I tackled my most ambitious carbon fiber project so far -- made air ducts for the radiator (both in and out). I'll post a video going through the process, but in the mean-time here are the basics and some pics.
I made plugs by layering up foam boards to get the overall shape, sanded them to clean up the shape and round the corners, then used spackle and primer for a final clean-up. After that packing tape to help with the mold release then a few coats of mold-release wax.
Here's the inlet plug ready to lay up:
I followed the same process for the exit / hood vent but that shape was much more complicated of course. I wet-laid the carbon/epoxy with 4 layers at 45* angles for strength. My epoxy has a pot life of about 30 mins with our high humidity so I had to do 2 batches for the inlet duct and 4 batches for the exit duct just because of the size and how long it was taking me to get the carbon fully wetted and remove excess epoxy.
After a 24 hour cure, I de-molded them. The inlet came out no problem since it's 3-sided. The exit duct not so much since it's 4-sided and a pretty complex shape. Unfortunately I had to destroy my plug to get it out. I need to find someone with a 3D scanner to make a file just in case it ever gets damaged, and I have to re-make it (the mold process took forever; I don't ever want to do that again).
Here are some shots of them both complete. The inlet screws in to my front clam brackets. The outlet bolts to a bracket on the floorpan just behind the radiator with the top bolted to my radiator shroud, and the back rests on a carbon tube that replaced the factory steel cross-bar. So far they work great. I wasn't having any overheating problems before, but was getting a lot of heat coming up the sides of the window/doors with my crude ABS heat deflector. Now there's absolutely none. I have my next track day at COTA on May 11 so that will be the real test.
I made plugs by layering up foam boards to get the overall shape, sanded them to clean up the shape and round the corners, then used spackle and primer for a final clean-up. After that packing tape to help with the mold release then a few coats of mold-release wax.
Here's the inlet plug ready to lay up:
After a 24 hour cure, I de-molded them. The inlet came out no problem since it's 3-sided. The exit duct not so much since it's 4-sided and a pretty complex shape. Unfortunately I had to destroy my plug to get it out. I need to find someone with a 3D scanner to make a file just in case it ever gets damaged, and I have to re-make it (the mold process took forever; I don't ever want to do that again).
Here are some shots of them both complete. The inlet screws in to my front clam brackets. The outlet bolts to a bracket on the floorpan just behind the radiator with the top bolted to my radiator shroud, and the back rests on a carbon tube that replaced the factory steel cross-bar. So far they work great. I wasn't having any overheating problems before, but was getting a lot of heat coming up the sides of the window/doors with my crude ABS heat deflector. Now there's absolutely none. I have my next track day at COTA on May 11 so that will be the real test.
