Just thought I'd show you guys a project we have been working on. Its a little dirty but the carbon fiber sunroof plug kit the EF Civic is 95% done.

After waiting a million years it's finally about to happen. Here is the finished kit mounted in a Solo EF hatch. The only thing left is the sealing.


Here's the reason for the delay. The rear brackets of death is what I like to call them.


As you can see there is no flange on the rear of the 88-91 Civic so we had to get creative. The aluminum bracket mounts by way of aluminum drive rivets. If we had decided to weld in brackets that would mean repainting the roof, luckily we can avoid that now. These brackets were actually water jet cut.


[B]Just an FYI the 88-91 Civic panel is not even close to the same shape as the 88-91 CRX for those that are wondering. Thanks to number 22 for helping us out with the car.

Here is what the seal will look like:

Sorry no pricing or sales posts will get a reply, just wanted to show off this trick way to loose a bunch of weight. I know lots of people love their sunroofs but this is for a weekend autoX car.

 

looks good on white, too bad it wont fit my crx

 

agree with above.

this is so my next mod tho.. my sun roof is rusty and on hard turns it snows down into the cabin. WHAT A PAIN!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iphatcrxi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">looks good on white, too bad it wont fit my crx </TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks, The CRX was actually the first one we built, just a different shaped panel and brackets. This was the last model to get done because of a bunch of prototype guys flaking out. Ahh well it was worth it in the end.

 

Its weird a lot of guys are buying kits because of leaky roof and such, not as a performance mod. I heard from one guy that it was going to cost like $800 from the Honda dealer and most of the stuff was backordered anyway. The cars are just getting so old I think Hnda is stepping away a bit. Hell I had an 86 CRX and I doubt the dealer couldn't even get me something for that if they tried.

 

Very cool. I must say that while I think your company's products look excellent, your prices are a bit unreasonable. I would love to get the kit for my crx, but at $350, it is only $50 more than a very high quality Fiber Images carbon fiber hood, which in my opinion is a MUCH larger and more complicated part.

Not trying to bash you guys at all, I'm just saying that if the sunroof plug kits were more like $200 or so, I think a lot more people (Including me!!!) would jump on it.


Also, I was wondering, what do you guys do about sealing around the countersunk socket head cap screws that hold the plug down? It seems to me that this could be a potential leak spot.

 

Yah I get this a lot but have you ever seen a company go out of business because the company sells its products for too much money, in business this is very unusual. Companies go away because they don't charge enough. I look at the labor and cost of materials involved and what money has to go back into the business for future products and set my price, which by the way is $370, not $350.

As to your comparison to the fiber images hood I'd love to shoot a few holes in that. First point who buys a product because of its complexity? When I look at a product I am looking for simplicity and benefit to me as a consumer. With shipping included you are not going to get a decent hood for less than $500 and even then that is a fiberglass hood really if we're being honest. So lets take that number ($500) and say you drop 10lbs off the factory hood weight, I'm being very optimistic here. That means you paid $50 for every pound you shed from the car.

Now lets compare one of our kits. Take our price shipped to your door of $400 and then we loose 32 lbs vehicle weight. That means it cost $12.50 per pound of weight lost. Also don't forget the weight of the hood is at half the height of a sunroof. As far as the effect on vehicle dynamics the sunroof replacement is a clear winner. The sunroof option is over 4 times cheaper per pound of weight lost. So yes a hood is more complex as far as shape but who cares you are getting more bang for your buck.

We offer fiberglass panels for those looking for a less expensive option with the same hardware kit. Just FYI the price on raw fabricright now is $40-$60 per yard depending who you are. The sunroof is about 1/2 a yard of material times many layers so I'm not really sure where I can cut cost and stay around. Also you have consumables like bagging film, peel ply, tacky tape, flow media, infusion lines, T's that get chucked every time. I guess I could start laying up wet panels and forget about all that stuff but that is how most hoods are made so I think I'll pass. Remember I'm going for light weight here. Then once the panel is vacuum infused it gets CNC water jet cut then hand sanded to eliminate machine marks at the edge, then cleaned and then buffed and then washed again and inspected. Then we package it up in a double sided box made for the plug. If you have ever seen how most hoods are made you'd be horrified, why do you think you have hood latches coming off and hoods blowing up? When people stop buying these we'll stop making them.

