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Cones damage fiberglass body?

4K views 23 replies 14 participants last post by  Arno 
#1 ·
I had bodykit made with fiberglass on my RX-7 and the sideskirt was cracked by hitting a cone at 70-80mph at Buttonwillow. So now I am worried. Will these cones at autox damage elise's sexy body?

solo2elise
 
#4 ·
It is a real possibility depending on how you hit it and the speed and hot sturdy the cones are. I have seen other cars like Elans damaged by direct cone hits at speed.
 
#6 ·
My friends S1 has hit many cones (BTW I havn't driven it... yet) and although it hasn't broken the clamshell they have left significant marks that are in the paint and do not come out. the front does not look very good. I intend to not hit any if I can help it :) I have found that a really good wax does seem to protect the paintwork quite well from cones.
 
#8 ·
curty said:
At one of the Lotus "Scare yourself sensible" days, on of the instructors hit a cone with his S2 Elise -> Hole in the clamshell :-( .
Hi, do you know what speed they were going?
 
#14 ·
I have hit a cone, pulled it up between the tire and wing (fender) and torn the fiberglass up as it exited. Yes you can do some interesting damage just autocrossing, but as someone already said, don't hit the cones!
In general most dmamage is to the clear coat and you can get it out with scratch or swirl mark remover.
 
#18 ·
The Elise body is injection molded plastic, not fiberglass. My dealer told me the reason is that it results in a better finish than the glass. Also, flex additive isn't used, also a quality of finish issue, so the paint chips pretty easily. We better keep a bit of touchup paint handy. I'm guessing the plastic is less likely to be damaged by cones and other objects.

Jeff
 
#19 ·
Tripledigits said:
The Elise body is injection molded plastic, not fiberglass. My dealer told me the reason is that it results in a better finish than the glass. Also, flex additive isn't used, also a quality of finish issue, so the paint chips pretty easily. We better keep a bit of touchup paint handy. I'm guessing the plastic is less likely to be damaged by cones and other objects.

Jeff
The body is made of GRP (glass reinforced plastic), thus "fiberglass". The method used to mold it is dfferent from either the hand layup of fiber cloth/mat, like the S1, or the chopped fiber mix sprayed into the mold like Corvette uses (or used, not sure if they still are), but still classed as fiberglass, a fairly generic term. It is not a molded plastic like the Saturn.
 
#22 ·
Lumn8r posted the following from his track experience at Hethel:

After I got out and sent the next victim off with Alastair, he demonstrated to all of us watching what happens when you hit a cone clean on at over 100mph. The cone flew about 150 feet and the Elise came off rather worse for the wear with a broken grille, missing turn signal fixture and cracked front clamshell. He managed to find all of the pieces, but a definite lesson in what to avoid with your own car. The rough estimate I heard was about 1200 Pounds Sterling to fix it. That bit certainly filled the bill of Scaring Me Sensible.


If you track or autoX your car, expect the finish on your car to wear quicker. These activities are brutal to your car's cosmetics. ;)
 
#23 ·
ChrisB said:
The body is made of GRP (glass reinforced plastic), thus "fiberglass". The method used to mold it is dfferent from either the hand layup of fiber cloth/mat, like the S1, or the chopped fiber mix sprayed into the mold like Corvette uses (or used, not sure if they still are), but still classed as fiberglass, a fairly generic term. It is not a molded plastic like the Saturn.
Chris

I was definitely told by my dealer (who was attending the launch at Barber) that the body is not fiberglass, but an injection molded plastic. IIRC, injection molding cannot be fiberglass. I think there's no GR in the P.

Any experts here who can comment on this??

Jeff
 
#24 ·
Elise is definitely still fiberglass. This is also very important for crash-worthyness as GRP can absorb huge amounts of energy as it de-laminates in a crash.

But...

Since the S2 the clams are made with a process using two stainless steel moulds where the fibreglass matting is put into. These moulds are then closed tightly with the fibreglass matting in between and resin is injected under very high pressure as well.

This work is done on an industrial scale by SOTIRA in France who also make parts (eg. rear doors, hoods) for other 'normal' cars here in europe (eg. Renault cars)

It is still GRP, but no longer hand-laid like the S1 and produces much thinner and lighter (but same strength) panels.

This system also requires very little to no gel-coat on the GRP, so it does not show the 'delayed' spiderweb-fractures usually seen on fibreglass cars after a bump.

Disadvantage of this system is that the parts must be 'self releasing' from the mould, so you can not form shapes that 'fold in' onto themselves. This is why the S2 clams are glued together from several (simple) shapes in the Lotus factory.

A motorbike crashed into my S2 head-on and it was very obvious that the clam is GRP :)

Bye, Arno.
 
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