Well someone recently backed into my car, and put a dent in my hatch. I estimated getting it fixed at about 350 including paint. I found a vis carbon fiber hatch for my 94 integra for 650. I have heard that you cant use your factory glass. Is that true? How hard is the install? Any pointers would help. Also if anyone has a good site to get the hatch from let me know. Thanks.

 

You can't use your factory glass for three reasons.

1) Carbon hatches are weak/flimsy and can't hold up to the weight of real glass.

2) Carbon hatches are weak/flimsy and don't have the rigidity to hold your glass without breaking it.

3) Carbon hatches don't give you a ton of weight reduction unless you also replace the glass with plastic.

Installation to the car is usually easy, and the lexan/acrylic window can be bonded in the same way as standard glass. Some hatches already come with the plastic in them. Make sure you don't buy a hatch with the "glass" screwed in place, that's shoddy and seriously weakens the hatch. Bonding the glass in place adds to the strength of the hatch and will not harm anything.

Carbon hatches, because of their lack of rigidity, often have problems sealing with the stock seals/weatherstripping. I would strongly recommend getting a new seal kit so the new hatch can seat to a virgin sealing surface.

I'm going to go on a rant here, but making a direct carbon (actually mostly fiberglass) copy of a stamped metal part is irresponsible. Carbon isn't the same as metal, and can't be treated in the same way when designing and making parts. I'm not talking hoods and trunks here, because they're unstressed sheet metal, and purely cosmetic, not semi-structural like hatches. The big problem is the weight of the glass and the very small rails that form the edge of the hatch (along the sides of the glass). It's hard to make that part of the hatch strong enough without making the hatch expensive and very labor intesive.
As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of carbon hatches, at least 95% of the ones on the market. The decent ones are neither affordable or readily available. It wouldn't be hard to make a good hatch, but I've never seen anything decent for under $1500-2000, and those are only available for limited vehicles.

 

i was thinkin about the samething

 

Damn I know people on this site have this mod. Where would I be able to get a glass, and seal kit for my car?

 

People do have this mod. I'm not saying that people don't do it, I just have strong opinions about it..

The seal kit comes from the dealer, and the acrylic (Plexiglass) or polycarbonate (Lexan) comes from someplace like FAL. Yes, the same FAL that makes fans. I don't really know if they make back glass or not, they make side windows and stuff like that... There are other companies too, hatch glass isn't that easy to find sometimes..

 

So can someone please tell me if I can use my current back glass on my new cf hatch? I was heard if you did it right, it should work. Someone who has done this or knows someone who did this let me know.

 

most of the time when taking glass off the hatch it breaks anyways. from what alot of glass companies tell me. iv thought days and days about this but fabrik8 is right use plexi glass from FAL cause the glass companies will charge you another 6-800 for a new rear window with defrost. it all depends may the people i talked to just wanted to up sell me but im not the epert they are soo i listened.

 

they tell u that they cant do it but trust me they can. ive broken my glass twice on my DA and that glass cost a grip brand new so i just bought a hatch and they told me that if it broke it wasnt his fault but he didnt have a problem taking it off.

 

I got a guy that will take off my glass, and put it on my new cf hatch. Hes been doing glass for like 20 years, and he going to do this on the side. Im just wondering will the cf hold up the weight of the glass? It wont crack will it? I seen pictures of people online with cf hatchs and a lot of them seem to have factory glass.

 

You can do it, yes. But you risk damaging the hatch under the weight of the glass, and possibly breaking the glass anyway because the hatch isn't strong enough to support the glass properly. Think of the hatch as a frame, and if that frame is too flimsy, it will not protect the glass from twisting and breaking. You can give it a shot, but you're gambling with your glass. Try it with a peice of junkyard glass, that way you'll still have your stock piece just in case. How well this works depends on a lot of things, like the size and weight of the glass, the type of hatch, and the construction quality of the hatch. Get the hatch first and see how strong/stiff it is without the glass, then make up your mind.