crx12

I decided to post an informative post about our product rather than just throwing up prices. I think it's important for you guys to see why our kits are a good option for your car.




- CARBON FIBER SUNROOF PLUG KITS FOR YOUR CAR -
- FACTORY LIKE FIT AND FINISH -
- VACUUM INFUSED CONSTRUCTION -

Composite sunroof panels are now available in black or white gel coat fiberglass for those of you looking for other options. Unless other wise specified all kits listed for sales on our site are carbon fiber construction. IM me for a price.


Picture Installed on a 94-01 Acura Integra



94-01 Integra complete view


Underside of carbon panel matte finish. Now available with or without flame impression, very subtle. We choose a matte finish to reduce weight, more resin or clear coat just adds more weight to the panel so we opted not to paint. You are welcome to have your painter clear coat the underside of the panel should you decide that is something you want.


You've seen the cheap way now remove the weight from your roof the correct way. Since early 2003 we have been fabricating sunroof replacement panels for your Honda and Acura. We developed our product to perform well on the track and on the street. Ultra Carbon Fiber is a company all about the details!

- A WORD ABOUT THE CARBON PANEL ITSELF -
VIP may be the latest craze hitting Japan at the moment but it is also an acronym for how we fabricate our panels. VIP (Vacuum Infusion Process) is the technology behind our panels. Historically many parts in the automotive aftermarket have used wet layup methods to build parts. This involves starting out with dry carbon fabric and wetting it out in a mold by hand, basically saturating it with resin and removing the excess resin. This will giter done so to speak but it isn't ideal since much resin is usually left which makes the finished part heavy and full of tiny air pockets which weakens the part. Taking wet layup a step further and vacuum bagging the part to squeeze out air pockets and excess resin is an upgrade but still not idea. When we vaccum infuse a part we vacuum bag the part dry in the mold and then pull the resin through the part until the vacuum space is filled. Vacuum infusion ensures the air is never any air or extra resin to remove from the part to start with. This means that you get a resin/fiber ratio much closer to ideal. In short you get the best quality possible with our fabrication process.

Each panel is CNC water jet cut to dimension from drawings developed right from the specific model desired. From there the water jet edges are smoothed out by hand sanding each individual panel to remove tiny cut marks. The panels are then pressure washed and buffed to remove any release chemicals and bring the finish up to a high gloss. Then the panel is cleaned again and inspected for any defects that may be present. If a defect is found that is outside our QC window it does not leave the shop. The panel and hardware kit is then packaged in a custom double sided box for delivery to the customer. We take great pride in making our product the best it can be. 90% of our kit is made up of custom fabbed parts to fit your car.


- WE OFFER KITS FOR THE FOLLOWING CARS -
88-91 CRX
92-95 CIVIC HATCH/COUPE
90-93 INTEGRA
94-01 INTEGRA
92-96 PRELUDE
97-01 PRELUDE
96-00 CIVIC HATCH/COUPE


-HERE ARE A FEW PICS OF OUR KITS INSTALLED ON VARIOUS CARS -

97-01 PRELUDE


92-96 PRELUDE ON OAKS RACING CAR




RICHIE GIBSON JDM CARS.COM CRX

*Car hadn't been sealed yet

- A WORD ABOUT HARDWARE -

A common misconception about our kits is that you can go pick up hardware to mount everything at Home Depot or Lowe's. Well you could do that but it's not ideal. Every piece of hardware is made for use by various companies. I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the details before you buy.

Aluminum panel mounting bracket for CRX. Pre punched to fit our other hardware. We supply each kit with spares just in case you drop it down a drain or something. Sorry dime not included.


Here is another style of bracket with only a single hole punch. Some Honda and Acura unibodies have a very shallow flange that does not accomodate a rivet and standard bracket. The bracket shown is aluminum but all of these brackets are now steel so they may be tack welded in. Years ago these brackets were bod in but we have since switched to welding for better reliability. We provide instructions for tack welding so close to the roof line so that no paint damage occurs on the roof. Again these are pre-punched. We have several other bracket designs tha work with different models but this gives you an idea of the detail.


