EOI: Carbon fibre parts

[NZM.031]

hey, what a great idea. id love to get into c/f, but i have enough trouble with body filler, let alone c/f.

just a few ideas.

airbox...i have a fibreglass Unique Autosports one which is as thin as an ants johnson, a thicker carbon one would be awesome.

cooling panel...that goes from grill to radiator support to force air through radiator, also good for more stickers.

fuse box cover...bit of hardcore bling

cam covers would look awesome.

ganards?? i think thats what they are called... the wings that go on the side of the front bar.

mirrors......could go some ganador type mirrors

rear diffuser would be cool

cold air induction piping + funnel type thing..... i have one made of PVC pipe and a plastic square funnel which works excellent and fits perfect in my 400r front bar... i could take a pic if u wanted.

afm adaptors....there are heaps of ppl that would love an c/f pod to afm adaptor.

can you make c/f piping??? like afm to turbo ducts and i/c piping??

as other guys have said, interor panels would be cool. dash fascias and the like, c/f A pillar guage holders.

also exterior trim bits, like GTR wing endcaps, wing blades, B Pillar covers and the like.

cheers

Linton

[Aya]

R32 GTR Front lip, boot lip.

[Uncle George]

Hi there,

I think I'm the guy who quink is referring too. :flamed:

----------------------

Thanks for the idea and suggestions. We two (actually 4) are thinking to start something and.. not sure exactly what so you guys have made a great contribution

As for carbon items, any one who knows FRP (fibre reinforced plastics) would agree with me that carbon is both over-rated and under-rated. Over-rated because you can't really use carbon fibre in everything and at times it's not the best engineering material for a particular product/item, an example would be carbon fibre strut brace or carbon fibre helmets. On the other hand it's under-rated.. because many ppl simply favors carbon fibre because of it's (stereotype) beautiful texture and not it's properties. It's also under-rated because of the "quality" of carbon fibre parts available on the market. By quality I mean strength vs weight and not how glossy or how shiny it is. Anything can be shiny if one is willing to spend time and buff it up...

To give some insights of how conventional FRP are manufactured: At the lowest end of the scale is probably the cheap locally manufactured glass bodykits. Most of those kits are made with open mold method. ie you have a female mold of the bumper, chopped strand glass fibres are laid into the mold and infused with polyester resin. And whoa la there is your bumper (after trimming and fixing up manufacture imperfections, ie voids and pin holes.)

while the high end body kit (ie those made at japan genuine C-west and big brand ones) are made with glass cloth (instead of chopped fibrestrand) and better resin (maybe vinylester). And the difference between high end bodykit and low end is the weight and flexibility... (Chopstrand has larger space in-between fibres, so it absorbs more resin.. and because it's poorly manufactures a lot of putty and body filler are needed to finish the bumper off)

now moving to carbon fibre... it can be made using open mold method too, but manufactures can't use body filler anymore cos most ppl wanted to see the carbon weave. So to minimise fark ups, manufactures use a shit load of resin to make sure fibres are well soaked and there are no air bubbles. This equals no weight/strength difference to a fibre glassed item other than the big price tag.

Quink and my self used to be involved in this motorsport thing and I was the main dude responsible for all wet composite work although I'm pretty familiar with prepreg too. (I would write a better thesis on it than the thesis I did on electronic assisted gear shifting)

One of our initial motive to start producing some carbon fibre items is because we wanted do something we all loved, carbon fibre and motorvehicles and to improve the perception of carbon fibre as an engineering material and to make better products available to the general public.

Of course this is highly restricted by the price.. i would like to use prepreg my self.. it's a hell lot easier to work with.. but very little of us would be able to afford it. (prepreg isn't sold per meter, it's sold by per roll, about 30 meters with a shelf life of a few weeks (depending on the resin matrix used). And the tooling set up cost to manufacture prepreg is enormous.... i don't think we could use 30meters of carbon in a few weeks time.... but who knows, maybe there is enough interest for me and quink to invest in this..

Anyway, a boot lid have been mentioned quite many times, there are many options to go about it,

if it's all show no go, carbon skin and retain the rest of the metal frame. a couple of hundard dollars and done.

Or we can go all the way and make the entire thing out of carbon or glass (glass isn't such a bad material, it's actually "stronger" than carbon fibre in some ways. For example, cabonfibre is extremely brittle and stiff. where glass allows flex and stretchs before it gives up). There are many ways we could manufacture this.. and we are planning to do a few prototypes to finalise the technic.. but as an estimate, a race trim boot lid should weigh around 5kg and no more than 8kg max for a super tough road road version.

At this point of time, it's too early to say how much a boot lid or any other item would cost, since we haven't made anything yet.. but as a superdooper rough estimate, a full carbon boot lid ready for clear coat or painting would cost around $600~$1000 depending on what kind of material* "you" would like to use and what feature you would like to have.. ie dvd player or screen molded in hahahaha... just joking (but it isn't impossible.)

Personally, I am more interested in manufacturing body panels and largish parts that was made in metal by car manufacturer.. where it makes more sense to spend money on shaving off half the weight of an oem item. As an example half the weight of a bonnet or boot (12kg) is more important than half the weight a instrument (500g) surround... if you get wat i mean. But it's your money it's your call. Hell I'll even make you a carbon gear box if you pay me enough. or a cam cover.... or a monoque chassis

humm.. what else.. Quink and me are looking at possibilities at the moment.. not even prototyping yet.. sorry to make you guys all excited.... :Oops:

Neverless, thank you very much for the generous comments and reply =)

*material, since every item can be made to order, you can specify what grade of material you would like to use, ie polyester resin (shitty.. ) vinylester (fuel safe and a a bit better mechanical strength compared to polyester) or epoxy (the best resin available to general public.. before we start to go into aviation/military grade resin.. which isn't really available without special order/import anyway).

