AlkyIROC

First of all, installing fiberglass doors is for a race only vehicle. They are lightweight and offer no protection in case of an accident. They also require a Lexan window to be attached so no glass and no roll up windows can be used. Unlike older GM doors, the complete hinges are not a removable design. They get unbolted from the body but are welded to the door so they can't just be unbolted then bolted onto the fiberglass doors. A complete new hinge system needs to be fabricated.

Many years ago when I first bought my car, it had power everything. Windows, locks, mirror etc. I picked up some non power option doors from the junkyard and gutted them. I cut the harness to the original doors, unbolted them and put them on a scale. Complete doors were 105 pounds each. And you wonder why the hinges always wear out and the doors sag.

The non power option doors had the inner paneling removed. The crash bar inside the door was cut out and much of the inner steel was removed leaving just enough to hold the window regulator and inner door handle. The window still rolled up and down. An aluminum panel was fabricated to cover all the holes and sharp edges from the cut metal. Weight was now down to 75 pounds each.

Since then I had removed the glass and window regulator and cut out most of the inner steel leaving just enough to hold the inner door handle. I cut a piece of Lexan for a window and fabricated a support to hold it in place. Unfortunately, I never did remove the doors to see how much of a weight reduction that achieved and ran them like that for many years.

A few months ago, I picked up some VFN fiberglass doors off Ebay for a real good price. Tonight I started the fiberglass door project by removing the driver door and putting it on a scale. 60 pounds. Still heavy and heavier than I expected. I was thinking they would have been closer to 50 pounds but that just means I'm going to get a greater weight reduction than I expected.

The bare fiberglass doors are 15 pounds each and by the time I'm finished installing hinges, latches, braces, ground effects and a Lexan window, I don't expect them to weigh more than 25-30 pounds each if even that high.

If I stay at it, I should have both doors installed before the end of the year providing I don't run into any unforeseen problems. I have everything I think I need to install them except some new Lexan for the windows which I won't pick up until I'm ready to make the windows and window bracing.

Changing the doors means I need to repaint the flames on the doors. I didn't like the way the passenger side flames turned out anyway.

ronnyinwaxhaw

How many more fiberglass parts are you planning? I definitely want to keep up with this thread.

AlkyIROC

I already have the hood but it's a heavy OEM version. Unless you want to replace the complete front end, that's about all you can change. Putting on fiberglass front fenders are probably heavier than the steel ones that the car came with. Doing a complete front end is normally something you would do with a tube chassis car. My deck lid is already a sheet of aluminum held on with Dzus fasteners so the only heavy body component left to replace is the doors.

Putting on a fiberglass nose to replace the plastic one does nothing to reduce weight but it does keep it's shape at high speeds when everything has been removed from behind it. I fabricated some tubework behind the rubber nose to keep it from being pushed in. I also had to brace the front of the front fender wheel opening to keep it from being pushed out at high speeds. The nose of my car can be completely removed in about 5 minutes. It's held on by about 10 screws/bolts. It allows me to use an engine crane from the front of the car to reach over to the engine that's sitting close to the firewall.

ronnyinwaxhaw

I thought you might be adding a lift-off hood, I saw you have the hinged version.

AlkyIROC

I don't want a lift off hood for a couple of reasons. The size of the hood is difficult to work with unless you have a crewmember to help. Third gen hoods are very big. My fuel cell is also under the hood and it becomes very annoying to remove the hood after every run just to put fuel in. Simply opening the hood is much easier.

I have hood pins on both front corners as the main way to keep the hood closed. Two Dzus fasteners on the front to keep that part closed tight and two Dzus fasteners at the rear on both sides of the scoop to keep the back of the hood from lifting up at 100+ MPH. The scoop catches a lot of air and wants to lift the hood. The back corners are still attached to the factory hinges with hood lift shocks.

tsfso59

Subscribed....with great interest

AlkyIROC

One gutted steel door



The VFN doors as I received them. The hinges were already attached. I've cut out the rest of the inner piece already so I can get inside access for the latch, handles etc. The hole will be covered over with a piece of aluminum.



The hinges I fabricated and welded onto the door post



The door as it sits on the hinges. I screwed up on the driver's side. The long pin should be on the bottom. It makes putting the door on much easier.



