T-Top vs Tin Top

[1000 PR]

Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I. wouldn't have been the same in a tin top 308 GTB!

[riot68]

While driving mine today I pondered on this and thought, isn't the MR2 a great car, who gives a fook if it's tbar or tin top!...

[JDM-MAT]

Each to there own

[Ryan S]

Had the roof off for 3 days now, not even put it on at night, despite the creaking the groaning and the occasional leak and the fact I think the tintop looks nicer, I could never have a tintop

[Driftlimits Performance]

imo I don't like the creaking of the tbar.

However they are good in this weather.

If I could have only 1 MR2 what would it be? tintop I reckon.

[pbmr2]

i bought an mr2 as a project car to build as a hill climb car so i got a tintop for the performance gains over the tbars. stiffer and lighter.

our first mr2 was a tbar and it did creak and rattle quite a lot but this didn't seem to dampen the driving at all. knowing it's moving around is a bit odd but on the road it never changed anything. even drifting it was fine, but with the roof out you got a lot of rubber in your hair.

going fast with the roof out just does your ears in and blows your hair all over the place. not that nice for anything over a few minuted down a b road. and you try rolling a fag with the bloody roof off!

the tbar does sound amazing in tunnels or near walls etc.. but it's a minor plus point.
they also did leak and let far too much light into the car when parked, turning it into an oven. with the leather seats that came with it, it made it a very unpleasant place to be in hot weather. seats too hot to sit on and no air con.
also if the sun was in the wrong place it reflected off the dash, something the tintop doesn't suffer from.

my tintop had air con (before i removed it for the project) and that worked really well. with the cloth seats as well, it was a better drive as i wasn't sliding around in my seat and it was never too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter on the leathers.

our second mr2 now is a moon roof. worst of both worlds i think. looks horid, doesn't open the car up like the tbar in the summer.
on a plus point, you can open it while you are driving, it gets used a lot more than the tbars because of this and it doesn't leak. you can even open it in the rain on a warm day and not get wet on the motorway.

summary, tintop rules as the lighest and most performance spec of the 3. tbar is second as i just can't stand the look of the moon roof, even though the moon roof is more useful.

[karldavies]

Exactly how much stiffer/lighter is the hard top against the t bar? I have a t bar which I track and would be interested in hearing how big the difference is.

Cheers

[toxo]

Exactly how much stiffer/lighter is the hard top against the t bar? I have a t bar which I track and would be interested in hearing how big the difference is.

Cheers

I'm not convinced anyone actually knows

[pbmr2]

next time there is a rolling road at a tuning shop, get them to get the corner weight scales out and weigh the cars... simplez. need standard examples for comparison.

i'm going to get some soon as i need to balance my car and i want to do some mate's cars too. once i do get some i'm happy to bring them to a meet for some standard car weighing.

in terms of flex i have no idea. they measure it in degrees per kg of force. i can't find any data for the mr2 on this, for any model. and testing it isn't easy!

[karldavies]

I'm sure having a roll cage in a t-bar would help with stiffening it up a little.

[toxo]

next time there is a rolling road at a tuning shop, get them to get the corner weight scales out and weigh the cars... simplez. need standard examples for comparison.

i'm going to get some soon as i need to balance my car and i want to do some mate's cars too. once i do get some i'm happy to bring them to a meet for some standard car weighing.

in terms of flex i have no idea. they measure it in degrees per kg of force. i can't find any data for the mr2 on this, for any model. and testing it isn't easy!

I've had my car weighed along with a few other members before. The difference I'd expect in chassis weight is going to be the equivalent of having more or less fuel in the tank. They'd need to be totally standard too (alloys, exhaust etc) otherwise it wouldn't be a fair test. Optional things like ABS and airbags will add weight, and rev1's are proven lighter than rev2+ cars.

Many variables.

[pbmr2]

next time there is a rolling road at a tuning shop, get them to get the corner weight scales out and weigh the cars... simplez. need standard examples for comparison.

i'm going to get some soon as i need to balance my car and i want to do some mate's cars too. once i do get some i'm happy to bring them to a meet for some standard car weighing.

in terms of flex i have no idea. they measure it in degrees per kg of force. i can't find any data for the mr2 on this, for any model. and testing it isn't easy!

I've had my car weighed along with a few other members before. The difference I'd expect in chassis weight is going to be the equivalent of having more or less fuel in the tank. They'd need to be totally standard too (alloys, exhaust etc) otherwise it wouldn't be a fair test. Optional things like ABS and airbags will add weight, and rev1's are proven lighter than rev2+ cars.

Many variables.

yeah your right. however i do have many part weights (including bolt and wire/loom) for many parts of the mr2. so with the same cars without any mods, it should be possible to get a close result.. fuel can be balanced out by filling all the cars up.
even wheels and tyres are different weights, so just using one set of wheels and putting them on each car would balance that out.

oil level, screen wash etc. all need to be filled to max to make sure it's the same on all the cars.

standard tool kit, t-bar interior covers, t-bar bags, standard rear x-braces etc. all need to be present to show the true factory spec weight differences.
again many of these parts could be moved from one car to another to keep the testing fair. only one tool kit would be needed, spare wheel, same battery, floor mats.. blah blah.. it's all doable.

not super simple but possible to get fairly good results i feel.

[RyanRs]

T-Bar every time..

soo, there less rigid... Add some bracing..
soo, there slightly heavier.... turn up the boost!

The only thing i dont like about my t-bar is the fact its not an aero top like the supras ;D

[RST]

Hmm, I've only ever heard t-top and tin top described to mean the same thing.

T-Bar all the way for me! There's something about having a glass roof about your head, I haven't had the shades in for about 3 years now.

Mine's braced up, still one of the best handling cars I've driven. Every frameless door car I've had has dripped on me at some point. A small consequence in the Sw20.

[KoLaBoTTle]

T-bar for me.
If yours creaks and rattles then that's down to your car not the t-tops... they weren't designed to rattle or creak and mine certainly don't. I've had the leak issue and fitted new seals to completely cure it. Yes it cost but then so did new top mounts & bushes etc etc. Rubber will perish with age. As far as I'm concerned it's just another cost inherent to the cars age.
As for being heavier... if you're driving on the road and reckon it's slowing you then you are obviously driving at 95% or more of the cars performance and that is simply way too much for the road.. even if you're in a n/a.
Finally on the looks front... well it's just subjective. I'm sure there are people out there who think Jordan is attractive but what are you going to do.. you can't punch them all?
Buy what you like, bu88er the others and enjoy your choice.
Oh and I like the tops off in the summer 'cos I like the wind in my hair, I like to hear the exhaust note, I like to get tanned whilst driving and finally of course... I'm a monstrous poseur!

R.

+1

Amen to that!

The money I've saved on air con re-gassing pays for new T-Bar seals

[JDM-MAT]

imo I don't like the creaking of the tbar.

what creaking????? I have never heard any

[craig]

imo I don't like the creaking of the tbar.

what creaking????? I have never heard any

I had some on my old one, and also when driving in the frost the creaking changes to cracking noises

[Dale_V]

moonroof is a good compromise

[craig]

moonroof is a good compromise

As you know my first MR2 was a moonroof

Filled car up once and stored the moonroof, while bemused onlookers wondered why I was putting the roof in the bonnet

[toxo]

Yeah although I'm pretty sure there's a very good reason Toyota never fitted the turbo engine into the moonroof model