Carbon Fiber Roof, worth it?
Turbo Mini Forums

how much do you want for the old roof??

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

On 16th Jul, 2009 MikeRace said:
Thats it your out of my gang now

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

i realy dont see the point of the carbon roofs, get a fibreglass one and paint it black.

hardly any, if any at all, carbon products on the market provide a weight saving over fibreglass. After all, they're made in exactly the same way.

Dry carbon cloth doesnt weigh less than dry fibreglass cloth, and the resin is the same.

it all seems to be form over function, and alot of people wasting loads of cash.

my 10p worth!

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

I agree ^

it does seem like a huge amount of work for a few kgs, if I was you I'd simple remove some of the bars from the cage. That car was built to be on the weight limit of 660 with driver, so extra bars were added instead of addind ballast

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

Just to answer a few points from above.

The cage is T45 and is welded to the A & B pillars and along the roof line, so removing the roof will not affect structural integrity.

As for getting a car to run as fast as the DON or Nic's, well, we have a few years to catch up. Whichever way we do it, I'm not prepared to risk the safety of my kids in a race car without a roll cage. I know the incidence of roll overs is rare, but I just feel it would be irresponsible of me if we did not use a cage.

So the cage is sacrosanct and we loose some weight by substituting panels for starters.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Mine is FB, and was an absolute piece of pi$$ to fit. I did it in ab hour.

You just have to leave an inch gap all way round then hammer it down slightly to enable the roof to sit flush. Then i just Tigersealed it on.

Jobs a good un!

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I'll collect it no problem, it will indeed be stuck to the wall in the workshop. I'll bring some alcohol of your choice with me

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

Good stuff - 10kg's is 10 kg's in anyones book! Rob - I don't think Rover really cared about the integrity on the british opens - but they did bolt an incy frame in to support the roof.

- ref air pressure at speed - that was my point earlier about adding carbon/foam X bracing to the roof to give it some rigidity.

JK

If Carling made Mini engines
it would probably be like this one!

You could get a prepreg one from Carbon Weezel...

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Thats a pretty substantial cage.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

Are you really sure you want to be cutting the roof off this car?
Surely it will lose all of its value as it will no longer be suitable for most racing classes?

Is it not best to leave it on, or rob the shell of all its bits and sell someone a bare shell?

good thinking nic, all depends what long term you want todo with this car. It's almost identical to my car, and it's never going to be light enough to win Class D in drag racing. My guess is this car as carrying around 100kgs more than nics, or the Don.

It could be a top running on the circuit though, Whats your plan guys?

Team www.sheepspeed.com Racing

wabasto?

Edited by miniminor63 on 16th Jul, 2009.

my carbon roof came from curley - it was a pig to fit, and i ended up painting it black..

but to be fair to curley they only charged me as much as a fibreglass item.

i cut the roof out of mine as the original had a sun roof and the rest was dented beyond repair.

If your roof is sound i would just keep it as is.

sliding fabric roof

My roof is fooked, so I'm putting steel back where it should be steel.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Fibre glass is gay (IMHO).

You really are out of my gang!

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

As he said^

I don't intend on using the car in the miglias for example as i don't have the time or money.

There are certainly ways to make it lighter, ream beam axle is another thing on the list and i've taken out the heavy fire extinguisher system.

I too think a 12.5 pass is possible in jims, even though they are lighter we have got a lot more rigidity and should be able to get the power down better :)

I'm surprised none of you lot have recommended a cast iron roof

We seemed to have killed off the discussion anyway.

I thought you were going to cook dinner?

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."