The door opens and closes easily after some minor adjustments. This is not a show vehicle. The openings around the door are not 100% perfect but probably look better than how I had the steel doors mounted.



There! One door is hanging off hinges. Still need to do the latch, inner and outer handles, diagonal support to prevent sagging and the Lexan window. The other side still needs to be done also. Before the windows are installed, I'll take them back off to paint and try to match up my flames.

tsfso59

Looks good Stephen, any idea as to how you are going to mount the windows yet?

brandoz28

iTrader: (1)

why don't you just put a latch on the inside with a small hole in the lexan like most tube chassis/fiberglass cars? save a little weight and simplify things a little.
something like this
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CEE-4935/

AlkyIROC

The strip across the top of the door is to help hold the Lexan. The Lexan goes behind the strip and is bolted on. A framework of 1/4" round stock will go around the window with a couple of supports in the center. Some 1/4" plastic wire loops will go around the round stock and will be bolted or riveted to the window.

More pics

Took out the old door latch and cleaned it up. Welded the lock mechanism so there's no way the door can be accidentally locked. I'm amazed it never locked all the time it's been disconnected.



Cut an opening for the striker post and door latch. The 2 bottom holes were easy to drill from the inside but I needed to make a template to know exactly where the upper hole needed to be drilled. The factory screws have a countersunk head and are metric. I need to pick up some metric screws from work tomorrow before mounting the latch. The outer door handle has also been installed and I need to still fabricate an inner handle similar to that CE version. It's not hard to make. I don't want a hole in the Lexan to access the inner handle from the outside. The blue strap is wrapped around the cage and is used to keep the door from fully opening. It will eventually be attached to one of the window supports.

ronnyinwaxhaw

RE:Lift off hood

Yeah I understand that now, if you're a one-man show at the track a lift off hood would be a hinderance.

brandoz28

iTrader: (1)

looking good, should dump a good bit of weight off

AlkyIROC

Considering I'm removing 120 pounds of steel and might replace it with 50 pounds at the most with fiberglass and assorted parts, it will be a noticeable reduction. I think both doors, when complete will be closer to 40 pounds. I can't see adding a whole lot of extra weight to them but won't know for sure until I'm finished. The heaviest add-on will be the window framing. The old doors used 3/8" brake line with holes drilled through it so it could be bolted to the Lexan. These doors will have 1/4" round stock so that may add a small bit of extra weight.

120 - 50 = 70 pounds minimum reduction and I may get an 80 pound reduction. 80 pounds is easy to find and remove from a street car. Removing 80 pounds of weight from a gutted out race car starts to become expensive.

Rough guessing, the majority of the weight from the doors is sitting over the center of gravity since the car is nose heavy. I just hope it can help the weight ratio by taking some of the weight off the front. Depending what else I do over the winter, I might get a race weight just under 3000 pounds next year. I'd love to get to 2800 pounds but another 200 pounds is ridicules to find. I actually got my fat *** on a scale a couple of weeks ago. For the last 20 years, I've had no idea how much I weigh. Only 173 pounds. That would mean my car weight for 2009 was roughly 2912 pounds not that I really care what the car itself weighs. It was lighter in 2008 but I redid the cage back in the spring and added a bunch more weight with extra tubing.

JesasaurusRex

iTrader: (3)

looks good, thanks for weighing that cr*p out so i don't need to in the future

but please, instead of redoing the flames...get rid of what you have left of them

NOSFEDGTA

i have fiberglass doors on my car with the stock hinges and stock inside and outsie door handles... let me know if you want pics....

NOSFEDGTA

my car has fiberglass doors, hood, and decklid. Has lexan windows and rear is also lexan on custom hatch that still works like stock, steel k-member, a-arms, and cage. I weigh 240 and with me in it and a bottle of nitorus it weighs 3050lbs. If I did all chromolly k-member, cage, and susp I could drop about 100lbs. I also have all allum. brakes as well.....

xpndbl3

iTrader: (5)

so make a build post with pics already

AlkyIROC

The door latch is in. The outer door handle is attached. I fabricated an inner handle and it works perfectly. You can't even see it from the outside unless you're standing right beside the door and are looking down. I covered the opening with a piece of aluminum just as a mock up because I'm not done on the inside. I need to pick up a few more things I didn't account for. I may have to go pick up some Lexan before the end of the week but also have the passenger side door to start on yet.

