenders. The car is completely gutted with the exception of the factory dash and steering column. We have a Kirkey driver's seat and about to replace the stock passenger seat with another Kirkey. Not sure how much weight we will save there yet. Going to find out this weekend. I'm not expecting much, that Kirkey seems heavy for aluminum.

It could be 2500#, I'm not sure. We have a fair amount of weight in the back passenger seat well, and some under the battery in the right rear quarter. I pulled some lead out of the driver's side back seat well, cut it and bolted it into the SFCs we added a couple of years ago. We are just a little heavy right now, but it depends on who is weighing us. I've been underweight at a Divisional, and almost 50# overweight at a Tour doing nothing to the car, so we'll probably stay right where we are, only try to move more weight low and back.

Yeah, it is streetable, since we live out in the county.

That's scary!

I'd be interested in seeing some pictures if you have time. I'm not interested in completely gutting mine, but you can always get ideas.

I'll try. Depending on what the weather is doing this weekend, we may be able to pull it out of the garage to install the passenger seat. If I get to do that, I'll take some pictures.