I know I gonna catch h**l for this, but here I go.... I started trying to suicide the doors on my 89 RS. Now before somebody goes ballistic, I gotta car from a guy who was a butcher, so I'm not cutting on a perfect car or anything close. With that said, I was wondering if anybody has done this that might have some pointers, as far as hinges and such...You advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

This is what I started with..... needs alot of work

 

never seen it but with the doors being so long and heavy it seems like it would be hard to do but if you do try keep us updated. -Matt

 

Thanks ... I have some pics of where I am now with this modification, but they are too large to upload. I will try an keep updating as I go! I know its been done...... as you can see in the pic. Just wish I could talk to the guy who did this one!!!!

 

The combination of long doors and heavy doors exerts a ****-ton of torque on the chassis where they mount, especially when they are all the way open. This area is appropriately reinforced from the factory to handle the weight. The body where you are talking about mounting the door hinges is paper thin so be ready for some custom fab work to reinforce this area before you think about mounting hinges/hanging a door from it.

 

Already taken into consideration.... only problem I'm having is figuring out how to get a little extra swing so that the doors don't "tuck" into the rear fender. I don't want to leave a pocket at the backside for water to get into!

 

that does look pretty cool. I like that.

 

I had a 65 Bug with suicides & shaved handles YEARS ago, but that doesn't help you on doing it to a 3rd gen. Bug doors are super light.....When a cop asked you to step out, they stand to the rear of your door, to prevent any possibility of the driver opening it fast & hitting them....They tend to panic when the door opens backwards & they see it coming at them.

I like the "Lambo" doors on our cars better, since our doors are SO LONG. Really sucks when somebody parks closer than 3' to you!

 

Will never understand the useless modding that goes into these cars... no offense.

Keep them the way they are... if you mod it, do it under the hood. =D

 

I used a set of Opel GT hinges on an s10 I did. They allow the door to open outside the body instead of tucking in. There may be other european cars with a similar design but for a heavier door.

 

This mod is going to happen. I just have to figure out proper hinging. I will keep everyone interested posted on results.

 

x2

 

looks cool but do you plan on driving it a lot?? for a show car I'm sure they'd be great but you're going to have a PITA parking anywhere in a city or other crowded area. you might want to consider vertical doors (swing out a foot or so, then up) or keeping the regular hinges for a daily/occasional driver.

(it would look far less cool if you have to crawl out the hatch when someone parks next to you!!)

 

This is a show car build with light driving intended!

As far as leaving the body alone with what y'all call "useless modding", why not stand out from the crowd and make something " unique"..... something that nobody else has! Everybody has hoods, built motors,etc.,etc. My future plans involve building a nasty IROC or TA for street/strip duty. Point being that modding involves more than putting an intake on or adding a stereo. I have figured out that you will get no more than roughly 45-60* of swing on suicides on a third gen.

 

I worked on the Ford Van hinges back in the late 80's. The cargo door hinges resemble what to have on the front door of your house but much beefier. Seems like you could tuck the pivot right behind hem flange and get more swing out of it.
Hope you are going with electric latch release. Rigging the outside handle to a latch at the front of the door would be an interesting challenge and negate all the calculations that were done to keep the door closed in a crash.

As an automotive door hardware professional I feel obligated to tell you you are going to die if you get in a wreck. But I put vertical doors on my project so even I don't listen to me.

 

I hadn't thought of the van hinges. I was looking at....eeek..... honda trunk hinges as a possible option. I hadn't really thought to hard about the door latch...... was gonna cross that bridge when I got there!

 

Best not to sometimes. Like eating an elephant: One bite at a time. I cringe whenever somebody asks me how much I have left to do on my project.

 

I certainly agree with that! One step at a time works for me! Especially if you are a family man like I am!!!!!!!

 

you know that there is a factual reason why they are called suicide doors?
if you are going to mod them i prefer the lambro way. up and away.
that said the one in the pic looks like it was done well.

 

Yeah.... I'm aware of the reason that they are called such. Was something I pondered years ago, and figured it was time to do it!

