Werner Van Loock wrote:If there's no hard-top available by the time my car get's finished, I will also attempt to make a hardtop.
BTW, what do you mean by a GT type hardtop?
One that would stretch all the way to the edge of the rear wings , either leaving the boot clear or going right over it then access would be from inside. Both have been considered by Tim.
Rob.
I just love the Stylus but she keeps swallowing £££ ! Alfa Red 159 2.4 jtdm ti 260bhp 365lbft / BilsteinB12 + Adjustable Powerflex camber/castor bushes. Red STYLUS 2lt zetec 231bhp 185lbft Dunnell . RED 1972 Alfa 2lt GTAm replica 170bhp.
I just love the Stylus but she keeps swallowing £££ ! Alfa Red 159 2.4 jtdm ti 260bhp 365lbft / BilsteinB12 + Adjustable Powerflex camber/castor bushes. Red STYLUS 2lt zetec 231bhp 185lbft Dunnell . RED 1972 Alfa 2lt GTAm replica 170bhp.
Not wishing to discourage anyone with the ingenuity to build their own hard top, but from talking at length with Tim there is an issue, I was looking at making my own. In short it turns the car in to a wing and causes a dangerous amount of lift at the rear, he has spent some time working on one, but it is far from finished and to test it properly costs ££££
se7ensport wrote:Not wishing to discourage anyone with the ingenuity to build their own hard top, but from talking at length with Tim there is an issue, I was looking at making my own. In short it turns the car in to a wing and causes a dangerous amount of lift at the rear, he has spent some time working on one, but it is far from finished and to test it properly costs ££££
Good luck if you give it a go....
Alex
It didnt seem to be a problem as far as AC were concerned.
Perhaps they didnt go as fast!!
The hardtop Cobra was a rush job anyway to regain top speed down the mulsanne straight. Open top Cobras just couldnt keep up so they quickly rammed a hardtop on it. It wouldnt surprise me if they suffered with rear end lift as well.
After they showed it worked the next year saw the introduction of the Daytona coupe - and I think they struggled with lift on that.
Not that I've been watching discovery channel too much or anything....
I've never experience any high speed lift when I've had the hood up, so even with the slight improvement in aerodynamics a hardtop would offer, I doubt it would even offset the increase in weight. In any case it would be pretty easy to fit some lift dumping structure to the roof.
I was talking to a friend who used to work for the likes of March and Tyrell about a hard top for the Stylus. Between us we recon the main problem is the shortness of the rear deck; a top will have to drop very steeply from the top of the roll bar to the boot. As a result the flow of air over the car will become detached leaving a low pressure area; this is exacerbated if the top has buttresses like a Jag XJS as shown in the pictures I’ve seen as they stop air from the sides of the car rushing in to fill the void as happens with a soft top or bubble top like the Morgan plus 4 plus. It might be possible to use a splitter like that fitted to the Lancia Stratos to direct air down the back of the roof but this might just move the problem and would certainly add drag. The only real option we came up with is to raise the rear “cut off” allowing a roof angle shallow enough to keep the flow attached the Alfa TZ1 is a good example of this though a more modern one is the Volvo s80?
