if the car crashed behind the truck, steel roof is better than cf roof in term of safety.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by stickmantijuana

stealth, what sort of torque does the steel roof see? in the event of roll over, it wouldn't matter what material it's in, and as for lateral forces, wouldn't two beams on the bottom take care of it?

I don't have any data on what forces the roof deals with, just that the idea of taking the steel roof off the only car with door holes as large as we have, seems risky.

A big curved sheet like that can handle some huge forces, given the amount of aluminum on the car, it wasn't made of steel by accident.....

S

 

In the carbon roof 4 man were jumping on it without a single problem..Its very very durable and safe...

 

cf roof afterall could actually be quite interesting. if built properly i'm sure it can withstand the torque the original roof was supposed to see at a huge weight savings at the most critical area. this could be marketable.

 

It just weights 2kg if anyone knew the stock weight it would be an interesting comparison..

 

Here you go.

http://www.leg-sport.com/index.html

http://www.leg-sport.com/_original/G...12231833_1.jpg

They sell a carbon roof for the 8.

Let me know how it turns out, would be keen so see how much weight you save.

 

It is just an overlay so no weight savings

 

yes we've been down this road before and have gotten confimation that it is indeed an overlay not a replacement panel...

 

lol since someone brought this thread back from the dead, I may as well since I sort of have a question similar to whats going on here. What would someone like me with a sunroof have to do (other than trading my 8 for a non sunroof one) to get the rigidity and weight savings of one without a sunroof I guess. Obviously can't do the carbon fiber piece since it's all welded on..so the hell can I do? I really hope the only option is to just trade the car, because that would be pretty lame I might add.

 

From a safety standpoint, I would think that foamed aluminum (basically 2 sheets of aluminum with aluminum foam in between) would have a safer, more gradual failure mode. It's thicker than comparable strength steel sheet; but it supposed to have comparable strength to steel. It's lighter than equivalent steel.

My understanding is that the way it's manufactured is a sandwich of aluminum panels with a mixture of aluminum powder and some kind of propellant is sandwiched in between. The panels are crimped together in a stamping operations and then the panel is heated to the light off temperature of the propellant which both melts the aluminum powder and generates gas, which gets trapped in the now liquid aluminum. When it cools, the aluminum foam is welded to the two sheets.

Given the need for an industrial stamping press, start up costs for something like this are obviously high; but turning out such parts in volume should be easy enough, and certainly easier than with carbon fiber.

Regarding the tangential question of how the factory sunroof might be dispensed with, I would imagine that the simplest way would be to form a steel panel to follow the contours of the roof, have it welded in, blend the seams, and have the roof painted, then replace the headliner for the sunroof model with one from the base model. I've thought about such a modification because of the loss of headroom that the sunroof causes; but the prohibitive costs of such a modification have it firmly on the back-burner for me.

 

Ooooor can't you just buy a roof panel from Mazda, unpainted and just throw that on instead and then use headliner from a non sunroof model?

 

give me some time and ill make a skin/overlay for the roof. any other carbon fiber you guys are interested in?

 

If no one has noticed yet, MazdaTrix now sells a CF roof panel. Unlike Leg's overlay, this is a replacement panel. As I looked at the images on thier website a couple weeks ago, I thought of a couple issues that were not discussed in the original conversation within this thread.
Those points being the removal/reinstall of the front and rear glass. Its pretty common practice that to install a new windshield/take one out, you must break it so that you can cut down the epoxy that hleps keep it in place.
That being brought up we can now thik about this as a mod. Leg sells thier overlay for around $1800 pending currency exchange rates. MazdaTrix sells thier replacemnet panel for $525, but, and its a big but, you must take into consideration the replacement of the front and rear glass, as well as a new headliner, if like most US model 8 you have a sunroof...

The neat thing about Mazdatrix is that this item stemmed from thier involvement in this years Redline Time Attack, they now offer several CF itmes at very competitive prices al be it they are using them in pure race/track situations in conjunction with a fully caged frame,,,

 

I heard that our rear glass is very expensive if needed replacing.

 

hey mazdatrix.com has one and its not a carbon fiber overlay.... just had it done to m y 8 about 3 weeks ago. Also i had them cut a hole for the sunroof. It was about $800.00 for the roof

 

^pics?

 

that is because it is etched with the defroster and antenna grid.

 

Here are pics from the Mazdatrix site. $525 for the roof.

 

there is a guy in colorado springs with a carbon fiber roof, it looks pretty

 

are these cf pieces from mazdatrix real CF or is it a single sheet of cf with fiberglass backing? rigidity? and structural is what im thinking about....

 

full roof replacement?
sounds expensive to have a shop do it as it looks labor intensive. (plus possibly needing to replace glass)

I can understand why Mazdatrix did it but considering MOST people here do not race competitively, I don't see too many people going this route.

 

this thread needs a bump
anybody else have any input on the CF roof from Mazdatrix...supposedly 21lb difference
I would only be worried about structural rigidity but, the roll cage should be enough to cover that

 

this caught my eye a while back as well but I would never want to pay to replace both front and rear windshields.

Levi, any idea on the cost of lexan or plexiglass for front and rear instead of replacing with glass?

 

molded from Mazdaspeed they go for ~$800 each
but, if you have connections with a glass/lexan shop it's much cheaper
check out a company called Shield...they deal in molded lexan and have perfect fitment

talked with a member from Speedsource on the subject
they said no at first because it might hurt rigidity but, after bringing to his attention that the roll cage flows along the top of the car his tone quickly changed
they are checking this out for their MS6 cars now

 

you don't have to replace the glass.... it can be removed with the correct tools / chemicals.

SCCA I know doesn't allow you to put lexan in the front window. That may depend on what race class you're running though. There are a couple companies that sell cheaper lexan windows though.

Example:
Lexan Windows Webshop MAZDA - RX8 - Lexan full window kit Lexan Windows Webshop
Front doors, back doors, and rear window for about $700 USD.