As far as your question about flat head socket screws you can use some lithium grease or silicon there if you have a street car if you're worried about it but I've never had a report of leaking even in an automatic car wash. All they countersunk holes fit the screws perfectly. Sorry if I sound a bit rude but I've just heard the "it's too expensive" argument so many times but yet sales are steady. We focus on craftsmanship even if our product is too expensive to some people. I just can't believe anyone can say a hood would be a better performance advantage than a sunroof especially when you look at the doller per pound numbers. Just ask yourself if $50/pound looks better than $12.50 per pound and then remember the weight is removed from the highest point on the car. I'm interested in bang for the buck myself not complexity.


Modified by crx12 at 9:28 AM 10/4/2006

 

Here are some detailed specs on various hardware pieces we use. Here's the other part of our cost.


- A WORD ABOUT HARDWARE -

A common misconception about our kits is that you can go pick up hardware to mount everything at Home Depot or Lowe's. Well you could do that but it's not ideal. Every piece of hardware is made for use by various companies. I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the details before you buy.

Aluminum panel mounting bracket for CRX. Pre punched to fit our other hardware. We supply each kit with spares just in case you drop it down a drain or something. Sorry dime not included.


Here is another style of bracket with only a single hole punch. Some Honda and Acura unibodies have a very shallow flange that does not accomodate a rivet and standard bracket. The bracket shown is aluminum but all of these brackets are now steel so they may be tack welded in. Years ago these brackets were bod in but we have since switched to welding for better reliability. We provide instructions for tack welding so close to the roof line so that no paint damage occurs on the roof. Again these are pre-punched. We have several other bracket designs tha work with different models but this gives you an idea of the detail.


Drive rivets for use on CRX. There are areas in the unibody sunroof flange that are blind and due to dimensional issues with the bracket and it's position it is not possible to use a rivet gun. Aluminum drive rivets go in by smacking the back with a hammer which splits and mushrooms the rivet stem.


These are really cool screws! First of all the screws and nuts are stainless for endurance in the real world. Unless you have a full time track car your car will see some rain and it's nice to have a fastener that won't rust with the first soaking. They are blakc coated to blend in with the color of that carbon panel which is nice for looks. The screws are very tiny as you see and are also counter-sunk which makes the fit flush with the panel, remember we are about details. Sure we could have used rivets here but why. Also the nuts are nylock so you can tighten them down and then back off a turn which prevents dimpling or distorting the panel yet they won't come loose.


A bracket locating tool is a big help when it comes to getting the panel to sit flush. The step in the bracket represents the thickness of the carbon panel. You slap this on your roof and place a mark on the inside of the flange and that is the elevation your bracket needs to sit at. This speeds things up and makes the fit look very nice! Throw it away when your done or hang it on your wall, I don't care.


RTV silicone is used to seal the kit after it's mounted. Tape off the carbon panel and the unibody and there will be a 1/16" gap to seal. We intentionaly scale the panel size down slightly to provide room for a seal. Try sealing a lexan panel and you will find the lexan shrinks and grows breaking the seal in no time. One of the main reasons we chose to build kits in carbon fiber is the low CTE of the material. Compared to metal carbon fiber laminate doesn;t grow at all making it a perfect material for a sunroof plug. After you lay the bead of RTV into the gap you run over your bead with a flat ice cube and it will not stick to the silicone. Next day pull off the tape and you have a flush black seal that will let you take your car through an automatic car wash even.

 

Looks pretty good I'd definetly be interested in that for my CRX.

 

crx12,

Thanks for all the info. I definitely understand where you're coming from. I was really arguing more the point that if someone mechanically inclined such as myself was to go ahead and do a composites project, the sunroof plug would be a much easier proposition than the hood. This is due to the difference in size and complexity of the two different parts. When speaking of the average consumer, I suppose you are right in your argument.

As for the carbon fiber hoods, I would definitely agree that there are a large number of pure crap hoods out there. I have, however, seen the Fiber Images hoods in person and I believe they are of fairly high construction quality. They used rolled edges, are very smooth, quite lightweight, and fit excellently. This is the hood I was referring too. With the exception of the ViS hood, I don't think I would considering any other CF hood. There are plenty of hoods on ebay that are so shitty, they are not even worth discussing here.

To get back to the sunroof discussion, I noticed you mentioned not liking wet layup. Does this mean your sunroof panel is made of pre-preg CF? Are you using an autoclave?

