fiberglass doors and street

[afterburn 549]

will fiberglass doors work at all on street car?? ( one that is NOT a daily driver) Aside from safety issues (covered) is there a brand that anyone will recommend that will accept widow frames etc ??
thanks !! PS- guess I should include carbon fiber if they exist...

[shamrockcustoms]

Im curious of this myself..We are building the cage for my car right now and have been toying with the idea of fiberglass doors..We will be adding side impact bars with the cage though... Any pics of fiberglass fully assembled? I was interested in the 935 doors but was very curious about doorpulls, locks and windows.. Any insight on this idea??

thanks
Jay

[Jack Olsen]

I run fiberglass doors from Getty Design, through TRE. They're the full duplicates of the factory doors. I run regular roll-up windows and interior trim. You don't get as dramatic a benefit with the guts inside (and on) the door, but there's really no difference fiberglass and steel on mine.

As with all fiberglass, there's going to be some fitting required.

(Edited for source correction.)

[afterburn 549]

Thanks jack, I am thinking making the window frames from al. so as to benefit from the mod.
And thanks for the tip where to get them

[shamrockcustoms]

what are your thoughts on the 935 sliding windows?? I wonder if they are fully removable on a hot day. or if it would be to much work...

Jay

[afterburn 549]

sliding windows would save a bunch..............................hmmmmm

[shamrockcustoms]

thats what Im thinking..



Jay

[Jack Olsen]

Sliding windows are -- in my opinion -- a huge pain in the neck for a street car. I had them and got rid of them.

If you never use the car for normal errands, but just roll it out for canyone runs and track days, I guess they'd be okay. But I use my car around town and I couldn't wait to put the roll-ups back in.

[Jeff Alton]

What about standard windows that use a strap to pull up or down?? Those may save the use of some of the door internals.

Cheers

[MotoSook]

I've seen race cars w/o the window regulator assembly, but they used plexiglass side windows. The glass was raised and lowered with a leather strap. The plexiglass window was held in the up position after the strap was pulled up and snapped on a metal snap. I don't see why such a setup wouldn't work on the street. The window frame is necessary of course, but the weight of glass and regular are gone. I'll probably use a similar setup for my '76 track car with stock steel doors and aluminum window frames.

[Jeff Alton]

Lets assume you want the same level of side impact protection a factory door provides....... What style of side beam added to a cage or rear roll bar would provide this level with a fiberglass door? I can figure out what would be an upgrade pretty easy, but would provide the same level as you have with the door beam inside the factory metal door?

Cheers

[randywebb]

Well we have an obvious solution needed here -- somebody has to prototype a light wt. roll up window assembly. Some parts could be Al, and if you really want to get creative, the gear body could be Al with the gear teeth steel as a facing (or coat or electro-deposit a hardened surface onto the Al gear body for the teeth. Then go into production.

The major area for wt. loss has already been addressed, and the crank mech. is a fairly signif. residual after that -- 4 lbs. each.

[Jack Olsen]

Originally posted by Souk
I've seen race cars w/o the window regulator assembly, but they used plexiglass side windows. The glass was raised and lowered with a leather strap. The plexiglass window was held in the up position after the strap was pulled up and snapped on a metal snap. I don't see why such a setup wouldn't work on the street. The window frame is necessary of course, but the weight of glass and regular are gone. I'll probably use a similar setup for my '76 track car with stock steel doors and aluminum window frames.

That's what I had. It's fine if all you do is track the car. But if you actually want to raise and lower the window on a regular basis? It's slow, it never goes straight up and down, binding as it moves, and the window starts scratching up immediately. You feel a little retarded the first time you get honked at trying to get the thing down to get a ticket at a parking structure.

For track driving, it's probably not a big deal. You maybe only roll up the windows to trailer back home.

Somebody should make a window frame out of fiberglass or plastic. Then maybe plastic gears?

[dd74]

Personally, I like the idea of sliding windows. I concur with Jack about the hassle, but the vintage feel of strap-slid windows is cool to think about.

If you drive, as I do, with your windows down, I would see no problem with this, except on rainy or extreme cold days.

[Asjac]

Jack, not to insult, but who made your windows? I had an instructor with this setup and saw him use it several times with no problems. Perhaps you had a tolerancing problem that caused the jamming, or perhaps the corners or sides were improperly finished.

Maybe he just made it look easy

[afterburn 549]

I am thinking a tab in the middle-, @ the top, to lift them from the center....should off set a jam ??

[Chuck Moreland]

Originally posted by randywebb

Are you sure the graph isn't transposing the window crank assembly (heavy steel) and the window frame (pretty light)?

Though I've never had them on a scale, I'd swear the crank/regulator assembly is heavier - this is manual cranks.

[randywebb]

Chuck - Altho I'm not a fan of the way Excel handles graphics, I checked and I have 4 lbs. for the manual crank mech. and 10 for the frame, but...

the frame on my car includes the brass window frame, the vent window frame (subframe?) and the glass for the vent window. I put the targa opening vent windows on my car, and that might be the difference. Or I could have written down the wts. wrong when I weighed them.

[TRE Cup]

We (TRE and Automotive Innovations) worked on Jack's car and installed the doors and lexan.
1) the doors are not from rennspeed (AIR). they did not fit correctly and we ended up using Getty Design (which we also sell)
2) it was a major amount of work with the oe steel wind up regulators, oe channels
3) they are prone to leaking water BIG time. the flexibility of the plastic, the fiberglass , and the scratch quotient of seals on wiping the plastic precluded fitting all the seals possible to help cut down on water getting into the car. They also leak air at high speeds, so contribute to interior noise.
4) they "wear out" over time. the fiberglass constantly being opened and closed gets the fasteners working on the 'glass so it starts to loosen up
5) MAJOR amount of careful fitting to get everything to work as oem
6) cost- you can easily spend over $2000 getting them , installing everything , gets the gaps best as possible, body prep for smoothness and prime. Then comes paint
7) weight savings- YES ! couple these with our 4 ounce door handles and formed side windows and they feel like a feather whenever you open and close them. Get more racy with pull up straps (we use adjustable buckles so it compensates for stretch in the strap) and robotek door pull latch set up and save more weight

Would i do them on my own street car? Depends on the purpose of said car. Radical street track weapon where every ounce counts? you bet- the money gets spent.
Girlfriend coming along on a lot of drives? uh.. are you crazy?

[Jack Olsen]

Whoops. I started reading the TRE Cup post, I thought: 'No, he's confusing my car with someone else's.' But then it started to come back. He's right. I'd gotten a set of lightly-used doors from Rennspeed because he'd had them in stock that day -- but Kevin didn't like the fit and they went back. We didn't have time to wait, and Dave (TRE) was able to source a set of doors right away.

In my defense, it was a lot of years ago, and I'm not getting any younger or brighter -- and it was a busy 12 weeks for everyone involved while BB2 got built.

But Dave is correct. My doors aren't Rennspeed. I fixed in my initial post.