Carbon fiber skid plates
 

Have you ever heard about anybody manufacturing carbon fiber skid plates for 5th gen 4Runner?

If we spend $300 on a $30 bent sheet of 3/16 steel what would they charge for carbon fiber?

I think you would be sacrificing too much protection and durability.

You can shave weight other places with a lot less compromise.

Why?

^^^^
Im looking for sales on skid plates cause there so damn expensive lol. Dont know how anyone would dish out so much $$ for carbon fibre.

Carbon fiber skid plate could never be strong enough. Wrong direction of applied forces.

If it’s good for formula 1 at 200 mph then it should good enough to handle a Toyota
Mike :lookout:

Lol that's a bad reference, the use of CF is to help dissipate that kinetic energy rapidly by splintering and shattering instead of the entire body absorbing that energy.... they're taking horizontal G forces for an hour at a time, on impact those levels go in the double digits....the lethal range...the quicker and better those forces are deflected from the driver the better. The weight savings was the primary factor for F1 usage, the safety was just a byproduct in that industry.

It wouldn't make sense in offroad protection because of the expense and the fact that as soon as you do a hairline crack on the carbon fiber you potentially could damage the entire system. But again the expense is the biggest reason.

Same reason they only use CF on dream liners and not training aircraft like Cessnas, because as soon as a piece is damaged the mechanics have to do sonograms to the wings to make sure the damage doesn't lead to catastrophic failure, and again because of the expense.

Lol each CF piece of a skid plate would be like $2k, so probably $10k for an entire skid plate system.

dense...to be fair green font would've displayed his sarcasm he was using:lalala::car:

I understand your principles on cf but if impact splintering was a concern why make the driver cell in cf also the most high end cars are made in cf now I only see its use increase as it does so do decreasing pricing if I can get a cf hood made for my 1988 e30m3 which cost me $1k which I’ve had on my car for 10 years already I think a skid system for a 4Runner should be feasible
Mike :uzi:

Just put a carbon fiber wrap on the factory skid plate and you'll have the best of both worlds :-)

Thanks, you answered all my questions.

I was just curious - the cost factor was painfully obvious.

If it would be different, the use case would be for somebody with minimum offroading ( let's say my wife ) - just to save mpg and money.

you'd save money buy NOT buying new skids

I have some experience in FRP (fiber reinforced plastic) fabrication. And I happen to have a bunch of supplies left over from building a sailboat. I've considered making skids, but I don't think FRP is a very good choice for a bunch of reasons, and carbon is probably the least desirable of the fibers for skid plates. The reason is that carbon has a very high tensile strength, but low elasticity. So it shatters catastrophically when you want something that will deform, bend, stretch, etc. Carbon layup tends to have fairly low puncture resistance compared to steel as well. That's the plastic part. The resin is nowhere near as tough as steel, so the surface hardness is much less. The result is that it will both puncture but also get hung up on rough or jagged rocks much worse. A lot like aluminum. It simply doesn't take point loads very well. Kevlar would be a better fiber but doesn't solve the surface hardness problem.

However, - I have what I think is the obvious solution and I'd love to try it some time to see how it works. Use the OEM skid plates and reinforce them on the inside with FRP. A steel/FRP combo could combine for a very strong and durable skid plate set for relatively low cost (it's really not hard to layup a few layers of carbon or kevlar on the inside of your OEM skids). I'm not sure it's worth the effort. You'd spend a fair bit of time and $ to save a few lbs of weight. And I don't know if you could keep the laminate inside from delaminating from steel, but I think it would probably work pretty well.

Richochet Offroad offers a good majority of their ATV/UTV skids with an option for 1/4 UHMW (Ultra-High Molecular Weight) PE sheets sandwiched to their aluminum skids. They don't do it for their T4R/Taco armor, likely because of the difference in GVWR... And their method of attachment includes a ton of catch points... But it can be done! Carbon fiber isn't the right choice of material at all for something like this though.

For example:
8-Piece Complete Aluminum or with UHMW Layer Skid Plate Set, Polaris S – Ricochet Off-Road

It's an intersesting idea to use CF for skids but I think it's not practical. Yes you'd save weight and CF is incredibly strong. Some folks have already eluded to the fact that CF is NOT great at "puncture" strength (which arguably cold be augmented with a "metal" mesh of some sort).

If you want an aftermarket skid and save weight over SS or steel: Maybe Titanium is a better answer??