Hi guys.

In my never ending quest to reduce weight in my Stuart Taylor Blade I have been looking at the floor paneling. It looks like the current floor is 1.6mm steel plate. From what I can gather 1.6mm steel plate weighs around 12.5kgs per square metre and there is approximately 1.4sq/m of it so in theory it would weigh around 17.5kgs whereas 2mm alloy plate weighs around 5.4kgs per sq/m so it would work out to around 7.5kgs, even 3mm would only work out to 11.4kgs. 2mm Alloy seems a worthwhile change to save 10kgs. I have been told that the steel would also play a structural role in a side impact which makes sense so putting some cross bracing in under the seats would be a good idea if I was to go alloy. I was wondering what others are doing, is it a good idea to change to an alooy floor or should I leave it alone?

I've gone for 2mm 5251 alloy. The Sylva Riot uses 1.5mm. (5251 H22, also known as NS4)
Regards
Hugh

I used 2.0mm ally on my Indy, PU bonded and riveted every 25mm to all contacting chassis rails.

I'd say a worthwhile and relatively inexpensive way to shed 10kg.

1.5mm 5251 on my car for all panels. hasnt fallen apart in the last 2-3 years so i guess its ok

I agree with nick205 - key the chassis and the panel, epoxy bond and rivet. If you do it this way, you get far superior strength to plain old soft ally rivets.

I work to the rule that if you can put the rivet on with a hand riveter, it's not strong enough (for chassis work). advel and others to much stronger clamping rivets.

Aries Motorsport currently sells both steel and ally floor.

The recommendation is to use steel for road use and ally if track day only. A rock or some other thing you may run against on the road can go through the ally floor and hurt you.

Otherwise, no chassis differences, so just replace if you want.