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[zambon]

I spend a fair amount of my spaced out time obsessing over the weight of my car (a 75/milano 3.0). That is what led me to make a few composite parts and buy an Evo kit. I have a few other wishes as well, although they are not necessarily even good ideas. My car is not a full race car yet, but the ideas I am thinking about right now are not street oriented. I hope nobody minds me posting about it here.

First, I wonder if I would enjoy a kevlar/carbon roof. I have not gotten around to removing my headliner yet because my car is black and Mexico is horribly hot. Part of me thinks that the headliner is keeping some of that heat away from my head and if I remove it, I will be even less comfortable.
Would a kevlar/carbon roof save significant enough weight and provide better thermal isolation? I recall reading recently about some model tht uses an aluminum roof. The factory claimed that the aluminum roof provided greater handling improvements than an an alu hood. My car has no sunroof, is my roof even heavy enough to warrant thinking about such things?

Second overkill idea is preparing a composite dash. I dont know if you could get it past inspection as a reproduction dash, but if you could it might be a good idea to think about this. I dont know how much a dash weighs exactly, but I remember being surprised by the tonnage the one time I picked one up. The dash is weight that is on the front (barely) and it is up fairly high, therefore it might be a good place to save.

What do you guys think?

[Zamani]

IMHO, those (CF these and that) are projects which will usually eat up a lot of your funds. Then one day you just get tired of the whole thing and decide to sell the whole thing.

I would concentrate on things which are more practical, like finishing up your coilovers, big brakes and stripping out the interior.

[Micke]

The roof doesn't weigh very much. You can calculate it yourself.
That's again something to do when everything else is perfect.
The hood again weighs a ton and there you find real savings.

[zambon]

something to do when everything else is perfect.
The hood again weighs a ton and there you find real savings.

This isnt stuff I was thinking of getting started on or anything. I just wonder if these are even good ideas. BTW, I have already made a carbon/kevlar honeycomb hood. (I have not installed it though...)

Zamani-
I have been working on the coilovers. I have given up on the Bilstien project and am now pinning my hopes on your AVOs.
These projects do eat up huge ammounts of money, true, but I have a grip of carbon fiber and vacuum bagging materials so I end up thinking about composite projects when I should be thinking about normal things to work on.

[Greg Gordon]

The Dash is pretty heavy there is some weight to be saved there. If this is a track car take it out. I don't think a carbon fiber roof will be worth the time and effort.

Like Zamani says, coil overs and brakes are the best first steps.

[Zamani]

Zambon,

Go get yourself longer 1.8" ID springs...maybe 2" longer than what I have, with a slightly higher rate and you should be all set once you get the coilover mounts which I'm sending you tomorrow. That way you can get rid of the pre-load springs. I know it fits because I used it on my car.

[Mats]

The roof doesn't weigh very much. You can calculate it yourself.
That's again something to do when everything else is perfect.

Or if you have a sunroof. Tough job and very difficult to get it right and leak free I suspect.

[Zamani]

AR4me did the sunfroof removal job. It looks good though. Welded up part of it and bondo-ed part of it. The only issue is, the roof sheet metal is thin. I have a feeling that if you weld it up a lot and it will warp.

[junglejustice]

...wihout the sunroof or the inner-liner, the roofs of these cars way NOTHING -I mean a tin-can...