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I be dropping weight like I'm on the biggest loser
My friends and I are getting tired of the fiberglass parts skinned with a single sheet of carbon and sold as a "carbon fiber" part. That said, I thought I would start a thread showing you all the pieces that my buddies and I are building to drop weight out of my 92' SC400 by making them ourselves out of 100% carbon fiber. I'll update it as we make progress on things.
2) I hope you're keeping those molds? I don't know how difficult it is to make each piece, but I bet you could have a decent little side business selling true CF parts by request.
2) I hope you're keeping those molds? I don't know how difficult it is to make each piece, but I bet you could have a decent little side business selling true CF parts by request.
Thanks guys! We will definitely keep everyone updated.
As for weight saving all the pieces including the drains, glass, nuts and bolts, etc was just over 37lbs. The carbon part was 2.13lbs. A saving of 35lbs high up in the car.
And yes we still have the mold. We have a honeycomb weave carbon that I'd like to try as I think it'd look amazing.
@t2d2 - With the weight of our hoods, it is definitely on the list of to-do's. What do you mean by a "dummy hood scoop"? post a pic for me if you don't mind.
@bigwhite - thanks! Did you weld yours in or is it bolted/riveted?
@jadu - thanks! We are just that good haha! Im just joking, the process picks up everything including minor imperfections. You can see the transfer of the laser etching from the glass in the mold. The pic below is a close up of the transfer in the mold.
@t2d2 - With the weight of our hoods, it is definitely on the list of to-do's. What do you mean by a "dummy hood scoop"? post a pic for me if you don't mind.
Sorry, I should have said a non-functional hood scoop. There's nowhere really to direct the air to, given the height of the engine and location of the intake. But some of the ones I've seen give the SC that exotic Aston Martin look that might be worth the "go fast decal" stigma of a non-functional item.
this is what i really wanna do as well. see too many expensive products that aren't even pure carbon. post up the supplies list and costs. i'm really interested in making my own CF parts once i graduate college.
@t2d2 - I'll keep this in mind. The non-functional scoop would probably be cost prohibitive to build into the part, but could be an add-on to a standard hood like the JDM supra scoop you provided. Reason being, the cost to build one-off parts is much more due to not being able to spread cost out across multiple parts. I.E. building 5 of one part, you split the mold making cost across them vs. a single part having the molding costs tagged to the cost of 1 part.
@oldmantan - I wont give a full list as it would be huge. Total investment for everything needed minus carbon and resin was about $5000 (five thousand dollars). This takes into account for mold making materials. Our setup does resin infusion and can do dry carbon in the future. Quality parts come from a lot of time invested and good tools. We use a high powered vacuum pump, degassing chamber, resin trap, tons of tubing and fittings, scales, measuring tools, specialty sanding tools since carbon destroys regular sanding tools, sheers, peel- ply, mold release, gel coat, tooling coat, waxes, specialty tapes, gallons of resin, etc....as you can see its quite an operation to get high-end parts.
@Kira X - thanks!
Last edited by DaveGS4; 09-21-14 at 08:20 AM.
Reason: Check pm
I took my car to a hobby local car builder that just happened to be a retired sheet metal worker. I think he said he welded the panel on, then used body filler. Looks like it is orig. Then took to interior guy that made the custom headliner, which was going bad anyway.
Make me door molds, I'm lazy, lol. I had 1 day to make my hood, trunk, doors and did about 50 other things for a race, so they came out bad. My fiberglass hood looked like a duck bill at high speed, great engine cooling.
The doors with panels and windows are 125lbs each. Even completely gutted they are 40lbs. fiberglass doors with aluminum reinforcements are about 15lbs each. I've weighed most all misc things I took out of my car in the weight reduction thread if you search my post. I'm around 2500lbs.
My next step is to tube frame the floor with aluminum sheet metal flat bottom. another 100-200lbs is possible with everything I plan.
09-20-14, 03:14 PM
I be dropping weight like I'm on the biggest loser
