How much tubing in and 818 frame?

[dirty kurty]

Disclaimer: I have no intention (and nowhere near the welding skill or money required) to actually build my own frame.

Just wondering approximately how many feet of tubing are used to make an 818 frame? Also what is the size and wall thickness? I am guessing about 200ft of 2inch square tubing and maybe 1/16-1/8" thickness.

I am thinking about a project for a light-weighting class where I substitute materials (wall thickness spec'd for equivalent strength/stiffness) other than steel for the frame (eg stainless, or titanium for the cockpit/safety section and aluminum/bonded CF for the front and rear sections).For now I just want to get an estimate of the weight savings and material cost to see if it would even be interesting/remotely affordable to justify the design work. Safety considerations such as material fatigue don't matter at this point, just aiming for equivalent strength/stiffness.

[Boog]

Going from mild to chromoly seems to get save a little over 30% if the equivalent strength wall tube size is available. In one of the delivery threads it was asked what the bare frame weighed and the estimate was ~400lbs, so without re-engineering to adjust for different material characteristics it sounds like 120lbs saved or 6%-7% of the final car.

I know it doesn't answer your question. Just throwing it out there because it surprised me that even though the frame is the single heaviest piece, it isn't a huge percent of the total weight.