Hey guys, I dropped my car off at the fabricator yesterday to start fabrication of the SFCs. A lot of the fabricators here in New England are usually slammed with work during the summer but in the winter they usually have some extra time on their hands. I wanted to do a poll to see how much interest there is from the 5th gen community on getting someone to produce these, so when I pick the car up tomorrow or Monday I can tell the guy I have "x" number of people who would buy them from you right now if you produced them. I would guess price for the stage1 would be around 200$ And the tubing would be high quality DOM 1.5" tubing.

Total weight it would add to the car would be under 25lbs

Post below if your interested.

Also Stage 2 could be done as well but at least for right now I want to see how much interest there is just in stage 1. The cross bracing could always be added later

(Theres also no reason 4th or 3rd gens couldent be done as well, but someone with one of those cars would have to be willing to give up their car for a couple days so my fabricator could take measurements.)

 

I'd want the full cross-braced model. $200 should be the cost of the Stage II, though. There is no reason 8 - 10 peices of welded steel should cost more than that.

 

Well let me be totally honest with you and the community. It will take aorund 14ft of tubing to make the Stage 1 SFCs (7ft for each side). The reason it takes more tubing is because I am having the SFCs tie into the front of the car behind the front wheels (so the stage 1 will be welded to the chassis in 5 places instead of 4) Here is a picture of where they will be tied into as well as the 3 spots on the frame rails and near the jacking point in the back.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/581...ingidea1nx.jpg


This tubing is DOM tubing 1.5" in diameter with .120" wall thickness which is expensive stuff. Its $5.10/ft. And avg fabrication rates are arond 60-70$/hr. So just for the tubing its 70$ in material. Not including the steel stock used for the 1/4in tabs and capped ends. You put it together and margin is pretty small already as things are. If it makes you feel any better most people quoted me 400-700$ to come close to pretty much duplicate the original warpspeed design (stage 1 and 2). I think people just dont realize how expensive this stuff really is when its custom. Dallas used cheap material, and sometimes the quality of work was suspect (his earlier models looked a lot better than his most recent SFCs which were made with what looked like 1in mild steel tubing for the stage 1 bracing, many of which didnt have capped ends making your car and your SFCs prone to rusting from the inside out, and the square tubing used for the cross bracing stage 2 is seriously a thin as a pencil and the quality of steel is unknown.)

Sorry I really wasnt taking that chance to bash warpspeed, just pointing this out in order to spread information to let people know why this would be more expensive.

BTW the DOM 3/4" X .120" tubing I'm using for the stage 2 cross bracing goes for around 3$/ft just in case you guys wanted to know.

 

I'd be interested, pending price, fitament, and reliability

 

I'd be interested in stage 1

 

Irish I already assumed you'de be in for a set.


Someone, call someone you know in MA or NH to drive me up to NH to pick my car up tomorrow (I'll give them 50$). So I can post the review tomorrow, otherwise I need to wait till my rents are free on Monday to help me out.

If you cant tell I'm psyched to pick it up ASAP

 

You know I want some haha

 

Deff. I am waiting for Vquick and BlackbirdVQ to chime in as well.

 

All over it, you know it. I wish I could be the prototype car for the 4th gen version but I'm only near Boston for about a week every August....

 

I'm in, but I wanna see pictures of how its done. I have a local fabricator who MIGHT do it for me, along with making me a custom roll bar setup so I can mount my in-car camera for shooting videos, along with some extra stiffness.

I drove a Miata today with a very nice roll bar setup and that car felt VERY stiff, and it was a convertible.... if I can get mine even stiffer I would be VERY happy.

I voted a deffinite YES..... plus I am runing out of mods to install :P

 

If you called the guy far enough in advance I am sure he could do it for you while you were there. He said stage 1 and 2 only takes a day and a half to fabricate and install. After just one day of work, he had my stage 1 tubing and tabs fabricated and installed.

 

I'm in, Definitely. $200 doesn't sound bad depending on your review. Get back to us soon when you get your car.

 

I'm in if work is of best quality and price is reasonable.

Keep us posted.

Cheers

AA

 

i'm in and willing to travel up there to get it done. if he did it, i'd drive up for him to install it, given it was timed perfectly.

 

i never really understood the difference between stage I and stage II but i definitely would be interested in better handling.

 

It sounds a good idea

 

i'm in for this also, pending the outcome out how the SFC is designed and where it attaches to.

another concern of mine is shipping, its going to be quite expensive sending two 7ft bars across the U.S.