After opening and closing the door a few times with both handles, I can see some other small modifications I need to do. When the door is closed, it sits flush with the outside body and can't move outward any more however the latch mechanism isn't a real tight fit. I can push the door inwards and part of it catches the window seal and pushes it back out. To snug up the door, I just need to put a 3/8" foam strip along the back door post so that the door pushes up against the foam for a tighter fit. Nothing is a watertight fit and my windows/doors haven't been watertight since I first installed Lexan.

The inner handle was made from some 1 x 1/8" flat aluminum. I cut and shaped a curve at the top, drilled a couple of holes along the length however the lower hole is inside the door. The handle is 6" long. I mounted a 1/4" bolt through the door with fender washers on both sides of the fiberglass and tightened it up. The handle slips over the bolt and is secured with a nylock nut just tight enough so that the handle isn't sloppy. The angle of the handle put it too close to the window lip at the top of the door so I bent it outward at one of the holes I drilled. At the bottom of the handle is a hole to attach the rod that goes to the latch. I used the factory 3/16" rod and cut it down to a usable length. A piece of 1/8 welding rod would also work. The size of the opening in the door for the handle is just big enough to allow it to open the latch. I suppose if the pivot point was higher, a smaller slot would be needed. Not a great picture but better than nothing.

AlkyIROC

A couple more pictures. A better shot of the inner handle. You almost need a 3D view to see everything about how it's installed but this view is better than the last. At least it shows the shape better.



How the inner panel will look. I still need to put screws at the corners. I'm using #10 x 3/4" screws and they're screwed into some U-type speed nuts which are slipped over the edges of the fiberglass. The only reason I don't want to rivet it on is because when riveting to fiberglass, it's best to have a washer on the inside and I won't have any way to get a washer on the inside.



I need to put a pouch on the panel to hold things like tire pressure gauge, dial in etc. I've seen a real trick compartment inside a panel but have no idea how to go about fabricating something like that.

tsfso59

How much force is needed to open the door? You say the handle is 6" long but looks to be a rather short ratio. What is the distance above and below the pivot point?

AlkyIROC

I didn't measure the distance to put the hole. I positioned the handle where it looked good and drilled a hole. It's probably 4" to the top with 2" below the pivot. I'll get a rough measurement tonight. I don't have a fish scale but it takes little force to open the latch.

I mentioned above about putting the pivot higher in the door to reduce the size of the slot cut. If the handle stayed in the same position and just the pivot point changed, it would take more effort to open the latch. The handle would also have to be raised up but then it would stick above the top of the door.

BIG_MODS

iTrader: (9)

Very interested in seeing this. I'm still trying to figure out out to do mine and keep it sealed.

AlkyIROC

In one of the above pictures, you can see inside the door and see fender washers holding the door hinge to the door. This isn't very strong but I never installed the hinges. I cut a 2" x 1/8" piece of flat aluminum and sandwiched the fiberglass between the aluminum and the hinge. I also installed a diagonal cable for a cross brace to prevent sagging. I'm using an eye bolt and a fender washer is on the other side.



Looking inside the rear of the door you can see the door latch and linkage. At the bottom is an aluminum turnbuckle to provide tension to the cable. An eye bolt with fender washers are on both sides. The fender washers used for the cable tension are more than enough. It's not like the cable is very tight. It's just used to reduce any sag.



Another shot of the inner door handle and you can see the rod which runs down to the door latch. I measured the pivot point and it's very close to 2"/4" as mentioned above.



A strip of 3/4" wide x 3/8" thick foam along the door post. Now when the door closes, it doesn't rattle on the striker.



That's it. I don't think these modifications have added much weight including the piece of aluminum for the inner panel. That's all I can do to this door until I paint it. Then I can cut some Lexan and fabricate the window framework. Looks like a rough estimate on Lexan size will be 48" x 15". I'll need 2 pieces of 1/8" thick Lexan and places like Home Depot don't have sizes close to that unless I buy a really big sheet. I'll pick some up at a local plastic supplier later.

Now I can start on the passenger door.