 

No, we build our panels with vacuum infusion now. They were prepreg at one time but I lost access to the $300,000 autoclave when I left the company I was with when I developed the kits. All of our panels are vacuum infused now. If I was using prepreg now my costs would be way too insane. You should see prices on prepreg these days with the shortage in full effect! Here's a description about the panel itself and how we build them:

"- A WORD ABOUT THE CARBON PANEL ITSELF -
VIP may be the latest craze hitting Japan at the moment but it is also an acronym for how we fabricate our panels. VIP (Vacuum Infusion Process) is the technology behind our panels. Historically many parts in the automotive aftermarket have used wet layup methods to build parts. This involves starting out with dry carbon fabric and wetting it out in a mold by hand, basically saturating it with resin and removing the excess resin. This will giter done so to speak but it isn't ideal since much resin is usually left which makes the finished part heavy and full of tiny air pockets which weakens the part. Taking wet layup a step further and vacuum bagging the part to squeeze out air pockets and excess resin is an upgrade but still not idea. When we vaccum infuse a part we vacuum bag the part dry in the mold and then pull the resin through the part until the vacuum space is filled. Vacuum infusion ensures the air is never any air or extra resin to remove from the part to start with. This means that you get a resin/fiber ratio much closer to ideal. In short you get the best quality possible with our fabrication process. "

In my opinion infusion gives you most of the benefit and quality that prepreg does but none of the drawbacks. In fact the military is using this technology more and more as compared to prepreg autoclave cure because of its benefits. Mclaren uses infusion to build many of the body panels on their Mercedes SLR supercar.
Here's an article about it:

http://www.racingcomposites.net/unt?id=533

As you can see I'm a big proponent of this technology but different apps and markets call for different methods of manufacture. Wet layup has its place but I could write pages about the drawbacks to it. Infusion is really cool to watch, there are several hours of setup to build a panel like our sunroofs but then when everything is set you can watch the resin flow through the part within 10 minutes and then you leave it to cure overnight. With infusion you either kill the part or its just as perfect as the last part. If you don't follow procedures it wil burn you quick. I've seen 16 foot skiffs (boats) being infused in less than 15 minutes, truly amazing. We're working on some other molded parts at the moment for the Evo. I think we are capable of doing more than just copying factory parts. In my opinion companies should not build a composite part the same way you would design a metal part. I see far too often the real benefits of using composites aren't realized. I know some people just want composite parts for looks and I have no problem at all with that but I think composites are going to be so much more to the automotive markets in the coming years. OK I'm off my soap box I just want to make cool parts that add as much benefit as possible because I love this stuff.

 

One more thing I thoought I should mention, the sunroof plug is not an entire electric conversion. This replaces the moveable factory assembly with a fixed (non-moveable) panel. The heavy part of the system is the frame and tracks which have to come out if this is to be a true weight reduction mod. It just wouldn't make much sense to leave the heaviest parts of the system in place unless you just want the looks of a cf roof and to drop 5lbs.

 

i realize that you would no longer have a working sunroof with this plug, however can you retain the factory sunroof gasket for cleanliness???

 

I wouldn't depend on the factory seal to keep it watertight with our panel. The thickness of our panel is thinner than the glass is. As far as looking clean, isn't the factory seal much larger than the seal below?



This seal is only 1/16" wide, black and flush with the body. IM sent

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crx12 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldn't depend on the factory seal to keep it watertight with our panel. The thickness of our panel is thinner than the glass is. As far as looking clean, isn't the factory seal much larger than the seal below?



This seal is only 1/16" wide, black and flush with the body. IM sent </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, the factory seal is like 1" wide and black. Your panel is no doubt a clean install.

 

If you think about it, You could potentially make one the CRX that still functions, right?
That still opens and closes? Maybe not much weight savings, but it and won't rust and CF just plain ballerific.

 

Yah you could do that but the panel would have to be the same thickness as the factory from what I can remember so maybe a composte sandwich panel would work in that case. From the feedback I get the sunroof rust issue is becoming a big deal on a lot of cars. Our CRX kit goes in just like the EF kit pretty much at the moment but maybe I'll look at the car again and see whats possible next tim ei get the chance to see one. The CRX was the first one we built several years ago so I don't quite remember. Hell on some cars you could use a single ply of carbon and adhesive and just get the look with no weight savings but then you still have a rusting roof under there.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by imgoingforit &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you think about it, You could potentially make one the CRX that still functions, right?
That still opens and closes? Maybe not much weight savings, but it and won't rust and CF just plain ballerific. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree with this guy too. Not all of us are about shedding weight. It'd be nice to have a clean replacement that won't rust. Glass or CF would be a good idea. I know I would buy one if such a replacement panel was offered.

 

Hmm, you are correct and not everyone wants to give up a roof that opens, as you say its not all about the weight to some. I'd like more input from those interested in this. If it makes sense to offer something like this I might just do something about it. I'd probably offer it in fiberglass form with a paintable white or black gel coat so you could then have it matched it to your cars color. Any other people out there interested in something like this?