Author Topic: Project carbon fiber  (Read 1193 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline GNP

  • Moderator
  • Stubbly Faced
  • ****
  • Posts: 13
    • Great North Performance
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Ride: 2002 wrx
Project carbon fiber
« on: December 01, 2014, 10:38:56 am »
Project Carbon Fiber

Just to update everyone on our progress, I've started this project with the most important piece in the engine bay, the ebcs cover.
I'm expecting a 15-20 horsepower and 10-15 torque gain with this cover. Just kidding.
I'm starting with this piece just to hone my skills before trying other pieces.
Here's a few quick pictures of some of the process.
First, I had to make a mould of the piece.
Second, sand the mould smooth, to get a nice finish on the final piece.
Next, lay in the carbon fiber, add the resin and vacuum bag it. Let it cure.
Then drill out the holes and more sanding.
The final step will be to clear coat it for a beautiful finish (I hope)
I was working on preparing the mould by wet sanding it, to take out the little imperfections. Then it's time to wax it, 7 coats, just to make sure the final part will come out.
It's a very involved process.
Put down the double sided tape, then when the first layer of resin is in place it's time to lay the carbon fiber, then more resin, more carbon fiber and a final layer of resin. After that put down the peel ply and the breather cloth and then attach the vacuum bag to the double sided tape. Now it's time for the vacuum for a few hours until it cures enough.
Nothing to do now but wait, and hopefully I've done everything correctly.
After letting the new carbon fiber cover cure for a day, I split the new part from the mould and things weren't as perfect as they should be. Not bad for my first attempt, it needed a little fine tuning. A quick sand and another light coat of resin, let it cure and we should be good to start the finishing steps.
There were many little problems that I encountered along the way, that get compounded in the final result.
They are, starting with the mould, I didn't leave enough run off area outside of the part to attach the vacuum bag well enough, I didn't use enough resin to make the cf adhere to the mould in the drop-outs. That's evident with the arched drop outs they should be 90 degrees for an exact match. I didn't push the resin into the cf enough, therefore not enough resin was used. Better luck next time.

The things that went well, went really well. The moulding process was almost perfect, the original piece released properly. My mixtures were spot on with the tooling gel, polyester resin and the cf resin.

After I "fix" this piece to get the best possible finish that can be achieved I will try again.

While this is curing I 'm going to manufacture something from scratch, my own design. Starting with a radiator shroud for the 02-03 impreza and wrx's.
I will keep you posted.



Great North Performance

Offline LilDrunkenSmurf

  • Rivaling ZZ-TOP
  • *****
  • Posts: 19319
  • This is why I can't own nice things..
  • Location: Calgary
  • Ride: hopefully doesn't trigger ekai
Re: Project carbon fiber
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2014, 10:40:46 am »
I love how raw real CF looks.
If the sea was vodka, and I was a duck.
I would swim to the bottom, and drink my way up.
But the sea isn't vodka, and I'm not a duck.
So give me the vodka, and stfu.
If you're having forum problems, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but your post ain't one.