Primetime91

iTrader: (15)

Looking good, you better keep the flames or I will be sad (Don't listen to Jesasaurus )

I'm surprised you can remove 30 lbs per door just by gutting them, and have everything still functional. I should do that once I have the 8 point cage installed. I wouldn't feel safe doing that without door bars

AlkyIROC

30 pounds per door when switching from power everything doors to manual doors and gutting them. Most of that weight is probably just from the crash bar. That gutted steel door can be made lighter by removing a lot more steel. That huge chunk across the top can be completely cut out and replaced with some small square tubing just enough to hold the door handle and provide a base for the window framing. The back and bottom can be attacked with a hole saw. I'm sure 10-20 more pounds could be removed if you tried hard enough.

Primetime91

iTrader: (15)

I thought I read that converting to manual windows and such didn't actually save any weight on our cars? But I'm seriously going to gut them now this winter, that is some real weight reduction that costs nothing

ross

You should think about putting a strap on the door to keep it from opening into the fender.

xpndbl3

iTrader: (5)

ross the one pic shows a blue strap with an clip on the end of it, is this what you're talking about?

AlkyIROC

The blue strap in the pictures is to retain the doors. They're not hooked up right now because they'll attach to the window mid support framework which hasn't been installed yet. I also need to fabricate a retainer so the door can't accidentally come off the hinge pins. There's some fancy retainers which prevent the door from being lifted off until it's opened enough to clear the retainer however the way my doors are, if they're opened too far, you can't lift them off the pins as the door goes under the fender. The door can only come off if the door is opened less than a foot. The simplest retainer is a hole drilled through one of the hinge pins and a hair pin or cotter pin is put through the hole. I don't expect to remove the doors on a regular basis so an easy access way of removing them isn't required.

The passenger door is off. It was tricky because I don't have as much room on that side and can't open the door as far. Access to the bottom bolts has a cage tube in the way and the upper bolts were tricky with the door partially closed but I managed to get it off. I've removed all the parts I need from it and cut/trimmed the second piece of aluminum for the panel. I'll tinker with doing the modifications and getting it installed all weekend and next week will tackle the windows after I paint the doors. I can sand and give them a few coats of flat black then do the window installation. The flames can always be painted later with easy masking. It's just difficult to do the base coat with the windows installed.

I really hate to throw out the old doors. Although they're gutted and can't really be used on a street car, they're rust free. If I'm lucky, there might be $10 worth of scrap metal. Steel prices are at rock bottom.

AlkyIROC

I've almost finished installing the passenger door. I just need to fabricate and install the inside handle and inner panel.

I was curious as to how much weight I may have added to the doors before I do the windows so I put the driver's door on the scale. The bare door with just the aluminum hinge was 15 pounds. Since then I've added an aluminum plate on the backside of the hinge, door latch and handles, inner panel, cable brace and the ground effect on the bottom of the door. Current weight is now 21 pounds. Most of that weight probably came from the ground effect piece. I hope the window and framework is less than 4 pounds to keep the weight under 25 pounds. They should easily be less than half the weight of the gutted doors. They're sure a lot easier to pull off.

Primetime91

iTrader: (15)

I wish you had more pics of the gutted steel doors, when the window regulators still functioned and such, before you switched to lexan. When you say you think that another 10~20 lbs could be possible to remove, is that with the windows still functional?

AlkyIROC

No. Removing that additional weight would mean removing the majority of the inner framework around the outside of the door. The chunk of steel along the top could be greatly reduced or removed and replaced with some sort of tubular structure. You still need something along the top to hold the Lexan supports. The back of the door where the latch is could be swiss cheesed with a hole saw as could the bottom. A lot of the weight is at the front of the door where the hinges are and there's not much you can do about that. Think of taking the door down to just the door skin with minimal metal for the hinges, latches, handles and window support.

Keeping the glass and window regulator means keeping a lot of the metal to support everything unless you cut it all out and fabricate something completely different. When my doors were gutted and still had the glass window, digital cameras were not available.

Both doors are painted including the flames. It's been a cold week so it's taken a lot of time for the paint to dry even in a warm garage. I'm just starting on the window fabrication now.

AlkyIROC

Driver's door is complete. I now need to do the same fabrication for the window on the passenger door.