Drive rivets for use on CRX. There are areas in the unibody sunroof flange that are blind and due to dimensional issues with the bracket and it's position it is not possible to use a rivet gun. Aluminum drive rivets go in by smacking the back with a hammer which splits and mushrooms the rivet stem.


These are really cool screws! First of all the screws and nuts are stainless for endurance in the real world. Unless you have a full time track car your car will see some rain and it's nice to have a fastener that won't rust with the first soaking. They are blakc coated to blend in with the color of that carbon panel which is nice for looks. The screws are very tiny as you see and are also counter-sunk which makes the fit flush with the panel, remember we are about details. Sure we could have used rivets here but why. Also the nuts are nylock so you can tighten them down and then back off a turn which prevents dimpling or distorting the panel yet they won't come loose.


A bracket locating tool is a big help when it comes to getting the panel to sit flush. The step in the bracket represents the thickness of the carbon panel. You slap this on your roof and place a mark on the inside of the flange and that is the elevation your bracket needs to sit at. This speeds things up and makes the fit look very nice! Throw it away when your done or hang it on your wall, I don't care.


RTV silicone is used to seal the kit after it's mounted. Tape off the carbon panel and the unibody and there will be a 1/16" gap to seal. We intentionaly scale the panel size down slightly to provide room for a seal. Try sealing a lexan panel and you will find the lexan shrinks and grows breaking the seal in no time. One of the main reasons we chose to build kits in carbon fiber is the low CTE of the material. Compared to metal carbon fiber laminate doesn;t grow at all making it a perfect material for a sunroof plug. After you lay the bead of RTV into the gap you run over your bead with a flat ice cube and it will not stick to the silicone. Next day pull off the tape and you have a flush black seal that will let you take your car through an automatic car wash even.



EXTRA...EXTRA...
Our kit for the EF Civic is almost complete. Look below for some pre-release pics.

After waiting a million years it's finally about to happen. Here is the finished kit mounted in a Solo EF hatch. The only thing left is the sealing.


Here's the reason for the delay. The rear brackets of death is what I like to call them.


As you can see there is no flange on the rear of the 88-91 Civic so we had to get creative. The aluminum bracket mounts by way of aluminum drive rivets. If we had decided to sell the kit as rear weld in brackets a lot of people would have to repaint their roofs, luckily we can avoid that now. These brackets were actually water jet cut. For the type of volume we sell the kits in this solution made the most sense.


Just an FYI the 88-91 Civic panel is not even close to the same shape as the 88-91 CRX for those that are wondering. We can sell the kit now but we just haven't officially rolled it out yet. Everything has been tested to fit.

If you would like to order a kit please visit our website ordering page:
http://www.lighterfaster.com/13101/index.html
We also accept credit cards over the phone at 801-789-3897

Due to the worldwide shortage on carbon fiber we build and ship the kits to order within 1-2 weeks.

crx12

Kits are available in fiberglass as well with complete hardware with your choice of white or black gel coat. The fiberglass panels are also vacuum infused with high quality standards but they are about 30% heavier. The fiberglass versions cost less and you paint them to match the color of your car or leave them unpainted with your choice of gel coat colors as long as you pick white or black

IM me for pricing or questions

crx12

Just had a question about international shipping. All prices on the website include shipping to the lower 48 states. I would be happy to custom quote international shipping if needed.

crx12

Bump again today

crx12

Remember we can build custom kits if we don't have your car in the line-up.

JEM MotorSports

Great Item!!!
Especially for you HPDE guys.
A hell of a lot lighter & looks better than slapping some tape in a "x" shape over your present sunroof to please track officials.

IMO. unfortunately, with the way the market is I believe the majority of people you'll get to purchase this item at $400 are serious registered weekend warriors from NASA or SCCA.

