Quote:
Originally Posted by BonzoHansen
(Post 596862)
And different roof & front substructures.
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it's safe ( ! ) to say that the entire structure of each gen is different enough not to be able to compare them.
fiberglass door skins won't save you that much weight. if the entire structure of the door was 'glass, then it's safe to say you don't want to be in any type of accident. once you start tearing apart the outside structure of a third gen, you will see that it's more than just sheet metal covering the car. the front fenders have reinforcement so that just fiberglass fenders doesn't make enough of a weight savings in and of themselves. the same is true of the door structure. there is enough steel in the reinforcement to make a weight savings, but if you are only going to replace the door skins then you won't see that much of a difference.
this is why you hear of some guys going with a full tube chassis. it's got all of the same connect points as the car's original structure (and if it doesn't, it's not that big of a deal to weld on some ears or a tab here and there) but it weighs significantly less. this is where the term "off road use only" comes into play, because the tube chassis will not withstand the types of crashes you see on the street. but if you went full tube, then you could eliminate the substructures of all of the sheet metal and fiberglass could take the place of the sheet metal... but if you added it all up, i don't think you could take 1000 pounds off of the car by replacing the steel with fiber glass (i could be wrong). remember, while you are saving some weight by removing the substructures and the sheet metal, you are replacing part of it with tube and fiberglass, which weigh something...
so, in the short answer there are people who make fiberglass door skins. but, as you can see, once you start tearing the car apart looking for weight savings you need to replace some of it with tube and then there are the NHRA rules to follow to make sure you pass tech inspection (assuming the car will see some track time).
if all you want is to build a super fast street car then i am sure there is a company out there that could build you a complete front end out of fiberglass... hood, front fenders, then throw in the doors, you could end up in a death trap really quickly.
if it is a street car, and it has t-tops, i know there are lexan replacements. same with the door windows. it might not sound like much, but that glass is heavy, and i'd bet there is 100 pounds there (between the two) to be saved. and the old formula ~100 = ~.10 seconds in the quarter mile...