And you could choose carbon weave pattern, colored fibres, kevlar. Different sandwich material will be available too... End less options.. arrh.. it making me having a woody.....

[Kaido_RR]

hmm bodyparts lets go c/f boot, vented large front guards, bonnet etc if u need any help with stock body parts, i own an r33 and more than happy to lend my time and car parts

ohh yeah im in perth 2

[Uncle George]

']hmm bodyparts lets go c/f boot, vented large front guards, bonnet etc if u need any help with stock body parts, i own an r33 and more than happy to lend my time and car parts

ohh yeah im in perth 2

Thanks for the offer, (and those others who offered to lend their car).. but we better not.. cos most of the time making the mold involves wrecking nice shiny paint job and modding the to be molded part into a pattern. You wouldn't recognize your car when we are done taking molds from your car mate =) :headspin: :headspin: :flamed: :flamed: :Bang: gagagagaga

A few picture of things i've made recently.

A carbon fibre steering wheel made with prepreg. Includes inbuild techo, gear indicator and a series of warning lights. The button in the middle of the steering wheel is the quick release. (the mechanical side of the quick release isn't my design)

And something that we are currently prototyping.

[pinoi_boi_r33]

another good example of carbon not being the best is in turbo jet fans. Rolls royce in the 70's made very successful turbines using cf as the blades. This was until a rock got in there, shattered everything to a million pieces. Rolls royce engineeres just put more and more money into the project eventually driving them broke.

with r33 boots this would be very popular as the standard one doesn't match up with the quarter panels. I think people would prefer a fibreglass skeleton and underlayer and just a cf top skin. Most of us won't be able to afford 100% cf but the end result should still be lighter than an oem item. Here is an example of an r33 flat boot made in japan. The white one is frp, the black cf. the cf one is a better design in my opinion (its squarer). Are you able to source white carbon? I would be interested in white carbon as its rarer and plus my car is white.

ps. i would be interested in just normal fibreglass bodykits.

[Uncle George]

Thanks for the pictures, =)

Are you able to source white carbon?.

I'm not aware there is white carbon.. it's probably just colour pigments in the resin. Or fibreglass hehehee..

We can't get silver carbon in Perth/Australia either.. but I could be wrong.

Silver carbon____________black____________and with kevlar

If I do make those boot lids, it would look a little different on the underside shown in the picture, to further reduce weight and the same if not even stronger.

And I've mentioned the final cost of the items will be determined by what material the purchase would like us to use, what ever is fine as long as it lighter and exceed the quality of any other competitors.

[Ronin 09]

Uncle George -

I, like a number of people, would be interested in a CF front lower lip for R32 GTR.

This is not a very large piece, but nissan want something like $300+ for a genuine ABS item.

I have heard that you can make CF flexible in the way it is set, so that would be ideal if you could mould one

Cheers

[HKS34R]

Would be very interested in a CF air box to house my pod in. Car is an R34.

[gt-t_r34]

would vented vf bonnets be a hard/expensive job? im very interested in one 4 an r32 gtst but in the gtr style! and my friend would also like 1 for his S2 r33... i think they would be as popular as the bootlid

[Nozila]

cf gandor mirrors and front lip both for r33. Damn, that cf bootlid is hot.

[pinoi_boi_r33]

uncle george i never new there was white carbon either. until a few weeks ago. I was reading in a mag and i saw a 350z with white carbon all over it. They said white carbon was the new thing at this years SEMA (basically americas autosalon). I'll try and google up some pix. I'll try and find the mag as well.

[Uncle George]

uncle george i never new there was white carbon either. until a few weeks ago. I was reading in a mag and i saw a 350z with white carbon all over it. They said white carbon was the new thing at this years SEMA (basically americas autosalon). I'll try and google up some pix. I'll try and find the mag as well.

Thanks for that. =) Most of those "bling" materials are unavaiable to Australia cos we simply don't buy enough of it.. and we don't have any composite manufactures here. ie ppl who manufacture carbon fabrics. In US, they have torey, SP and a couple of others... so does the Brits.. .

BUT hehehe.. I think I can get the white fabric effect.. without using pre-made white carbon..

[geordie]

How much would one like this cost in fibreglass/carbon skin or just fibreglass?

[thommo]

yep, also keen for a bootlid.

airbox to surround pod filter would be pretty popular too.

[Let Me Drive]

yeah, a boot lid and bonet would be great and if we got a group buy what sort of prise of the two.

[Slide]

How much would one like this cost in fibreglass/carbon skin or just fibreglass?

im up for one of these aswell but for R33 Series 1

[NZM.031]

another thing...

with everyone saying bootlids.... id be happy with a drift/stealth wing from carbon

[Uncle George]

How much would one like this cost in fibreglass/carbon skin or just fibreglass?

http://www.carmate.com/Images/BodyKitImage...--BON_CAR_2.jpg

To be honest, I am not sure, since we haven't even start prototyping yet.. very hard to estimate the final cost...

[quink]

Hey guys, we do want to focus more on items that aren't readily available or to the quality/performance you want, rather than items that are already bulk made and more than likely we won't be able to match the price not to mention we don't have an army of people to make them.

For example the bonnet geordie sent..There's plenty around of this exact design, i've even seen some selling for $850 (fb with cb skin -http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63249)..

i don't think we can match that or either our price would likely be similar which isn't much point..

but i guess more to the point whats stopping u from buying it?

is it price? performance? not quite the right design? not available in Aus?

i.e. why haven't u bought it from them, and why are you likely to participate in this group buy instead?