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Carbon Fibre RIPP OFF


excess baggage

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Winter project is to paint the car. I rather fancied carbon fibre wings and nosecone as well. Redline quoted approx £1400 including VAT which I assume is Caterhams price and they make their profit on their discount. I don't have any problem with Redline, I have only ever had excellent service from Mick and all the lads there. But £1400??? Is there a more reasonably priced supplier out there?

 

GC

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Protune have taken over the tooling from the Carbon Component Company and the quality is probably a bit better and the price a bit cheaper. Having said that I suspect that the samples Protune have are CCCs handywork and I am not sure I've seen anything they've made yet.
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blush.gif A generalisation of course... but it is true that CF has become a 'fashion' item (as evidenced by the amount of carbon fibre-lookalike crap that you can buy). I've nothing against it being used for genuinely worthwhile weight saving (I've paid enough money for CF boats and their equipment over the years!).

 

The biggest gains are from using it for structural components - a CF De Dion tube would be very worthwhile, bagsy I don't have to test it to destruction though...

 

Mike

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True true, I've wondered just how far you can go with carbon-fibre. It's always interesting to see what new components the F1 teams fabricate out of carbon each year. Aah, for an unlimited budget - gearbox casings, propshafts, suspension components.

 

However, after speaking with some knowledgeable people (baseball capped teens driving a Fiesta), apparantly the carbon-fibre lookalike stuff is just as good...'sorted' even :)

 

_____________________________________

www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk

 

 

Edited by - Graeme on 13 Nov 2000 15:13:33

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  • 4 weeks later...

In the USA here, a couple of guys here who autocross/hillclimb made nosecone/wings/rear from molds they cobbled together. They told me to come over one weekend and they would make up a set for my car. They said it was very easy. Under examination I did see som imperfections, but with the color of Carbon Fibre it tends to hide such things.

 

Richard Gibson

Washington DC USA

85' Caterham Sprint Crossflow

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Has anyone by way of experimentation, taken off all the GRP bits on their car and compared them KG for KG with the equivalent Carbon Fibre bits ? I suspect although I remain to be disproved, that the weight saving is about 0.5 to 0.8 of a KG. I think the money is much better spent elsewhere and GRP is so easy to repair if you break it. £ for £ if you are saving weight, replacing steel with Ali wherever possible is more cost effective.
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Carbon-fibre will not save you a lot of weight when compared with aluminium, however it is a lot more rigid. The weight saving over fibreglass is noticeable though. One thing to take into account is the quality/layers of the carbon used - the carbon-fibre on the R500s is quite thin (you can push your thumb into the nosecone). There was a brief discussion on the Sevens List (www.se7ens.net) estimating the total bodywork saving with carbon on the West-field, estimates were for ~15-17kg total.

 

Cheers,

Graeme.

 

________________________________________

www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk

 

 

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In the thread Wings And Stuff on 8 August 2000 Dave J posted this:

I've just stripped the carbon , wings , dash , rear wings and nose off me superlite and stripped the GRP versions from kevins car .

TOTAL WEIGHT SAVING = 237.12 Grams ( after I had washed all the ****e from me rear wings ).

 

This will increase my power to weight ratio by .34 bhp/ ton

 

OR if I skip my next Big Mac things should be equal .

 

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Carbon doesn´t save this much weight but the look is what makes it sell. I know a guy in my hometown Aachen who does all the carbon-goodies for famous BMW-tuner ACSchnitzer and couldn´t get my mouth shut when I saw his bureau for the first time: everything (!) made from real carbon, the table, the chairs, he even had a picture-frame made from carbon. He said he´s a maniac and did this in his free-time. I believed him...

 

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Copied from heavry bits not superlight.

 

leather adjustable seats +10.8 kg

full windscreen + wipers +6.6

hood + full side screens +8.0

paint +2.5

spare wheel including carrier +11.5

tool kit (for above) +2.8

full carpet set +3.3

heater +3.9

tonneau +1.6

 

That lot weigh about 50 kilos, so thats 520Kilos so far (470 for a superlight + 50 kilos for those bits), I hear the 6spd box on the superlight is lighter than the standard 4/5spd (dont know by how much). The wheels on a superlight are lighter (arent they?) , so that'll be a few more kilos.

 

I guess If you have a superlight with the screen,leather seats, hood and sidescreens, you're adding about 30k's already, maybe these sort of superlights should be called super'middleweights'.

 

Like Mike Bees says, I guess the carbon bits on a superlight are just there for show (and for 237.12 grams).

 

Is carbon strong enough to be used to build the chasssis out of, I would imagine that would be a significant wieght saving.

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90kg is stretching it a bit. The Roadsport is currently quoted as 550kg, although 3 years ago ISTR that the bog standard 1.6K was quoted at 520kg. The Superlight was and still is quoted at 470kg. So somewhere in the 60-80kg range seems to be the difference.

 

Differences quoted by Caterham when the Superlight was launched:

 

adjustable seats +10.8 kg

full windscreen + wipers +6.6

hood + full side screens +8.0

paint +2.5

spare wheel including carrier +11.5

tool kit (for above) +2.8

full carpet set +3.3

heater +3.9

tonneau +1.6

 

That's 51kg so far. ACB10s vs. regular steel-belted radials probably account for at least another 10kg, possibly more. The 6-speed 'box saves a a number of kg compared to the 5-speed, so we're up to 65-70kg difference already.

 

I suspect that the total weight of all the GRP bits is only a few kg, so there isn't a big saving to be made there.

 

It is true that the carbon bits on the R500 are different from those on the Superlight (or different from how they used to be) - as Graeme says the ones on the R500 are paper thin, you can flex the nosecone with the tip of a very weak little finger.

 

Mike

 

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Who needs carbon fibre? - at what price?

 

Just made some new cycle wings for next years race car out of a pair of trailer mudguards and a piece of saloon car roof section (cut out many years ago for sunroof)

 

They look good, are strong, dont weigh much and can be bashed out when pranged. - TOTAL COST THREE POUNDS FIFTY EACH.

 

Rear wings next for under five pounds each

 

 

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