Jussi

Does anyone have complete Carbon roof or Carbon roof skin attached to 993?
How much these save weight?

There are few companys who sell those, for example GT Racing has reasonable priced ($485) Carbon roof skin.
http://www.gt-racing.com/pdfs/GTR911.pdf (roof pictures on page 4)
They have also fiberglass complete roof and in older catalog there was also that complete roof in carbon..

Is the stock roof a part of supporting frame, so it should not be removed?
At least a roll cage would be necessary after that..

Any discussion about weight saving advantages or safety issues..

Jean

Jussi

Whaty you see in the picture 22A is how the roof skin is in our cars. I have replaced mine with a GT2 one, without sunroof. The modifications are quite heavy. The OEM skin is not too heavy, I did not weigh it, but I cannot see this sort of CF skin saving much weight...if any...over a non-sunroof OEM skin. A real CF/kevlar piece might save weight though but the price would be 10X this.

Jussi

Thanks Jean from comments, I already thought that nobody is interested in that topic.
That 22A is complete roof made from fiberglass. Maybe that would be too big job for that amount of weight saving but..
I have that "heavy sun-roof version" which I even haven't use ever.
So what about that 022 "911 Roof Skin" in Carbon Fiber $485. That should save weight a lot compared to my original roof !?
But how that should be installed? Cut original metal roof? is it save and how that CF should be attached to it, with clue or rivet or bolt/nut?
Any experience?

Acropora

How heavy? Like 40hrs work? Thanks.

Jean

Jussi

The item 22 would much easier to install. I recall seeing another option as well, which is only a sunroof delete part, that would be the easiest, as long as it holds at high speeds.

I don't think the fiberglass would save any significant weight over the OEM skin.

Where "some" limited advantage would be is on the track whereby you are dropping slightly your center of gravity.. but roll would not be advantaged by more than a few lbs.. Bearing in mind that roll moment is proportional to the g , the center of gravity height and the mass, the difference in CG height resulting from the weight reduction at the roof might be minimal, maybe around 1/10th of an inch lower, which corresponds to a few lbs improvement in roll moment only.

Geoffrey

Jussi,

The fiberglass and carbon fibre parts weigh the same since they both use the wet lay up process rather than being autoclaved which is normally used when producing lightweight carbon fiber. I'd agree with Jean that when I replaced my sunroof section with a solid roof section, the sunroof structure did weigh a lot (the sunroof panel is almost 10lbs itself). The simple metal nonsunroof skin is pretty light, probably within about 5lbs of a fiberglass piece. The question that I had was "how would I feel being upside down scraping along the pavement with a non metal roof?" I decided that I wanted metal around me.

Wilder

I'm going to respray my car in the next few months and have been contemplating doing a s/r delete at the same time. Replacing the whole roof is ~$7k on top of the respray and not worth the $$$ IMO but I am contemplating swapping the skin or gutting the s/r and welding it shut. The question no one has been able to answer is, how much weight am I going to save???

Jussi

I found quite good example from installing carbon fiber roof
actually, that looks quite easy job
http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=112749
yes, it is not a Porsche but another German high quality car

WHB Porsche

The M3 CSL came with a carbon fiber roof from the factory, so this is an OEM part. Your roof looks a bit more comprehensive, as it is not just a skin for the center.

graeme36s

Look at it this way. A metal roof non sunroof will save weight and help C of G . When we built race cars the chap we used for the roll cages would fabricate an aluminium roof skin. That said, carbon fibre or fibreglass, how many of you on here have the true ability as a driver to make one ounce of real difference. No offence intended but put your hand on heart and say you'll be 2 seconds a lap quicker with a carbon fibre roof. I don't think so.

Jean

38lbs without the liner and 44 lbs with the liner. This includes everything.

You can get almost the same savings if you simply remove the sunroof and mechanism and go for one of those CF covers.

Wilder

Thanks Jean, great info for the archives. ~40 from the top has got to make a difference worth the effort and expense of deleting the roof...

Jussi

Carbon roof skin weights only 5 lbs,
so weight saving is even more when using whole top CF roof instead of sun-roof replace.

Jean

Jussi, the 44lbs are for the opening and mechanism etc..alone.

By skin weighing 5lbs, do you mean as in picture 022A or only the cover that replaces the sunroof opening? IMO acommercial CF skin cannot be much lighter than the OEM skin, a couple of pounds at best.

The weight savings come from the mechanism and sunroof cover.

Jussi

I don't mean that 022A version. I found another source from UK.
Check out this:
http://www.performance-trim.com/oneoffs.html
Maybe Toby knows that place?
I wrote to owner and he said that CF roof skin weight about 5lbs.
And it isn't even expensive, so groupbuy

Quatation from their webpage:
"You can make significant weight savings on the roof, by cutting out sunroofs and steel and bonding in a composite roof skin. Weight savings on the roof have can have a huge effect of lowering your cars centre of gravity - which is proportional to lateral weight transfer and grip. "

btw. check also another products from that company, very cheap prices for example those CF bonnets..