 

personally i'd rather see lambo doors on a thirdgen than suicide doors,
i'd say leave them alone but its really your decision

 

Exactly, wife, 2 kids in college, mortgage. What have we got left to live for? Daughter's Jimmy with 180K, she keeps wrecking her T/A, son's STS with 202K, my Avalanche with 112K plus my sister's family. That's my excuses for not being done yet.

 

I appreciate everybody's input thus far, and do plan to update when I get a little further along.

 

our doors exert the same amount of torque on the hinge and frame no matter how open they are, just at a different angle. lambo doors are a different story.

also, why would he have any additional problems getting out if someone parks close to him, if he can crawl out/in doing some limbo maneuver, he can certainly get in through the front. i think it would be easier in fact.

 

vertical doors i could live with on our cars... but suicide doors... ? id rather not have doors just a roll cage thats how the jeep is! lol. not bashing your project but if you like it everyone has there own thing. just not for me or anyone else who has a soft spot for hardcore muscle. In my opinion or cars are meant to be respected when you turn over the key and you hear that chubby insipiring music coming out of the tailpipes not how cool the doors open.

 

gay.

 

You mean tube doors, they are popular down south.
They don'thave a cage, but the door is build out of tubing in the stock spot to get air flow but be legal.

 

sort of i just have a cage in the jeep its a overkill cage lol. but here in IL you dont have to run doors its not a law...yet.. so i dont even need the tubing on the side. plus that one only sees trails most of the time if it goes on the road its just too get gas.

 

off topic..but why do they call them suicide doors? is it because if they open when you are going down the road, the door will "comit suicide"..lol.? And by the way i support the idea of trying somthing new. but if you are going to do it, do it right the first time.

 

because if you hold on the handle and they come open you go out. the wind opens them instead of keeping them closed. see you were right all along.

 

If they weren't closed & LATCHED or popped open while turning a corner, you'd fall out. With "standard hinged doors", they'll stay shut, and keep you in, while turning, when not latched.

I dropped off a passenger one day in my old VW Bug. She didn't FULLY shut the door so it didn't latch. I didn't realize & went on my way. Not 100ft down the way, the door swings back at speed. The rear quarter was CRUNCHED & the hinges were ruined &it never worked right again.

 

That's a really good idea!!!!!!!! Good luck

 

I Have read on this website before that "If you don't build it, it ain't yurs."
I am curently working on a 83 crossfire car with functioning Lu5 hood, And i am gunna mod the hell out of it Unless someone has a check with the right numbers on it, My intentions are Lambo doors, notchback kit, air ride, complete costum body kit, and Crazy paint. I was thinking Pearl white with black metal flake, or Peal black with sunburnt orange metal flake. And uhh, daily drive...

 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who likes something different than what everybody else is doing!!!!!!! Don't get me wrong .... I've seen some beautiful cars on here and can tell that someone has put in the wrench time to make them so!!! I just want something different. I'd like to be able to go somewhere and have somebody see what I've done and say wow.... thats different. I've owned 9 f-body's total and just want to break out of the norm.... I'm thinking completely shaved, suicide doors, and a blower motor of some sort...... still undecided on color..... either white,black,or yellow!

 

look around pics of the ta nationals from dayton or tipp city cruise from 08, i think someone did them

 

Here is where I've gotten so far..... hoping the pics post! Time has been sparse lately. Remember this is just my R&D phase.

 

are you frieken crazy? that car is beautiful (to me) wish you would have done a damn trade with me before you started pullin out the cut off wheel on it, i would LOVE that car.

 

I promise you it looks better in photos then in person. He hacked the harness and rigged a few other things that I found after the deal was done. The only regret I have is not having one on the road before I did this. So now I'm in the market for a driver.... hopefully this weekend. LOL

 

i pulled my harness out of it anyway. lol. even though the paint is sht i love it, and i want that rear spoiler instead of the crappy spourt coupe wing that i got. but im def doing that paint job on my car.. if i dont sell it for an IROC or somehting better than this lol


you better do a good job or im gonna be super pissed! lol

 

The closer the pivot point is to the body (rearward) and the farther to the outside the more your door will be able to swing. From where the pivot point appears to be in the picture, the hem flange on the door is going to be traveling backward and into the body pretty fast 10-15degrees.

