I have actually built a carbon framed Caterham chassis which we installed a 300 HP Cosworth race engine into, this was designed by an extremely competent team of people and took a few years from design to completion. I forget the numbers now but we did put it on the test track and it was scary quick with an incredibly stiff chassis. I certainly do not recommend doing this at home and certainly not putting it on the road and I think the law will require the car to have an IVA test should you wish to make it road legal again.

Far UK

Thank you for your answers!  I don't want to hijack a thread, so feel free to keep me in line.

"In most cases its easy to overengineer such things with some simple knowledge and experience, and with lightweight composites that is usually fine and still achieves what the guy wants. "  Where might I go for some simple knowledge?  I'm willing to over-engineer, and willing to have extra weight as a trade-off.  I've built machines and equipment using principles of over-engineering based on charts of structural steel strength.  And not to worry, if I am not sure of safety and strength, I'm not going to build it. A cool looking car is not worth a horrible accident.

Thanks again!

You need to do some research. Find a couple of books on compsites and spend a few long nights to get the basic understanding.  You will probably want to run your designs past an engineer with carbon chassis experience.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

I would be careful about using carbon tubes.  certainly do NOT just replace a metal tube structure with a similar carbon tube structure as the material differences are significant and would not perform in the same way.

Not saying carbon tubes might not have a place in your build, they may well do, but it has got to be carefully planned and designed to take advantage of the differing properties between steel and carbon.

Carbon tubes would certainly perform differently in a crash for example.  

On competitions like formula student, the teams wishing to use materials other than the generic technical spec, have to perform tests and calculations to prove "structural equivilency" both from an engineering perspective (they are doing it to learn, not just to win) as well as safety reasons.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant