Carbon Fiber

[gabbett1]

I look forward to hearing back...cheers

[gabbett1]

So far I haven't been able to get as much information as I would have liked. The main person I need to work with was gone for some of the time and sick while he's been here... What we believe as of right now is a rough estimate that a complete monocoque body could be sold somewhere in the $50k range. Take in mind that this is a complete unit and not needing work besides possible minor modifications and body work for paint. Something like the Ring Bros car will need a lot more work done to finish out the car and would cost a lot more in the end. By making the unibody in all carbon, the estimated weight of it all would be around 100 lbs vs 600+ lbs when in metal.

[raustinss]

the problem there after is going to be registration and seems to be more of a U.S. problem then in canada ....as per some previous threads reg. re-vin # new sheet metal shells

[gabbett1]

the problem there after is going to be registration and seems to be more of a U.S. problem then in canada ....as per some previous threads reg. re-vin # new sheet metal shells

Yes, I was wondering about that as well. Shouldn't be a problem if someone tries to get a vin as a kit car. If someone is trying to register it as a genuine 69 Camaro, that may be tough. Probably depends on the state.

[HellPhish89]

at least in my state: Because the body is a reproduction of the original; the car can be registered as that model and model year. I am not entirely sure if you make up the vin number or if one is issued or what.

[raustinss]

So at 50 k ....possibly having safety and some registration issues ....would it not be better off going the way of something like everything from Anvil (in the case of a camaro ) and be a little heavier ?
not by much thou if you watch the Jay Leno ring brothers interview they state the weight of the Mustang with carbon skin ....which is my suggestion if your a ford guy . That way you maintain registration, factory ford or gm engineering, safety and , probably keep some cash in your pocket ?
With above said cases you know all interior components will still fit as they should, not have to run extra wires for grounds . I'm sure there is some other things I can't recall right now

[gabbett1]

So at 50 k ....possibly having safety and some registration issues ....would it not be better off going the way of something like everything from Anvil (in the case of a camaro ) and be a little heavier ?
not by much thou if you watch the Jay Leno ring brothers interview they state the weight of the Mustang with carbon skin ....which is my suggestion if your a ford guy . That way you maintain registration, factory ford or gm engineering, safety and , probably keep some cash in your pocket ?
With above said cases you know all interior components will still fit as they should, not have to run extra wires for grounds . I'm sure there is some other things I can't recall right now

Why do you think that safety would suffer, or that we would make it as light as possible even to spite strength? I asked this question to the gentleman that will be making my parts and they assured me that the car would be MUCH safer and stronger in full carbon. He referred me to an airplane accident that happened once where the plane hit the ground at 140mph. The passengers were killed by the sheer force of the hit, but the cockpit appeared to be structurally in tact. As if you could put on a new set of wings and fly it away. That means that the car should be able to withstand a lot and you shouldn't have the concern of being crushed in the car.

Covering the metal frame with outer skins doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because what's the point? There isn't a ton of weight in just the metal skins. You won't be saving much in weight. IMO you'd be better off just doing the car in all metal and skinning it if you are going for the carbon look.

Now if registration is an issue and someone wants to have a true '69, then this product probably isn't for you. I wouldn't think anyone modifying their car this much is going to be concerned about it being a true 69 vs it still looking like the real thing.

Edit: Re reading this later it comes across to me as if my first sentence is somewhat attacking you and I want to make it clear that I'm not. I'm just asking the question.

[raustinss]

not taking it as a n attack , i have thick skin lol .... the safety issue is that carbon splinters and sprays those fibers . Not too mention crush zones , no matter how good or bad they were designed in the 60-70's . i know that metal skins dont weight that much but i urge you the find the video of leno driving one of ring brothers mustangs ... they say the weight of the body ... it is quite light just found the video on youtube ...they guess the stock body to be around 7-800 lbs and they claim the carbon to be 180 ......jay lenos garage its a 30 min video ...weights mentioned in the first 3 mins

as for registration it wouldn't be so much a issue here as it seems Canada is way more relaxed than the states with what defines a car ....( I.E re-vinning) . it would help with the insurance issue and on that note if there was a collision or theft of said car. there would be a difference with values and parts availability. even thou we all know the parts would be the same . what i trying to say is it would be easier for an insurance company to screw you if your car had a "kit" car title vs a 1969 camaro title for example .
hiding under the name of a kit car requires "more" work for a insurance company to find parts yet when its a "production car its easy to valve the car and or the sum of its parts

[gabbett1]

I have no doubt that all of their carbon weights about 180 lbs. The car as a whole weights roughly 3,000 lbs. They have a lot of extra metal in framework that adds a ton of weight that we wouldn't need in a monocoque design. I saw a raw Ringbrothers body and the frame that went with it. Like I've said in prior posts, there is basically no structure to their carbon parts. At least not the unibody section.

Steel will crumple and not splinter true, but steel will also fail after a certain amount of force, just like Carbon will. Carbon will just be able to hold it's strength to a much higher force than steel will.

Gotta remember, formula one cars have an all carbon cockpit. If it wasn't safe/safer, they wouldn't be using it.

[TheJDMan]

I don't see titling as an issue since you can build any number of kit cars these days and get the finished project registered in any state in the US as near as I can tell. But, I am curious about things like the structural strength/rigidity of a CF body. By that I just mean some racing competitions require roll bars or cages to be installed for a car to be legal. In the typical steel body subframe connectors and roll bars/cages add strength and rigidity but how would a roll bar/cage work in a CF body? I'm also curious how hard CF is to modify? I'm thinking of body mods like say installing mini-tubs, just as an example, and I'm also trying to envision how one would go about installing any of the popular PT coilover based rear suspensions in a CF shell.

[gabbett1]

I don't see titling as an issue since you can build any number of kit cars these days and get the finished project registered in any state in the US as near as I can tell. But, I am curious about things like the structural strength/rigidity of a CF body. By that I just mean some racing competitions require roll bars or cages to be installed for a car to be legal. In the typical steel body subframe connectors and roll bars/cages add strength and rigidity but how would a roll bar/cage work in a CF body? I'm also curious how hard CF is to modify? I'm thinking of body mods like say installing mini-tubs, just as an example, and I'm also trying to envision how one would go about installing any of the popular PT coilover based rear suspensions in a CF shell.

One of the design features I would like to implement into the molds would be a modular design. Meaning we would design the basic floor pan and have inserts for what ever change someone wants to make. Mini tubs, changed tunnel, etc, those things would be fairly easy to do in the part making process. Any other major modifications one would want to do to the external body could be done for an little extra cost. I know most wouldn't need to but it would be something we offer anyway.

As stated above, you can make a CF body extremely strong. In the airplane example I gave earlier, basically two cars going 70 mph could hit head on and you would not break the cabin.

Here's an example video of how much stronger CF can be than steel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjErH4_1fks

[raustinss]

Yes but you still want crush zones .... otherwise it's a human which must absorb the impact energy, race cars somewhat combat this with race seats, harnesses and Hans devices ...

[gabbett1]

Yes but you still want crush zones .... otherwise it's a human which must absorb the impact energy, race cars somewhat combat this with race seats, harnesses and Hans devices ...

Crush zones are not good in old cars anyway. Advancements in steel that makes it possible for the safety of modern cars didn't come about till almost 2000. Older Corvettes don't have crush zones either and I don't hear people complaining about it. I think you are making a much bigger deal out of it than it really is.

Personally, I'd rather have my cockpit not crush me vs the minor amount of absorption it will take before smashing me inside the car...

https://youtu.be/joMK1WZjP7g

[gabbett1]

There are modern cars with a carbon fiber monocoque. The Lamborghini Aventador is one as well as the Koenigsegg and many others.

[raustinss]

are you on glue ...? how the hell do you think new cars are built ...im a fabricator and do TONS of work for toyota canada .....crush zones are built into every car starting at the front bumper , go look at some info about the newer F150's , the lambo still has crush zones...again starting at the front end and stopping before the interior cabin . do a google search of crush zones ,crumple zones etc . you are clearly missing the point and or info. advancements in metal technology is crazy , even if there isnt a crumple zone in the literal sense of what we all think auto manufactures will add softer metal in certain areas to absorb the energy created by the impact

[gabbett1]

are you on glue ...? how the hell do you think new cars are built ...im a fabricator and do TONS of work for toyota canada .....crush zones are built into every car starting at the front bumper , go look at some info about the newer F150's , the lambo still has crush zones...again starting at the front end and stopping before the interior cabin . do a google search of crush zones ,crumple zones etc . you are clearly missing the point and or info. advancements in metal technology is crazy , even if there isnt a crumple zone in the literal sense of what we all think auto manufactures will add softer metal in certain areas to absorb the energy created by the impact

Where did I say newer vehicles don't have crumple zones? Where did I say the Lambo didn't? Old cars might have had some built into them but they were nowhere near as effective as newer vehicles, especially after 2000 where they were able to make significant advancements in metal strength. I think you are missing my point. My point is that old cars, classic cars, don't have near the safety as a newer vehicle in the sense of crumple zones. I linked the video that showed just that. The newer vehicle cockpit stayed mostly in tact while the classic car cockpit was crushed. My point was that I would rather not be crushed in my cockpit like the old cars tend to do. Where am I wrong here?

[raustinss]

Your wrong in the aspect that you want to take a car that admittedly sucks in crashes and want to make it worse by making it stronger .....you would Want to add crush zones so that the car would react much like a new car ....and the chirps about new cars is a reference to the 2000 and up model yrs .....crush zones have been designed into cars way before then ...and I certainly don't see why that's the year you think changed everything

[gabbett1]

Your wrong in the aspect that you want to take a car that admittedly sucks in crashes and want to make it worse by making it stronger .....you would Want to add crush zones so that the car would react much like a new car ....and the chirps about new cars is a reference to the 2000 and up model yrs .....crush zones have been designed into cars way before then ...and I certainly don't see why that's the year you think changed everything

How are we supposed to design crumple zones when we're only designing the unibody and not the firewall forward where the largest majority of that would be placed anyway? You are wrong in thinking by making it stronger will make it worse. Sure you might take a little more shock to your body but your body won't get crushed by the collapsing cockpit. I'd take some whip lash over a crushed torso any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Look, we will design as much safety into the car as we possibly can, but if someone is looking for modern safety then you really have no business looking at a classic car. If you want modern safety then buy a new car.

It changed around the early 2000's because they added about 1/3 more strength into the stamping process of metal.

It Starts With the Steel

Considering all of the rapid developments we've seen with electronic safety systems in recent years, it's perhaps counter intuitive that some of the biggest safety improvements in the past decade have come from good old-fashioned steel. "Over the past 10 to 15 years, steels have been getting stronger," says Chuck Thomas, chief engineer at Honda R&D Americas, in Raymond, Ohio. "We probably had 500 megapascals of tensile strength in the early 2000s. Now hot-pressed or hot-stamped steel is around 1,500 megapascals." At that strength you can hang 200,000 pounds on an inch-wide strip without tearing it in two. The high-strength steel is stamped hot and then quickly cooled, allowing for complex shapes and a wide variability in yield strength, which helps determine how a car deforms in an accident.

David Leone, executive chief engineer for Cadillac, says that the use of high-strength steel isn't about turning passenger cars into invincible tanks but controlling crash energy and minimizing weight. "Heavy does not mean safe," Leone says. "Heavy means heavy. Go back to the '50s and '60s. The cars were heavy. They were stiff. But if you ran into the wall, you bounced off the wall and all the deceleration went through your body. Heavy and stiff is not where you want to be."
These advances in steel—along with strategic use of other materials such as aluminum, magnesium, and carbon fiber—allow engineers to design structures that can dissipate and redirect crash forces. For example, the new Cadillac CTS uses lightweight aluminum "crush cans" up front to soak up a lot of energy before an impact reaches the passengers. Even the CTS's seat-belt spools unwind slightly during a crash to help minimize forces on your body.
The effective mix of stronger materials and crush zones is evident in a slow-motion video of the 2014 Acura MDX undergoing an offset-frontal crash test. As the car slams into the barrier at 40 mph, the front end deforms alarmingly until the shock wave reaches the firewall, where it meets high-strength steel stamped at 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of continuing its collapse, the car pivots away from the barrier, absorbing the remaining energy. From the front door forward, the car is annihilated. From the door back, it's completely intact.

[raustinss]

Crush zones can and should be built into the rear section ...i.e trunk

[gabbett1]

Crush zones can and should be built into the rear section ...i.e trunk

Well like I said, we will make it as safe as we can with what we have to work with.