Stripping Doors

[fake400r]

Who has removed the side intrusion bars fom R34 doors?

They are held in by silastic and looks like they are also held in by tack welds or something too..

Any tips would be appreciated.

matt

[bigmikespec]

Get a grinder

[Snowman]

I left mine in. Thought they might be useful one day.

Ripped lots of stuff out of the car but they stayed behind.

(Not particularly helpful I know!)

[Darkside]

I did some stripped doors (evo) for track stuff here in WA and if you can get to them, you basically drill out the spot welds and then give em a bit of a bash and they come out. But to be honest they dont weight very much . (4kg at most in an evo)

For the tarmac rally car, as has Snowy, I left them in. I hope I never need em, but am happy to lug them around just in case.

[fake400r]

Thought id let you all know what the results were.

The original doors complete were about 36kg. I have gutted them right out to a point where the door still should have good strength. I have managed to get them down to 15.2kg each without glass. The window weights just over 5kg. I am now going to get plastic windows made. Any idea what you reckon these should weigh?

Overall im pretty happy as this will be at least a 30-35kg saving for no cost oulay but for the windows and new mirrors. As a reference Sunline quote 3.5kg for their superlight carbon doors. These would be nice but just not practicle for the budget at this stage.

Anyway, if your thinking of gutting your GTR doors this is about the result you might expect.

Matt

[TwinTurboCelica]

Thanks Matt.... so that was 36kg each? Looking to get Carbon Fibre Doors, and I was wondering the total weight saving..... Thanks!

Can you fit steel intrusion bars to the carbon doors?

Also, does anyone know what a standard r34 boot lid weighs?

Edited January 25, 2011 by TwinTurboCelica

[bigmikespec]

Can you fit steel intrusion bars to the carbon doors?

Kind of defeats the purpose...

[Neil]

So how did you remove the intrusion bars,,,I need to do my R33.

I was thinking of a small wheeled 180 degree angle grinder and or my dremmel using a million cutoff discs.

Cheers

Neil.

[jazzy_j]

So how did you remove the intrusion bars,,,I need to do my R33.

I was thinking of a small wheeled 180 degree angle grinder and or my dremmel using a million cutoff discs.

Cheers

Neil.

We used mini cutting discs in the die grinder to cut the intrusions out of the R32 doors. I think we went through two disks cutting them out.

Talk to Brad about it cause he did most of the work.

[Risking]

Yeah I remember doing it well. GTiR is the same.

I used some small cut off wheels on my die grinder. I hve a shit load of them Neil. Can sacrifice a few next time I see you.

I also vote for the 9inch angle grinder which will go through the whole door skin nicely if not the whole door.

[Kaido_RR]

I left mine in. Thought they might be useful one day.

Ripped lots of stuff out of the car but they stayed behind.

(Not particularly helpful I know!)

+1 would not remove them unless you have a roll cage

[TwinTurboCelica]

Kind of defeats the purpose...

There is a method to my madness. I don't want to fit a cage, but I think side intrusion bars are important for safety. Given you can get carbon fibre doors around 5kg, 4kg for intrusion bars, 5kgs for glass, 2kgs for add on trim... you could get a 36kg door down to 16kgs. Times by 2 doors, and you could save 40kgs. Well worth it IMHO.

[fake400r]

So how did you remove the intrusion bars,,,I need to do my R33.

I was thinking of a small wheeled 180 degree angle grinder and or my dremmel using a million cutoff discs.

Cheers

Neil.

I used a 5" angle grinder to cut the bar in half. had to be very careful when cutting close to the door skin but there is a few mm grace. I then drilled out the spot welds (about 4 per end per bar) and then used a hammer and chisel to break them apart. Took me a while to do the first door whilst i worked it out but not long at all for the second one.

The side intrusion bars were about 4kg per door.

Cheers,

Matt

[fake400r]

+1 would not remove them unless you have a roll cage

I agree and this is a pure race car that has a very high end roll cage nearly completed in it. Otherwise i would leave them as is.

Also i cant see why anyone would bother stripping a car to this level if it was for the street. Would be a horrible noisy piece of junk to drive around in.