Carbon Fiber Body Mod

[justvettn]

Any thing is posable but with this lots of money involved. Look up the guy that dose the bowtec if he can get the carbon he could make it.

---------- Post added at 12:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 AM ----------

You know the hood is glass already right?

Hood and front fenders are composite.

 

[Wilson]

I don't know the difference

 

[Steele16]

I don't know the difference

Plastic for us simple folk

 

[MagicMtnDan]

Reducing weight is (obviously) a common goal in order to improve acceleration and performance.

Some areas car guys address often include: aluminum heads, fiberglass body panels, lightweight brakes, tubular control arms and frame stubs, Lexan windows, plastic springs, aluminum reared parts, etc.

But there's often a big cost involved in shedding vehicle weight.

Today's cars (and trucks) have gained weight due to safety issues (crash performance) as the market demands excellent crash test results and it requires weight being added which is done while other weight is being removed where possible.

Cars that used to weigh 3,000 pounds or less now can weigh 10-20% more. Very few cars (even the small ones) are below 3,000 pounds.

Obviously getting today's cars below 3,000 pounds will result in better performance (getting a 3,000 pound car down to around 2400 lbs. would work wonders for performance but that's 20%!).

How much weight do you think you'd need to reduce on the Raptor to improve its performance? What would be a good weight goal to achieve noticeable performance? Once we have a target number we can see how easy or difficult (realistic and cost associated with it) it would be to achieve.

Using the above car example, dropping 20% of the Raptor's weight, about 1200 of the Raptor's 6000 lbs., would work wonders. But how difficult and costly would that be?

Seems to me that the amount of weight that would have to be reduced to be noticed would be so great that it wouldn't be possible without removing and/or replacing LOTS of parts.

The best weight discussion for the Raptor, the one with the most benefit, is REDUCING UNSPRUNG WEIGHT. But that's not all that popular around here because adding unsprung weight is more popular thanks to the trend of going to 37" tires instead of the stock 35"-ers.

I'm sure there are threads around here on unsprung weight...





"While the performance industry has often used the gauge of power-to-weight ratio, we decided to look at weight-to-power (W/P) ratio instead, since it's the pounds we're improving as power remains the constant. We find the W/P ratio by simply dividing total vehicle weight by horsepower. Consider this: a 3,000-pound car packing 450 hp requires each horsepower to carry 6.66 pounds--the exact same ratio as a 4,000-pound car with 600 hp or a 2,000-pound car with a mere 300 hp. Work the numbers backward and it becomes clear that shedding pounds is just like adding horsepower."

link: Weight Reduction - How To - Hot Rod Magazine



---------- Post added at 09:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 AM ----------
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Hello All.

I'm in search of a builder who makes carbon fiber body replacement parts or my 2012 Hennessey Performance VelociRaptor800. She is fast as hell but there is always room for improvement. Given the power I already have, the next most logical direction for performance improvement would be weight reduction. But I cant seem to find near OEM CF parts anywhere. Any ideas?

Thanks.

CMM

Instead of buying useless carbon fiber parts you might want to save your money for a lawyer if/when your Hennessey Performance Veloci"RAPTOR" 800 catches fire and burns to the ground.

Of course you should wiz.

Instead of flaming another member off how about we give him useful information like we would do to most everyone else.

I wasn't "flaming" him (the OP), just telling him concisely that reducing weight may not be his biggest concern or best objective (imagine if he doesn't know about the history of Hennessey's blown Raptors and, it's not hard to think that anyone spending that kind of money on a Hennessey product must not be aware of that company's long and storied history which can be found all over the internet).

But I do want to address his subject of weight reduction. So I did. Above.

 

[wiz1500]

