I Can't Believe It's Not Carbon Fibre (TM)

[Shad]

I've been h'investigating replacing my door cards with just sheet carbon fibre. But, after working out a square inch figure for how much material required, the cost would have been around £900

So, I've bought some 100% genuine fake carbon fibre instead



£22 per 1250x625mm sheet of this 2mm PVC plastic with laminated artificial CF, and next day delivery. From? Middlesex University Teaching Resources of all places! See www.mutr.co.uk for this and loads more useful things that are hard to find.

[cm_uk]

why? what's the point in fake carbon fibre...

[Shad]

The point? It's £878 cheaper than the real deal but will still look the part with my CF seats and roll cage etc etc

There's a minimal weight difference between this plastic and genuine CF too, and both are an awful lot lighter than my normal door cards.

[cm_uk]

yeah but i bet the carbon fibre is alot stronger and what do they say???"it flexs and then the dent pops out and its perfect again"... doubt plastic would...
i remember seeing a carbon fibre bonnet on a M3 and they rolled it at 130 and the bonnet wasn't even scratched

[Shad]

Why do I need strength from a door card?

Stop nit-picking and lighten up

[headbrace]

I think that in a roll, dented door cards would be the least of Shad's worries. I don't think the plastic is really going to be exposed to many dents or be structural in the slightest.

And MUTR is a great place for interesting techy stuff, we used them in our Tech classes at school.

[schmunk]

Waste of money at any price...

[cm_uk]

^ for what he is using it for yep... but for what i meant which was an example (though you didn't grasp that) it would be crap compared to real carbon fibre... for strength and lighteness on bonnets etc... carbon fibre compound wheels are available too.

[Butuz]

Problem is with fake carbon fibre is that it looks fake. Shad how the hell can real carbon fibre door cards cost so much? You can get a pair of real carbon fibre entire doors for cheaper than that for mine!

Carbon may be light and strong, but it is far from undamagable, once its rigitity level is breeched, it shatters into a gazillion pieces.

Butuz

[Tarffie]

That picture looks like dodgy tile carpet you'd find in an office.

[cm_uk]

^ LMFAO classic 80's style bathroom style

[Moby-Dick]

Butuz is correct - CF can absorb a lot of energy in an impact situation , but it does it by disingtrating ( having played with an F1 nose cone test rig, I know how much they can absorb and its a shedload )

but a doorcard isn't exactly structural so it is a cosmetic thing. If you really wanted to save wait then you'd get rid of them all together !

I think I'dd rather use some very thin aly to cover up the holes if I wanted to go for the flat doorcard look personally

[Moby-Dick]

Originally Posted by cm_uk

yeah but i bet the carbon fibre is alot stronger and what do they say???"it flexs and then the dent pops out and its perfect again"... doubt plastic would...
i remember seeing a carbon fibre bonnet on a M3 and they rolled it at 130 and the bonnet wasn't even scratched

Carbon fibre isn't a ductile material - its a very stiff material , depending on the layup of it. The reason the bonnet wasn't scracted was because it probably didnt hit anything. Most GF bonnets are in fact a Cabron skin over a GRP skeleton.

put the same bonnet in a frontend collision , then look at all the CF particles that get genererated ( which are carcinogenic btw , but please dont let that stop you standing reall close and getting a good lungfull. )

[Shad]

Originally Posted by Butuz

Shad how the hell can real carbon fibre door cards cost so much?

Fair question, I was quite surprised myself.

1250 x 625mm is 49.2125984 x 24.6062992 in inches

2 lots of that is 2422 square inches

2422 * 0.37 (cost per inch of 5 layer 2mm CF) = £896.10

The price of £0.37 per square inch is from http://www.fibre-lyte.co.uk/cf/cf_menu.html - although they can't make sheets that big anyway.

I can see there are some non-believers out there still, which is fine, but IMHO it will do the job and look good at the same time. I'm not kidding anyone here, this isn't CF and doesn't have its properties. But it looks a bit more fitting than just a boring sheet of plastic, and alu is so 90's

[Moby-Dick]

remind me which year your CRX was built in again ?
what have you done for handles etc ?

saw somethign on the SXOC which you'll like if you want some custom switch panels making up

http://www.customsolutions.me.uk/gauges%20consoles.html

[Shad]

1990 sah, 15 yrs old in May

Handles... I'm going to use the original window switches and opening mech, but will probably do without a handle to pull the door closed because you can grab it where the window goes down (if that makes sense).

I'll have a hole in my dash where the stereo was so I'll probably use that space for switches if I need to. Trying to keep the car as close to a CRX Challenge car as possible, and AFAIK, they kept the complete dash in and left it relatively intact