[terrorist420x]

I hate to dig up an old topic, but what ever happened with this idea?

I'd love to be able to have a carbon fibre body for a GT. Add to it a smoothed underside, a rear diffuser, and covered rear wheel wells, along with a small fin in the rear to add downforce. Imagine reducing that .398 Cd down to .30 or below and reducing the weight of the car to under 1,500 lbs. That could be a real screamer.

 

[terrorist420x]

Any idea how much weight would be saved by adding a fiberglass front end and doors?

I'm seriously considering the idea of an electric Opel GT, and I want it to be able to compete with cars like the Crysler Crossfire and Audi TT to demonstrate the torque characteristics of DC motors and EVs as a sustainable method of transit. An entire fiberglass unibody, however, couldn't handle the weight of the batteries. I'm considering 1,004 lbs. of Evercell Nickel Zinc batteries to give the car some decent range for cheap, and the power density would allow just over 170 peak horsepower. Therefore, weight needs to be kept down. My calculated acceleration if I were to theoretically have this concept assembled now is in the low 7 second range for 0-60, but that's not the best I think it could be.

I'm currently looking up a few companies, one of them was Anderson Technologies I ran across on a hot rod forum. Since I couldn't find a website on them, I looked around a bit more and found www.hotrodsuperstore.com that sells doors and front ends made of fiberglass for the GT. The prices seem reasonable.

I'd like to be able to reduce the weight of the body an extra 200 lbs. if at all possible, at minimum. With batteries in, the entire conversion using stock body would weigh 2,900 lbs., meaning that suspension is going to need to be beefed up a lot, and if that won't even work, the entire chassis would need to be rebuilt, and if I were to do that, why not just build from the ground up?

Any sites you could refer me to though on fiberglass parts for the Opel GT? I would like to keep the amount of steel down as low as possible, otherwise the motor and electronics(minus batteries) would inevitbly outlive the car itself. Also knowing how much weight I can save and for how much cash would be a very great thing to know.

 

[terrorist420x]

For the electric gt, If I were you, I'd start over with a tube frame car. Then do a carbon body by buying and old gt and using it as a 'mold' and rework some of the componets for new suspension for added weight, etc. You could make a pretty quick little car using batteries, should be interesting to see what you come up with.

I think I may just end up building from the ground up, because for that kind of work, I could do even more than from using an Opel GT body. My dream car would look like a cross between the Opel Eco Speedster and the Lexus featured in the film Minority Report, only with butterfly doors and powered by electricity. But my concerns are the costs(I plan on doing my own work though), this could end up costing perhaps $50,000 if I built my own chassis, frame, and body, and used off the shelf suspension and brakes? I appreciate the link provided for the kevlar and fiber fabric. I'm looking at getting four books right now, Chassis Engineering/ Chassis Design, Building and Tuning for High Performance Handling by Herb Adams, Racer's Encyclopedia of Metals, Fibers & Materials (Motorbooks International Powerpro) by Forbes Aird, Engineer to Win by Carroll Smith, and Race Car Chassis: Design and Construction, by Forbes Aird.

I do need some real world experience with working on cars though. The most I've ever done is repairing a 301 on a '79 Bonneville, placing and programming a performance chip in a 1996 Ford Contour, some work on the college SAE team, helped people build a few kit cars, and played with some controllers and electric motors I purchased. If I were to jump right into sich a project though, I'd probably screw up.

But the Opel GT did give me the possibility of cheaply building something similar to what I want, if I could keep it light enough.

Thanks for the info. In the meantime, I'll be doing more research. I'll let you know how things go when(and if $$$) I get started. This idea of the electric Opel though isn't dead.