I didn't take any pictures of how I went about fabricating the window and framework mainly because even I wasn't sure if what I was going to attempt was going to work or not. The Lexan was cut from a template and bolted to the door. To get the type of seal/fit I wanted for the Lexan, I completely removed the A-piller window seal so that the Lexan can go right under the A-pillar. That way no air could be forced under the Lexan at high speeds but it's far from watertight. There's about a 1/4" gap between the Lexan and the A-pillar. I would need a very tall foam seal to create a new seal for the window to push against. The seal along the T-top is still in place and the seal at the back has been trimmed down to be thinner.

The window was installed and removed a number of times as the fabrication progressed. I made the framework out of 1/4" round steel. The bends were cold bent with a brake line tubing bender. I must have a good quality bender as I thought I would break it, but it survived. Getting the bends started was the hardest part.

After the main part of the frame was bent, tabs were welded on so that it could be bolted to the door. Uprights for the front part of the window were then fabricated but not attached to the door yet. The Lexan is held onto the framework with 1/4" plastic loops and #8 machine screws. Once the Lexan was completely secure, final positioning could be done. With the door closed, the Lexan doesn't reach the top seal. Some tweaking of the framework got it close. Finally, the top of the Lexan could be pushed against the T-top seal and the supports were marked on the door. Once the supports were bolted to the door with #10 screws, the window now stays in the proper position against the seals when the door is closed (except for the front seal which was removed). The blue retaining strap connects to one of the uprights to keep the door from opening too far. The inner panel is now attached with some #8 finishing screws which come with a nice chrome washer.

The only thing left to do is to drill a hole through one of the hinge pins to install a cotter or hair pin so that the door can't accidentally come off. I also want to round the top rear corner so that there isn't a sharp corner. I didn't paint a black border around this window to hide the framework like I did the old windows. It just reduces visibility.

I took the door off and put it on the scale. Final weight 22-1/2 pounds. Removing two 60 pound doors and replacing them with two 22-1/2 pound doors is a 75 pound weight saving.

greezemonkey

iTrader: (14)

Nice work, and write up...I`ll be looking to do this soon too. I don`t know if you have ever had your car on a four wheel scale but you can find the point where wieght is divided from front to back. With the four corner wieght we found the line was just behind the rear stock seat mounts, so basically anything removed from that line forward would take wieght from the front corners.

radical82

Nice job on the doors!!! 75 pounds is dang near a full tenth at the track!!!--plus less forward weight (as greezemonkey mentioned) will also improve weight transfer at launch....

AlkyIROC

The weight ratio last spring was 1800 on the front and 1300 on the rear. That puts 58% on the front. With a 101" wheelbase, that puts the front/rear CG very close to 58.5" back from the front axle or 42.5" forward of the rear axle. 42.5" forward of the rear axle puts the CG at about the 1/3 point on the back of the door. Looking at one of the above pictures, that's close to the 5th screw from the back along the bottom row that's holding the window in. I'm sitting very close to the CG.

So 2/3 of the door is sitting forward of the CG and a lot of the weight in the steel door was on the hinge part at the front. My weight ratio should improve slightly for 2010. Still hasn't stopped me from pulling the front wheels for about 20 feet

Cost to remove 75 pounds? I got a good deal on the doors but new, they're worth $700 for the pair. Add in material to make hinges, window frame, inner panel, Lexan plus the time it takes to do all the work and repaint and an estimated parts and labor cost of $1000 to reduce 75 pounds would be pretty close. You can do it a lot easier by buying precut Lexan and a third gen specific window frame kit from places like www.jerrybickel.com Don't even bother with the generic kits unless you're good at fabricating.

I could spend $1000 on a couple of 150HP NOS plates systems to put on the tunnel ram and go faster than what the 75 pound weight saving will do. I've mentioned it before, it costs a lot more money to go faster in an already fast car than it does in a much slower car and trying to remove 100 pounds from an already gutted car is actually expensive.

Shagwell

Glad the turn buckle trick worked out very cleanly for you. - Since you don't want to paint the perimeter of windows, get some black 1/8 door edge molding from a parts store and put it around the edge; really cleans up the look w/o cutting into visibility.

You're doing a great job. That car has come a long ways.

- Jp

AlkyIROC

One last batch of pictures. Everything is completed except for drilling a hole in a passenger door pin to prevent accidental removal. I can't get a drill in unless the door is wide open and I can't do that until I can get the car out of the garage. That's not doing to happen for a few more months.