A few thoughts on this from WIZ
The weight- Weight is always a concern in the world of racing and or high performance. Not only is it relevant in it's amount but also in it's placement to have a well rounded package. Of course the less we have the better off we will away's be (when done correctly) Not only will this help with acceleration but also keep turning & sliding inertia in check. By removing weight off the front of the truck we are transferring the C.G. to the rear and this is always a good thing in our case because the truck is very nose heavy. 30-40 lbs will most definetely be noticed in handling characteristics when flipping the truck side to side. The acceleration side of this of course will not be as apparent as we don't drag race our trucks (to much, lol). But at the end of the day there will be a gain. Math says so..
The strength- C.F. as we have come to know is some of the strongest building material we as mere mortals can get our hands on ( NASA has some Nano Tube Composites that are unbelievable), but don't be fooled not all C.F. is created equal. When you start dealing with C.F. laid over Fiberglass your going in the wrong direction. Also, C.F. that is laid up by hand is also NOT the answer. These are cheap heavy "POSER" way's of doing it and actually do C.F. no justice at all. There both heavy and weak.
The correct way to do this is with impregnated C.F cloth to control weight & saturation. Multi piece tooling (female & male) to control shape and dimension. Round it out with an autoclave and a vacuum bag and your all set.
The Clave & Bag pull all the air out for strength and help with holding dimension. Promoting even better saturation and even heat distribution for proper curing. When all the correct criteria are met what do you have?? You have a piece that is stronger than steel and lighter then fiberglass. The C.F. will take a hit like nothing else and maintain it's shape. What would punch a hole in fiberglass or wrinkle & dent steal will simply bounce off C.F. WIN-WIN.
This is why ALL the high end racing manufacturers use it, F-1, Indy-ect
The cost- Cost is a balance all of us enjoy from the weekend warrior to the fully sponsored race team. The bottom line is what do you gain from your purchase? In this case your gaining strength and weight savings. All though the weight is very relevant I think the brute strength is just as important in our case. I personally have damaged fenders from over driving my truck that would not be damaged if they were C.F. I would have just fixed the wrap and been on my way. This holds true with the G.P. Race truck as well as countless other trucks I have seen while playing with the guy's in SoCal. Both Factory fenders and after market glass.
Therefore, cost savings comes in when you don't have to fix or replace your fenders because you got a little over exuberant when driving.

One last thing.
THE COOL FACTOR - Do I need to outline this ?????? LMAO
The shit is just bad ass and your a PIMP if you roll real C.F.
Stay tuned for product updates on some REAL parts coming to you at a reasonable price. A little bird told me so.

 

[Archar]

This truck is not going of road. It run in cross country road rallies along side a bunch of Euro Super cars. It is the 810HP TT and the fuel injection was replaced to take care of the past issues with the build. Not at all worried about flex given the worst we saw was flat dessert and many runs at Texas Motor Speedway.

 

[wiz1500]

This truck is not going of road. It run in cross country road rallies along side a bunch of Euro Super cars. It is the 810HP TT and the fuel injection was replaced to take care of the past issues with the build. Not at all worried about flex given the worst we saw was flat dessert and many runs at Texas Motor Speedway.

Understood and good deal all around...
I now really understand your interest in high end parts.

 

[Archar]

After the initial build was done at Hennessey, with the addition of FabFours 3/16' steel bumpers, a 16500Lb winch, headache rack, tool box and many other additions, the curb weight ended up around 7200Lbs. So it's a lot of power pushing a lot of weight. Just changing out the bumpers, removing the winch and headache rack, I'm down over 700Lbs. Problem is the look works with the Team Zombie Hunter thing which was very popular on the rally. But what I'm really looking for is to keep up on highway with the Lamborgini and Farrari. She did well running 120 to 145 over long distances but the dead starts and corners really brought it down.

I'm really not looking to build a mean off road beast. I'm more a truck guy and this one is built for speed on road with a mean looking presence...

---------- Post added at 02:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:00 AM ----------

And lets face it, I've got $220k in this already but running against $400k to $1M supercars and it kept up with the pack running at the current build weight. If I have to drop another $50k into it to kick some of the Eurotrash ass with an American made truck, I'm all over it ;-)

 

[wiz1500]

Well that being said let me offer up some points..
In your situation I would defiantly get the truck as low as you can to help drop the C.G.
Also I would look at getting a rear sway bar on it to help with body roll. HartWig makes a nice piece.
I would look at doing a full skid under the truck to help keep the air smooth..Talk to Jason at SDHQ tell him Wiz sent ya.
My next question is how are your heat exchanger's performing?
We have seen very high under hood temp's when racing flat out in Mexico. This is partly do to under hood air packing.(the air can get in but it can't get out). One helpful solution is to open up the factory hood extractors.
This shows what Ford gives you..


This is what I have done.

And a little bird told me this design element will be incorporated in to the new C.F. hood using even bigger openings..

 

[Archar]

The truck build included a new suspension package including traction and sway bars so thats done. We replaced he FOX shocks with King and numerous other mods to perform better at straight line speed. And we have opened up several point to ensure the air flow is where it needs to be in the engine compartment. I ran it at high speed in Death Vally for an afternoon in June and had no issue at all. My biggest problem is catching a curving highway at 165. Just cant keep up and she slow off the stop.

Honestly, Next to adding a Nos package, I don't know what else I can do but take weight away to get more speed and performance.