CF Sunroof Delete Questions

[Nate047]

This is horrible, you could keep the sunroof and eat better. I can't understand people that are overweight and looking to spend $ saving weight. Invest in yourself, words to live by.

It’s not just the weight, it’s headroom / clearance, lower center of gravity, loads of reasons to get rid of a sunroof.

[bigjae46]

This is horrible, you could keep the sunroof and eat better. I can't understand people that are overweight and looking to spend $ saving weight. Invest in yourself, words to live by. AJ, does a decent job. RIP Chad, we miss you!

I'm pretty sure that panel is pre-preg cloth cured in an oven.

Most molds are made from polyester gel coat, resin, and fiberglass for cost. Using epoxy is about twice the cost. In an effort to make the part more affordable, polyester is the more commonly used. The downside is that polyester tends to shrink when heated. Repeated heat cycling may cause slight dimensional changes which would cause similar fitment issues over time.

Infusing and then room temp curing greatly reduces the heat cycling issue. S2R uses either an infusion or wet lay/vac bag process. I think that is why the S2R panels have never had a fitment issue.

I think pre-preg is overkill but it is much easier to work with and faster to produce. You can pretty much make a defect free part with zero post cure work.

[332]

Returned my BW panel...

https://youtu.be/H42p4kxFWyo

This is horrible, you could keep the sunroof and eat better. I can't understand people that are overweight and looking to spend $ saving weight. Invest in yourself, words to live by. AJ, does a decent job. RIP Chad, we miss you!

[eacmen]

I have the same panel. No ceramic coating and clearcoat has been fine for past 5 years. It is garage kept though.

[Nate047]

Was UPS from Los Angeles to New Jersey, pretty big box, enough padding to make sure it didn’t break. 🤷🏻♂️

[bigjae46]

Update: My AJ Hartman roof plug clear coat ended up failing after a year or so, he replaced the entire plug. I did have to pay shipping so that sucked.

He said the ceramic coating I had put on there may have contributed to the issue in some way, so just a FYI on that. I don't know enough about how that works to have an opinion. Maybe it's my fault? What do you guys think? I will just be using regular wax on the new one.

I used the Loctite SI 5049 as recommended and had no leaks. I will be using the same thing next time around on the new plug.

Shipping the plug back to him was about $115 and the new sealant with shipping is almost $50. So yea. I guess I'm happy to have a clean plug again, but it would have been cool to not have to spend money. Now I also have to spend a bunch of time cleaning up from the old one and reinstalling the new plug. I suspect it will also fit like the old one, slightly below the roof panel line so not perfect.

I’ve started making these for the spec46 crowd. Costs $15 to ship UPS through paypal. Not sure who charged you $115 but they ripped you off!

I think AJ Hartman uses Duratec sunshield which is either polyester or vinyl ester. I think those materials will gas off so if you ceramic coated it right away it would mess with the clear coat.

[Nate047]

Update: My AJ Hartman roof plug clear coat ended up failing after a year or so, he replaced the entire plug. I did have to pay shipping so that sucked.

He said the ceramic coating I had put on there may have contributed to the issue in some way, so just a FYI on that. I don't know enough about how that works to have an opinion. Maybe it's my fault? What do you guys think? I will just be using regular wax on the new one.

I used the Loctite SI 5049 as recommended and had no leaks. I will be using the same thing next time around on the new plug.

Shipping the plug back to him was about $115 and the new sealant with shipping is almost $50. So yea. I guess I'm happy to have a clean plug again, but it would have been cool to not have to spend money. Now I also have to spend a bunch of time cleaning up from the old one and reinstalling the new plug. I suspect it will also fit like the old one, slightly below the roof panel line so not perfect.

[Nate047]

2M is in the process of recreating the euro slick top headliner for this exact reason. Unsure of the timeline but this will be really helpful for the community to have a source for new headliners.

[Deen HK]

Since slicktop headliners are now NLA, what’re people doing to get by? I have a delete panel but would like to get rid of the sunroof headliner to make the interior look more complete

[SandeepM3]

Doodling around test fitting my AJ Hartman panel tonight. I'm honestly not 100% satisfied with the fitment, am I expecting too much? What do y'all think?

Seeing SandeepM3's photos earlier in the thread made me think the curvature of the panel would better match the roof, specifically running front-to-back. Maybe that's a matter of using adhesive on install? Pushing up on that region with my hands doesn't give me much confidence that it's merely a matter of "sag".

This isn't a mod I "need" to do, but was spurred on by needing to deal with my dissolving headliner, and figured I'd save some weight in the process. Finding out the panel only saves 35 lbs as opposed to the 70 lbs advertised on AJ's site after pulling out the old cassette was also a bit disappointing. I suppose that's on me for not double checking, but c'mon, he's off by a factor of 2 here.

Mine has a very slight sag there. But its barely noticeable. I also installed it with applying pressure to all the edges until it dried to reduce this.

[kostnice]

you plan on removing the nav and put in a business cd ?

[bigjae46]

I have the S2R piece and it’s about the same. For $250 it’s what I would expect.

The cost is in the mold and it goes up exponentially to get it perfect. No one is going to pay $750 for a sunroof delete. Even if it’s priced low, likely won’t sell enough to make any money. Not really worth it.

[Nate047]

I have the AJ Hartman piece and yea the fitment is not that great. It’s a bit lower than the rest of the stock roof. The actual carbon is really nice but I feel like it should just be a little taller to be flush with the roof.

As far as losing weight, 35lbs from the top of the car is still pretty great. I think we all know if you really want the tough guy points you have to do the full roof anyway though.

[Wernd]

that's about the same fitment as mine which leaves a LOT to be desired. It didn't really matter to me as I was going to body filler it anyway and then cover it with vinyl.

[Pklauser]

Doodling around test fitting my AJ Hartman panel tonight. I'm honestly not 100% satisfied with the fitment, am I expecting too much? What do y'all think?

Seeing SandeepM3's photos earlier in the thread made me think the curvature of the panel would better match the roof, specifically running front-to-back. Maybe that's a matter of using adhesive on install? Pushing up on that region with my hands doesn't give me much confidence that it's merely a matter of "sag".

This isn't a mod I "need" to do, but was spurred on by needing to deal with my dissolving headliner, and figured I'd save some weight in the process. Finding out the panel only saves 35 lbs as opposed to the 70 lbs advertised on AJ's site after pulling out the old cassette was also a bit disappointing. I suppose that's on me for not double checking, but c'mon, he's off by a factor of 2 here.