I made up some new car number decals and put on some store bought ones for all the other information. As mentioned above, I put some door lip trim around the Lexan and it looks much better. I used a heat gun around the sharp turn radius for a better fit. There's still a lot of Lexan dust on the car from final window trimming. You can see how good the fit is. Still not as water or wind tight as glass but far better than my last set of Lexan windows.

SS = AHRA, Super Sportsman
E = IHRA, Electronics, Box, Top
SP = NHRA, Super Pro

The N near the dial-in number is to inform the tower that I don't want to use Crosstalk if the track automatically uses it for the electronics classes.

The car numbers were done using Photoshop to create the lettering. I then cut them out of the paper to use as stencils. I used chrome decal material designed for the rockers (available at Walmart). On the backside, the stencils were used to create the patterns. I then painted the front side with translucent metallic paint. It's used to give chrome an anodized look. Once it dried, I cut out the letters and used a white paint marker to do the outline. Once that dried, I peeled the backing off and stuck them on the car. Not 100% professional decals but you won't see the imperfections unless you're close up. In the daylight, they have a red chrome appearance.

Shagwell

Came out great! That door edge stuff makes for a cheap but very clean "finished" look.

DrummerDad

It isnt hard, but time consuming. I fabricate boxes, and compartments at work from aluminum sheets, and sometimes extrusions. Its best to start with a cardboard box (fedex shipping envelopes are perfect). Fold, cut and tape it till it looks like you want. Then unfold it and use it as a template.

I usually make a 1/2 inch lip on any overlap, or seam, and a 1/2 lip on the face as a surface for mounting, and make notes on the template, if you cut to short (add here-->), or need to take more off(cut 1/4"--> here). You should be able to form it easily over the corner of a work bench, or use a bench vise. We use 2024 t3, so its not that easy, but we have several box brakes, and benders. And keep the plastic on the aluminum, or use masking tape, to keep the gashes out of it.

I might be able to hook you up if you would like. PM me, with some dimensions, and specifics, and we can work something out. I might have a few pix of previous projects.

ezstriper

nice job.....my doors are just like your old ones, I did make the driver side lift off with stock hinges..but it's still a 2 person job for sure !!

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

you don't work for PitPal or the like do you? that'd be a cool job.

stephen...good job on the doors man! even if the weight isn't all that substantial, i can definitely see the benefit of having a lift off style door for access to stuff with the cage in the way and stuff.

Bob Blinn

I am putting fiberglass doors and lexan on them also.How did you get the lexan to pull in about 2 inches on the top to seal on the body??I'm having all kinds of problems in getting mine to pull in right.

Bob Blinn

HELP!!!! I'm having problems on getting the lexan andthe metal bracing to pull the top of my windows in enough to seal.I need someone to help me.I'm ready to sell the car if I cn't do the windows right.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

dude, give it more than 6 minutes.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

lmao first 2 posts in 6 minutes.
maybe try a heat gun?

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

have you tried a window latch like this?

AlkyIROC

Even with the metal framework, it's not a perfect seal and will never be water tight like with glass. As mentioned above, the only way to get a tight enough seal is to use one of those special latches. The latches can be opened from the inside or outside before opening the door.

I bent my framework enough to keep the Lexan as tight to the seal as I could but the top front corner still pulls away from the seal as I'm going down the track. The passenger side is worse than the drivers side and I've seen it pull away from in car video. It takes a lot of work to heat and form Lexan to a perfect natural curve without having to force it into position.

If you want a water tight, windproof seal, stick with glass which isn't an option with fiberglass doors. If you want fiberglass doors with Lexan windows, you're building a race only car and isn't going to be car show perfect.

Older cars with complete window frames in the doors is easy. Frameless doors like in third gens means the Lexan will never seal as tight to the seals as glass will.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

eh...maybe if you're building it. i've seen plenty of race only cars that will blow show cars out of the water with quality and attention to detail.

Bob Blinn

It's only going to be a race car.But I still want to get it nice looking if possible.And I know the windows won't seal as good as the stock ones.But I'mstill so far off in getting them to fit even close.As you can tell,this is my first attempt with Lexan windows. Maybe the last.