Carbon Fiber parts, interest?

[Ray]

you cant bond carbon to metal very succesfully anyways, in heat the metal expands slightly and the carbon wont. This creates cracks and stress on the Carbon. I took a composites class all of last year in HS and this was a stressed point there.

 

[Spiller1327]

Carbon is not supposed to be for looks alone. If you have a steel hood that weighs a ton and then Slap a layer of thin woven carbon with some cheap resin is just adds weight and ruins the point. Its just plain RICEY. I'm not trying to be mean I'm trying to help you understand the point of carbon.

 

[diabloadsit]

amen Spiller

 

[Ray]

i think by the time you build a quality mold and lay carbon in it, you will be over 600$ enough to do one hood would be more then 50$ also :/

 

[diabloadsit]

This is what kills me with some "RICERS" that buy the fiber that overlays ontop of the part they have on the car already. Why? Its kind of like trying to build a race car and throwing some insanely heavy 20 inch chrome rims on the car. Why?

Carbon looks cool and all but the real purpose is to drop weight.

Again to the OP. Are you going to do Wet or Dry? Wet would be cheaper and easier but dry will save even more weight. I believe most of the pieces out for the STI's are wet. Usually going dry carbon adds like double what the wet would be.

 

[Spiller1327]

Rays statement is precise. You'd have to build hundreds of hoods off from a mold that are in amazing condition (Hard to do) and sell them at high prices to make any money. We had a good friend make a hood for his E30. Without donations and multiple business owners helping him it could have never happened. Its not a cheap thing to do.

 

[Spiller1327]

What do you mean by dry or wet carbon diabloadsit ? Are you talking about Infusing or hand laying?

 

[Ray]

wet bagging maybe?

 

[Spiller1327]

Not sure man. Its confusing.

LOL

 

[skipow]

make wrx parts, then i'll be interested.

 

[Mark]

fyi matt knows the point. he's a tech. his point is that his was put on by the PO. he's in the long and arduous process of bringing it back to tasteful

 

[08WRXME]

A carbon hood would be nice. Also, if you can make a Carbon replica lip for foresters, you could corner the market! the subaru one is stupid expensive, and the only other one i could find was a GT-Spec carbon one for 250 bucks.

 

[Mark]

also i'm not that worried about the finish or anything, i would have it painted black. my steel hood is just stupidly heavy

 

[04fxt]

I would be doing it wet, as I don't have any experience with anything else. As I stated before, I have quite a bit of fiberglass experience, and figured it would transfer over to carbon fiber without a ton of extra work and help. I'm self taught, so I'm sure I am doing a ton of stuff wrong with my fiberglass work, but I am a perfectionist, so I usually find problems in my work quickly.

I haven't tried any of this yet, I still need to order some cloth and make a few small molds. I just figured I would try to help some people out that can't afford the high end crazy expensive stuff, or parts that are not available in cf. Maybe it will all come out like crap though.. who knows.

 

[Mark]

well if you're looking for a test subject, i'm IN. let me know an estimate for cost and i could probably come up with it beforehand

 

[Matt]

thanks mark....

 

[IBratmanI]

also i'm not that worried about the finish or anything, i would have it painted black. my steel hood is just stupidly heavy

Agreed! The RS hoods are ridiculously heavy!!!

 

[04fxt]

I wouldn't be looking for any money unless I was sure I had a superior quality product made, with a solid process, and no flaws or longevity issues.

Maybe I will make some pieces for destructive testing..? Try some different methods and see which ones will take a good beating. I would be nervous about putting a hood on someone's nice car and having it wrap over the windshield @ 60mph nascar style... Maybe I will make one for the brat first, that hood is kinda rusty on the inside lip anyway.

I will definitely keep you all posted on my progress, and post pics of the first parts. Probably going to be a couple weeks before I can afford to get started.

 

[Matt]

that would be really cool...a carbon fiber brat......

 

[spartan5]

well if you're looking for a test subject, i'm IN. let me know an estimate for cost and i could probably come up with it beforehand

This!!!!GC trunk!GC trunk!!!