1989EFRacer

Hello EF Civic Community!

I'm in the process of creating a monster of a race car, (photos will be in a different thread later) and I am looking into reducing as much weight as possible. This includes replacing my glass windows with plexiglass. I have a location in Southern California that I have personally contacted (PlanetPlexi, Look them up at planetplexi.com), spoke with the owner, and he has given me a price for how much a replacement would cost. All I'm looking for is people that are interested that want to split the cost of creating the mold. The price rundown is as follows;

Creation of the Mold: $1,250

Price for each window: $150 in acrylic, $300 for polycarbonate (Polycarbonate is going to be more scratch resistant and more durable).

To put this into a racers perspective, you are saving a ton of weight, spending roughly the same amount of money if you were to buy a replacement glass online for this car (Priced at $143 plus shipping and taxes), and it will last a lot longer in all weather conditions.

If anyone is interested in splitting the cost of the $1,250, please let me know so that we can get a pool together. This way, the company knows there is a market for this and he will save the molds for future use!

Cheers everyone!

~sp33~

If you want to save yourself some money, you could just use your current window as a guide, buy a sheet of PC, trace your window onto it then cut it out with a jig saw, sound down the cut edge, pocket the $1250. It's flexible enough that it'll flex when inserted into the seal.

Or if you/someone you know is handy in CAD, get the PC lasercut. You'll get a nice cut edge and an exact shape that you could repeat (for left and right, or for multiple sets to reduce cost).

If you find it's too rigid, sit it over a barrel, use a heat gun and slowly warm it up until it begins to take the shape of the barrel.

bheinen74

just cut the plastic same shape as originals, then use the original as the cookie sheet, and bake the plexi ontop them to get the same curve,

1989EFRacer

Here is my issue with those suggestions, the quality of the product won't be the same. I don't want to run into issues down the line and as far as saving the 1250, I don't care about that. This is going to be a quality build from the ground up. What I am looking for is serious people that have this car that are interested in shedding some weight in the windows, race these cars, or someone that wants to replace the windows with something that will last much longer than glass and is more readily available. In case you guys haven't noticed, but OEM parts list for this car is dwindling down every year. I appreciate your suggestions, but it won't work for me in this case.

~sp33~

Polycarbonate will not last nearly as long as glass. It's also not nearly as resistant to UV, chemicals, scratching etc. Also in terms of visual quality, you'll never get the same optical quality as glass.

I'd be interested to see what the 1250 is actually used for. My guess is they would also lasercut the shapes and the 1250 would be for a buck to form the curve, which as the person above me mentioned, could be done by referencing your existing glass.

Creator

iTrader: (1)

If your really trying to get people to jump on the wagon here, you may want to specify which model of EF you are working with.
I'm fairly sure there is a company out there that already makes these for the civic hatch without the extra 1250. I found one with a little research about 2 years ago. Don't have the info on it anymore.

xelaxela

Not in the US so shipping would be extra, but half the price of the custom ones you posted https://www.plastics4performance.com...indow-kit.html

4drEF

Polycarbonate (PC) actually blocks 100% of UV without any coatings. Glass needs coatings to block UV.
Uncoated PC turns yellow over time because of UV rays. (Acrylic does not)
Lenses for glasses are made of PC and have coatings which make them very scratch and chemical resistant. You can buy coating s like SafeCoat 401 for about $20.
True that clarity will never be as good as glass, but it's super close with a polish and a coating or they wouldn't be making lenses for glasses out of them.

1989EFRacer

Dude thank you for the link! This is a huge find for me. I figured there where companies that already made a product for this car, but it was just a matter of searching through the forest to find it.

This gives me a good vantage point of how much something like this should cost so I thank you again!

~sp33~

Blocking UV and being resistant to the affects of UV are different things.In terms <5mm PC used in a large span will mean it wont be rigid and will reflect a distorted image compared to glass.

vision lenses are obviously unaffected by rigidity because of the span/thickness ratio.

That coating looks neat, pretty impressive.

K7-1Ktrevor

Polycarbonate from Home Depot. Did all my glass for about $100 for everything.

xelaxela

How did your get the curves in the poly? what did you use to spray the black boarders? do you have any picture of the other windows?