 

ME too!!!! As of right now I can still put everything back together if I wanted to.... suprisingly! It is a little tight as of now...... working to fix that soon!

 

So you are building this yourself pretty cool. Just wondering why you when with building your own and not a kit?

 

In short form I was told by somebody at Suicide Doors .com that it couldn't be done...... so I'm on a mission to prove them wrong. Plus this has already been done at least once...... I have pics of the car. So if he could do it there has to be a way. Plus I have access to plenty of steel to work with. The hard part was getting the homemade hinges to be the same size when heating and bending. Like you..... doing it myself and screwing the man at the same time!

 

Haha...a techless post from me here... But I always heard they were called suicide doors because when you opened them while parked on the side of the road, a car coming up along side could hit the door and smash it shut on you while you were stepping out. Where as a conventional door would just fly open and rip off.

Think about it... If you are wearing your seat belt, you arent going to fall out of a car if the door flies open. How do you think wrangler guys ride around with no doors? haha.

And if a conventional door pops open while going around a corner, its not going to prevent you from falling out. Unless you have a belt on of course. But if its unlatched and free to swing, it will in no way keep your body weight from flying out. Unless you were going fast enough so that the wind kept it closed...in which case you wouldnt be making the corner you were trying to make in the first place.

I always liked the idea of suicides...just not on a thirdgen. My first car was a 67 Bonneville 4 door hardtop. I wanted to suicide the rear doors on that sucker, like the old lincolns. But never got around to trying it.

J.

 

Nice, Can't wait to see it finished.

 

hey this reminds me my dad has a 1939 desoto and the back doors are suicide doors. he put little locks up front that had a steel bar go from the door into the door jam so it wouldnt possibly open unless you unlocked it. but yeah if your worried about safty def look at this little lock. ill take a picture of it really quick. give me a minute.


dont be to judgemental, its been stored in a garage since november, and hasnt been touched since, so its really dirty. but it actually won mayors choice last years sorry just whoring my dads car around

 

okay so if your worried about the wind catching the door and ripping it open and pulling you out then thid is your answer. my dad installed these simply cause me and my bro were only 14 when the car was built, and we never had seat belts installed. since its a classic car, you dont have to have seat belts.

more whoring

 

First off, you'd probably get a better response in the fabrication forum.

Second, don't listen to these retarded stock *****. I'm so sick and tired of the crap on this forum. This place is great for tech stuff, engine stuff, history, etc. but god forbid someone wants to do something different to their car and they act like you're butchering an original model T.

These cars were produced by the hundreds of thousands for 10 years straight. They're not rare. Get over yourselves.

Lastly, before you even attempt to make those doors swing in reverse make sure that:

A. You stiffen up your chassis... subframe connectors minimum. A nice X-frame and a partial roll cage would help.

B. Make sure you re-enforce the B-Pillar on your car. These cars were engineered for the A-Pillar to receive the weight of the door, not the B pillar. If you want your car to stay straight and not start ripping itself apart, graft some tubing into your b-pillars and brace the whole thing. I can't give you specific suggestions without seeing the interior of the car gutted and looking at the area behind the door (b-pillar).

C. You make sure you have adequate metal on the rear of the door (where the factory latch is) so that the weigh to the rest of the door doesn't rip the back of the door right off the hinge.

Good luck. It's your car, do it how you want. Stick to your guns. If you want some real advice on making your car unique, try another site and just pop in here when you need specifics. Protouring.com has a lot of body guys. FullsizeChevy.com has a lot of guys doing exterior mods to their truck that will also apply to camaro's. There's also metalmeet.com.

Mathius

 

I really like the old classic four door cars with the backs being suicide doors. To me they have some customized classic look.

Woooow, champ. While I have seen many people that dislike non-stock, there are many more that find this interesting and cool. Show your support but don't go crazy cause some people don't like the change. Everyone got there opinion.

 

The sub frame connectors and rool bar are definitely going to happen. I have also planned to put cross bracing in behind the hinge area to support the weight at the b-pillar. I appreciate the support.