 

True..true.. not that it makes a difference but the actual length of the stage 1 SFCs is probably under 6ft but around 7ft of tubing is used because of the bends in the tubing

 

Call him up. 603 - 432 - 5737 his name is david, He had the job completly done in exactly a day and a half. Pretty good. He called me up today to tell me he was done I asked him about how well he was able to perserve ground clearence and supposedly he was able to keep the tubing pretty close to the underside of the body.

I am excited to see how it turned out. I am either going to be taking a ride up there tomorrow (late afternoon) or on sun (also in the afternoon) so keep your fingers crossed that I have pics and a review up before the end of the weekend.

 

Not meaning to hijack here but could somebody explain over here about how SFC's improve handling specifically roll, dive, and squat?
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?p=5071737

 

im in. again gotta love shipping large parts all over the country. maybe they can send it greyhound. thats what i always use for bumpers and such.

would a deposit help to get the ball going?

 

It can't be too much to ship. Just wrap it in bubble wrap and ships UPS. It cost me about 30dolla to ship a Bpipe from FL to PA.

 

Congrats man!!! it's FINALLY on your car!

 

Still need a ride to NH? I live 20 min from MA.

 

Is SFC subframe --------? Sorry for my ignorance.

 

EDIT: I DID give the answer, but I thought,

"This is the guy who can search to find threads from 2001, I'm sure he can find the answer to this question with ease."

 

Its gonna be a little hard to sleep tonight. I am picking the car up tomorrow morning. Hopefully everything will look great and there will be no problems. I am feeling some anxiety right now cause I want the whole SFC process to be over finally. Its been 6 months of gathering information, talking to shops, qualifying them to try and find out if they are any good, convincing them to do this work, and than actually getting them to follow through.

Its been a lot harder than its had to be so I really hope it makes the car feel rock solid like its supposed to and I really hope there is a noticible effect on handling.



If things go well I will start a new thread tomorrow after the 2 hour drive home from NH, with pics and an initial review.

Keep your fingers crossed/ Knock on wood

 

Little Teaser: I'm at my buddies place right now and I picked the car up from the shop. I havent gotten it on ramps yet to look at the welds but the quality of work looks very nice. There was ABSOLUTLY NO loss of ground clearence and the chassis doesnt flex. I havent been able to push the car around any corners as the hour drive here was all highway, but I will post a real initial review with pics when I get home in a few hours. I need to find a curvy road though first.

 

Congrats, would love to see the pics when you get a chance, Im looking into a body shop in hawaii to do that too.. How much did it put a whole in your pocket? Was it more than you expected?

 

Shouldn't need to turn the steering wheel to notice a difference...no more crashing/clunking noises going over bumps big and small.

 

i would also be down...ill hold off on my custom fabbed ones for updates on these

 

Let us know how this holds up for those of us whom are interested in how it handles everyday-bumps.

 

Hey Metal- Your PM box is full & your hotmail addy is kicking back as undeliverable. Did you get the LED assembly I sent back to you to be fixed? PM me when you get a sec.

Sorry for the hijack, guys.

 

Bump any updates?

 

I posted my fabricators contact info in the othe thread. Call him up and ask him if he'd be willing to produce the SFCs. I dont really have time right now in my life to distribute them to the public, but after telling him how many people wanted them he deff seemed interested. So if he gets a few calls asking him to keep the dimensions on the net set he does (as there seems to be a few other local maxima guys who are looking to get this done) I am sure he would produce a few sets, especially if he did a group of them together.

 

Do you have the specs for the SFC? I would be more than willing to get this started (I have a number of people I could use) if you had a blueprint.

 

I dont have a blue print, but anyone could get their car measured up to be used as a blue print. What took me a lot of time was finding the right shop, and then figuring out what type and size tubing to use.

If you already have people you could use, and you use the same size and type of tubing that I used than you've pretty much got the hard part figured out, getting a blueprint of the 5th gen underbody in a community of 5th gen owners shouldent be too difficult.

 

your fabricator did not take measurements while making them for your car?
i am in, if they go into production.

 

I dont think he did.. I brought the idea up to him of producing the SFCs and he seemed interested. I suggested keeping the measurements, and/or making a template for future sets, but I dont know if he actually did it. I dont think he did.

Worst case scenario he didnt take measurements and the next person who gets sfcs gets them done by someone locally, and insists that the guy keeps the measurements. I just dont know how many people want to have their sfcs bolt in up front like mine and how many just want them to end like the Warpspeed ones did. You could still bolt them in even with those pieces that I'm missing.

 

Sciff, do you have the bill of materials that was used?