Do you have anyone running this item in NASA?
You may want to consider promoting this to our "JDM Mondays" regulars...

for cool time attack item....

crx12

True enough. Surprisingly a lot of our customers are just looking for a cheaper alternative to a factory replacement if the have a rusted or broken sunroof. From the numbers I have heard new factory units are really expensive. But we certainly have a lot of racers buying and I know there are a few SCCA, NASA, and Drag racers using them. Here is a good value comparison I posted in another forum a while ago. It turns out the sunroof kits are pretty good bang for your buck when compared to buying a carbon hood for your car for example. Here's the exerpt from that post:

"With shipping included you are not going to get a decent hood for less than $500 and even then that is a fiberglass hood really if we're being honest. So lets take that number ($500) and say you drop 10lbs off the factory hood weight, I'm being very optimistic here. That means you paid $50 for every pound you shed from the car.

Now lets compare one of our kits. Take our price shipped to your door of $400 and then we loose 32 lbs vehicle weight. That means it cost $12.50 per pound of weight lost. Also don't forget the weight of the hood is at half the height of a sunroof. As far as the effect on vehicle dynamics the sunroof replacement is a clear winner. The sunroof option is over 4 times cheaper per pound of weight lost."

I know a lot of guys will say just slap a piece of lexan in there or weld in a steel panel both of which are valid alternatives but option number one looks bad and lexan moves a lot with heat so its hard to keep sealed and option 2 involves welding, bodywork and paint. I bet if some had the body and paint done they would find that is more expensive unless they do everything themself. Then there are the guys that just love their sunroof which I understand.

How many guys are involved in JDM Mondays anyway, cool idea. Great idea for time attack cars as well. What sanctioning body is putting on time attack events anyway? Any rules out there? I think those events are going to grow quickly.

JEM MotorSports

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How many guys are involved in JDM Mondays anyway, cool idea.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

WOW, where do I start?
On any given Monday we can expect between 350-400 attendees.
Most come down to check out some of the top L.A. based industry "tuner" vehicles.

I organize and make possible for industry marketing directors to meet hands on with consumers.

We hold workshops which also help explain what the guest speakers products can do for them.

Such companies reps from; Torco racing oil, Honda Motor America, JIC Magic, Nitto Tires, Promotion Distributing, Camel & local neighboring Honda/Acura dealer reps, just to name a few...

Incentives are offered & passed on to the JDM Monday regulars.
At times, group outtings are performed and sponsored by companies such as Camel.
Profeesional in door cart racing at Dromo 1 was a private event Camel had put on for us a few weeks back... absolute blast!

This type of grass-roots marketing is very effective and absolutely priceless.

crx12

I'll IM you on that. What a great concept

crx12

bump

carbonall

JEM = good guy!

antiJDM

what does the interior finished product look like?

crx12

Here are pics of a CRX with the headliner installed again, I don't have any without the headliner. Pics are taken at different angles to give a better idea of what you see and what is pretty much hidden.








I need to stress that the current panels ARE NOT glossy on the underside, only the top side. The pics above show gloss from a test panel we built. They are no longer glossy underneath to save weight but you can have it clear coat painted by your own body shop if you want the underside glossy as well. Current panels get a carbon fiber matte finish underneath as shown, flame pattern is optional.

antiJDM

pm price on 96-00 coupe?

crx12

PM sent

crx12

Anyone else?

tepid1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crx12 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Anyone else?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah me. I think you know what I am looking for here.....

Sunroof plug, carbon/kevlar for my DC2..... throw me a price.

crx12

PM'd you tepid

tepid1

Told you we would do business again....

allmotaeg6

pm sent

crx12

replied

tepid1

I want to loose weight. How?

J/K

Top notch stuff here!

crx12

you're fat

tepid1

So if I remove my sunroof it will make up for the extra weight in my ***?

What's a sunroof weight.... about 50lbs?

Yeah that seems about right.

crx12

LOL yah you can keep eating twinkies with no reduction in your cars performance