I got around to final mockup to my sheetmetal doorpanels the other night and shot a few pics. My friend is a fabricator and came over and made clear templates and marked out the basic shape and where the bend would be over the top of the doorframe and marked out where the door handle will be as well as the window crank.... I'm not doing this so much as for weight (however the stock door panels do weigh a ton) but more for cage clearance since when we welded in my cage i told my welder i wanted as much room inside the car as possible and he didn't have to try to bend the bars around the stock door panels. I could have modded the stock door panels but I thought it would have looked gay to hack the crap out of the stockers.... And keep in mind that these are not final finished products. I have a bit more to trim off the rear to follow the contour of the door, still have holes to drill for the rivets holding them to the door and once all that is done both of the panels are going to the stereo shop and will be upholstered in black carpet similar to what they use on speaker enclosures so that it passes the "upholstered interior" rule some racing classes have as well as keeping my arm from getting incinerated on hot days

So lemme know what you think. Keep in mind this is being built as an 8 second streetlegal doorslammer and not a daily driven car that my wife drives.... And I've got like 20 bucks in materials on this and wolfe racecraft gets like 200 bones for the same exact panels....

 

looks alot longer now

 

I like the idea! Looks good. Will you have a pull handle on them as well?

 

yeah the panels do give the look like the doors are longer but once i finish trimming the backside that might go away.....

Tony-Yeah the idea was to fabricate a handle where you can see the two bolts sticking thru underneath the door handle (to open the door).... that's where teh stock panels would bolt to.... I'm going to fab up a handle so i can pull the door closed.... These panels are gonna look alot better once the upholstrey is on there..... won't give the car that "race only" feel that the sheetmetal does right now.... big difference in weight tho i can tell you that...

 

are you drinkin from a stemmed wine glass, come on now you should be drinkin out the bottle

and they look like they are goin to turn out nice, is that alum or ss?

 

you know mad wolfe makes a pair just like that.

 

So how much wight would something like that shead?

 

HELL YEAH!
You want to make another set? (cheaper than wolfe though?)

 

I think that would add weight.

 

Stock leather Z28 panels are about 10#s each. the cloth is a little bit lighter but not much.
Sheet metal of this is about 2#s probably.

It all adds up!!!

 

it does look a lot longer now.........

 

hey outlaw how hard was it to fab those up???

 

My friend did the same thing except with some ABS Plastic panels. Did the dash too.

 

How did he 'curve' the top part that goes next to the window/glass?

My intentions were to get some 'cardboard' and have a shop just make some flat pieces from upholstry "stuff"

 

Thanks guys. I'll talk to my buddy and see if he's willing to make another set based off my templates.... these are all aircraft quality aluminum... They are LIGHT AS ****..... probably about 1 pound apiece.... seriously....

What he did to make these was he came over with clear plastic that comes in a roll.... He laid it over the door and since it was clear it was very easy to cut out the shape with a razor. Once the basic shape we wanted was done and being clear he was able to draw where he wanted holes to be for the window crank, door handle and door latch... he bent the top part to meet up against the window with a huge machine although i can't remember what he called it. used in fabrication to make long straight bends in any type of metal....

Yes Wolfe makes these door panels but they are 190 dollars a set. And i don't know what wolfe makes them out of but i can almost guarantee theirs are heavier than these. the stock door panels weigh a ton believe me. I couldn't believe how heavy they were when i took them off.... So if you wanted a set of these and my buddy can make em i'd say he'd probably charge like 100 bucks if the buyer paid shipping.... but i gotta ask first....

And i'm not drinking from a stemmed wine glass. that's a friend of mine drinking champagne.... probably celebrating his first guy-guy experience j/k....

here's a finished pic after i trimmed the back half of the panel. now the door closes fine..... at this point we're going to make it's twin brother for the drivers side and then drill holes for mockup and then have them upholstered...

outside with rear trimmed to contour (door might not look as long now)




from inside of car. gonna look nice once upholstered in black....

 

Nice fabwork. Stock plastic door panels weigh can't weigh much less than your sheetmetal, be nice if you had a scale to share what the difference is, might be worth it for some of us trying to lose weight. Can see doing it for rollcage clearance but still curious as to what the plastic weighs, doubt it's that much.

 

10 lbs per door panel for a total loss of 20lbs.....

I wouldn't have believed it either till I took one off and felt how heavy it is.... The stockers are sturdy as hell and have a whole lot of sound deadener on the inside as well.... The LS1tech weight list (sticky somewhere) lists both door panels as 20 lbs as well.... These weigh about 2-3 for both.. So i dropped probably 18lbs or so....

thanks. i'll get more pics when they are upholstered...

 

that's crazy, be nice if you could post up a template for dimensions, etc. What kind of door handles will be put in place? Something halfway decent looking or none at all, what?

thanks for posting the weight.

 

no problem... a template would be tough since they are curved so i couldn't just list like 18"x56"x12" for example..... the curvature of the door prevents it.... If you want to build em the best thing to do is make a template out of cardboard or clear plastic like what we used..... then take the template and have duplicates made out of aluminum.... that's how the pros do it so we borrowed the technique...

Tommorrow I'm going to go to the autoparts store and try getting ideas for a handle. It will most likely be like a leather strap bolted down using the 2 stock bolts where the armrest used to be.... i'll push it thru a slit in the upholstry so you won't see any metal behind it..... i'll have pics soon...

 

Ill have to go buy his shop with a camera, and take some pics. I believe he heated it up and bent it around the door.