[Saab_c900] C900 Carbon Fiber Hood Now Available! (fwd)

in article mailman.7.1141623928.567.saab snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au, Craig's Saab C900 Site at snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au wrote on 06/03/2006 05:45:

On a white car, it might look like the taxis in my area :( I couldn't bring myself to paint one body-coloured, either!

Technically, is there an issue with removing such a good lump of weight from the front of the car. Would that not upset the balance and near perfect weight distribution out cars have?

Paul

That's funny... I have never heard SAABs being accused of being weight balanced before, always nose heavy since all of the running gear is balanced over the front axle. Do you have any numbers to support that claim?

In fact much of it is forward of the front axle.

This nose-heaviness is one of the nicest characteristics of C900s IMHO - without it the car would understeer horribly. That extra weight so far forward is what makes the 900 go round corners the way it does.

The difference in weight isn't that huge anyway - only about 12kg. This is significantly less than the difference between a turbo and a non-turbo (including IC).

Nice bonnet though.

Whaaaat?

Sure. 60:40.

in article 440c4885$0$29564$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, Grunff at snipped-for-privacy@ixxa.com wrote on 06/03/2006 14:34:

... Like it's on rails :)

Fred - That's what I meant by balance (not 50/50), but "balanced" as in just right, so it handles near perfectly.

I will not get into a discussion of the balance implications, but the safety implications are definitely a good reason to keep your steel hood. CF is strong, but the c900 hood has been engineered to absorb energy in a frontal collision. Just changing the material will affect the buckling performance of the curved hood which will have an unknown effect on the safety of the vehicle. I find this important. I hit a barrier at 55+ mph and walked away from the wreck.

Paul Halliday wrote:

Phew! Glad you made it out ok.

Perhaps if you had the $$$ CF hood (bonnet) you would have been able to steer around that collision? ;-)

in article YPWdneSndbWAVZPZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@wideopenwest.com, KeithG at snipped-for-privacy@wowway.com wrote on 08/03/2006 12:09:

That is an important aspect to consider.

Wow! Glad you're okay. That picture really does show how strong our cars are. Without airbags, seatbelt pre-tensioners, WIPS, SIPS, etc, how was it on the inside of the car?

I had a head-on with another car in my old '85 900i at a much lower speed and had no damage whatsoever to me or my car, but the front end of the other car looked worse than your picture.

Paul

Ouch KeithG! GLad you're able to walk away from that one!

I wan't yer wheels!!! Sell them to me! :)

\ Mike Teeples / - SLC, Utah

'90 SPG - 120K miles - (runnin good) '87 900T - 235k miles - (auto tranny died) '86 900T - 345k miles - (parted out)

Another thing which I hadn't really considered is heat. The engines in our cars radiate loads of heat and the arrangement of the engine coupled with the car body shape overall means much of it (esp. when the fans are running) gets pushed towards the back fo the engine bay and subsequently this channels a LOT of heat into the hood.

Metal hoods are of course far better heatsinks so would carbon-fibre material as used in Kevin Y's C900 hoods have a problem with heat?

Craig.

I doubt that's much of an issue, carbon fiber can take some fairly high temperatures, certainly as high as the paint on the metal hood could. The metal will conduct and spread out the heat a bit better but even so I haven't found the hood to get very warm even with the car stationary.

That said, I still think a carbon fiber hood is a bit pointless and certainly silly looking on a C900 IMO.

I wonder if Kevin Y reads this newsgroup? Maybe he could chip in with some informed opinion on the heat-handling abilities of the C/F hood?

If I can afford one, I won't be leaving it as plain C/F. I'll get it painted either Cirrus White to match the original colour of the car, or in the blue metallic that is the current colour of the hood that I took off the blue donor car to replace the white one which has very serious structural rust issues (the latch area is now fully rusted through and looks like it's growing pimples!).

Craig.