yea i figured that mate
if i didn't know that after 5yrs of damn bodyshop labour id be kinda gutted
just trying to find a way to REPLACE lost strength! i may aswell explain exactly where im tryin to come from
1) i just dont get this, i know personally 1 person and have heard of many who have bought kits, i.e rienforcement + hood and thats all they have done, cars never bin a problem (not talkin e30's here, my mate did it to his mini and claimed it was far stiffer than before + never had it sva'd)
baur used to fit cab hoods to cars that never came with them, as did cooper cars and nobody seems to complain.
2) if you add strength then whats the problem, to nick your example:
get a tin box, with a carbon fibre lid, it'd be far stronger + lighter than welded tin
especially as thin tin is actually weaker when it's welded cos of the heat ,hence regulations stating that legally spot welds applied in this country should be a distance of 30mm apart, but mot man says seam weld rust??? WHY??? contradiction or what
besides im not just after making a cab, id just buy one if i wanted one so bad. it's about making something thats a break from the norm, something that is an acheivment to me, and something that no-one else will have!
and no, ive painted and fitted far too many crappy bodykits to be content with something like that,
maybe if i paint the bigger picture here:
lotus make cars with balsa wood+ cf, and generally are really nice cars, nippy as hell and faster than most bmw's
ferrari use hardwood in some of there chassis, and they make s#it hot cars.
now imagine if bmw made a car combining the strength of steel and hardness of carbon fibre( bearing in mind strength + hardness are opposites of the same coin),
everyone would be raving about it,
it would be stiffer,stronger, lighter and faster, simply by changing materials in the right place, this is my main objective.
open top is something that im considering, but won't decide on till i feel ive got all the info i need. but im strengthening the car now, so would prefer to take future options into account at the earliest stage poss
i know id never be able to acheive the kind of masterwork that bmw put into their paneling, but i know i can do better than ford!
i suppose what i should have said to start this thread was:
what did baur include in their cab conversions and how do people rate them who have them
+ what panels have people on the zone had replaced with cf and how has this changed the structure?
sorry bout the length of this but im rubbish at putting things into words
+ it' gonna be a little while b4 im back online so needed to include everything
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