Is Targa Reinforced/Stiffer than Coupe?
10-20-2005, 01:50 PM
#1
Instructor
Thread Starter
Is Targa Reinforced/Stiffer than Coupe?
An owner of both targa and coupe 930t's, told me the targa was reinforced to be stiffer in the lower chassis than the coupe to compensate for the non-fixed roof.
That makes sense, and I've heard of it with other sports cars, just never heard of it with 930's.
Is it true? Is there any evidence or reference information I can link to online to read about this? I didn't find anything searching...yet.
Thanks very much.
That makes sense, and I've heard of it with other sports cars, just never heard of it with 930's.
Is it true? Is there any evidence or reference information I can link to online to read about this? I didn't find anything searching...yet.
Thanks very much.
10-20-2005, 03:01 PM
#2
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All Targas or convertibles carry extra structural reinforcement to compensate for the loss of rigidity in losing the roof as a structural element and a place to hang the top's opening and closing mechanism if its so equipped. However, the additional structure usually isn't as efficient as the structure lost in removing the roof and it usually adds a couple of hundred pounds to the car's weight, especially in the convertible models with the aforementioned top actuation systems and to accomodate the rigid roll-over standards of the topless vehicle. Its usually located around the big "hole" created when losing the roof and really isn't tied into the suspension except on an indirect basis. If you look in Car and Driver magazines or the like where they're doing a road test of a model that comes in bothe Coupe and sans top versions they usually have a little blurb in the article about the structural mods incorporated and its impact on weight.
10-20-2005, 04:10 PM
#5
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Originally Posted by srf506
All Targas or convertibles carry extra structural reinforcement to compensate for the loss of rigidity in losing the roof as a structural element and a place to hang the top's opening and closing mechanism if its so equipped. However, the additional structure usually isn't as efficient as the structure lost in removing the roof and it usually adds a couple of hundred pounds to the car's weight, especially in the convertible models with the aforementioned top actuation systems and to accomodate the rigid roll-over standards of the topless vehicle. Its usually located around the big "hole" created when losing the roof and really isn't tied into the suspension except on an indirect basis. If you look in Car and Driver magazines or the like where they're doing a road test of a model that comes in bothe Coupe and sans top versions they usually have a little blurb in the article about the structural mods incorporated and its impact on weight.
I guess I'm looking for even more specifics of how a given 930t (let's take '89 model year) targa and coupe structurally compare in terms of rigidity measures. The coupe is stiffer overall for sure as we all know, but if, in fact the targa has reinforcement in the lower chassis to compensate for open roof, it would stand perhaps to be possible to convert a targa to a fixed roof and the result would be even stiffer than a coupe (all other things being equal, ie., no roll bar yet or other improvements).
I guess it'd take a 930 race car builder who's dealt with coupes and targas to comment on this, because it'd no doubt been tried by someone...
10-20-2005, 06:03 PM
#6
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Don't know specifics about quantitative values for the stiffness of the two types. I would guess it'd be cheaper though to just modify the coupe to begin with versus trying to jig and modify the topless variant. I know a lot of racing 914-6s had a steel top welded in place versus the fiberglass targa top. I'm sure it wasn't done just for safety.
