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Carbon Fiber Needs?


RedFive

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I would be very interested in interior parts. Easiest to make. Plastic on almost all s30s are cracked...mine are trashed. I think making all the rear plastic pieces; plastic panels on the iterior walls, hatch cover, domelight cover, even shock tower covers, rear taillight interior cover; would be a perfect starting point and then move to center console and probably just a dash cap. I would deffinately be Interested inthe interior pieces as have a few others on here. Lots of people do both show cars and race cars. Just the show pieces would be easier to produce and cheaper per item.

 

The difuser etc should be made On A customer by customer prepaid basis. The interior body panels can be made and shelved and will sell for sure as long as you keep it known.

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Come on, these will NEVER go anywhere. There isnt enough demand or to be honest, the desire to produce these things. If they did produce these I doubt many people would be willing to fork over the cash. Is someone ready to pay $1000+ for a few interior panels??

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Come on, these will NEVER go anywhere. There isnt enough demand or to be honest, the desire to produce these things. If they did produce these I doubt many people would be willing to fork over the cash. Is someone ready to pay $1000+ for a few interior panels??

 

thats a Negative. and g0d Damn. i HOPE it doesnt cost near that much to get them doen in the first place :/ i mean im sure there are people who do their own carbon fiber pieces underground that make parts for themselves but dont mass produce to sell that could start this thing going. so we dont go to the "big bois" companies that charge an arm and a leg for a CF arm rest lmao.

like i said. i know if they made a CF 280Z hood id dig it. 240z hood aint cutting it. i need the heat to come out of that engine bay so 280z is da only way il go with CF. the rear panels on almost all Z's are craked. it would be nice for some CF affordable ones to be made. they shouldnt be much of amission to make as the shape is pretty straight forward nothing too fancy.

 

MOTION!

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Hi Logan,

I think accents like the ones in the higher end BMW`s sill plates and console accents. dash boards would be cool but a little bit over kill. Now if you designed it with some maybe .100" deep pockets. I have done some of this for the Escalades and CTS Cadillacs we integrated wood ,chrome and carbon fiber into the designs and they came out freakin` sick! I would love to talk more with you guys in a private forum.

I didn`t know they did allot of this in Precott.

I worked with Burt Ratan on Space Ship 1 and her mother ship also many many other projects of his. Scaled Composites was a customer of mine for years.I had a abrasive waterjet and cnc machining company until recently I had to close.

Regards,Chris

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It's not all talk. I know exactly how difficult it is to make CF parts because I have a lot of experience in the aircraft industry. The reason nothing ever happened was because nobody showed enough interest in one part. Everybody wanted one of this or that. I'd love to make parts for Z cars, but I can't justify making just one or two of something.

RedFive: I hear a lot of different requests most of which are already available and the remainder are insignificant. Being an owner of a 240Z, the LEAST available and most expensive item to refurbish or replace is the Dash. Most ALL 240Z, 260Z and 280Z Dashes are cracking from being in the sunlight and when refurbing same the same results can happen when exposed to the sunlight. I suspect that carbon fibre will last MUCH longer than a black paint or vinyle. Therefore there are MANY 240Z, 260Z and 280Z candidates for a carbon fibre dash. I would encourage you to purchase a 240Z and disassemble the dash to see what is being talked about here and to get a VERY GOOD insight for fitting and mold makeup. There is only one other Fibre Glass Dash being manufactured and it sounds as though it takes significant work to make it fit and finalize the installation.

 

After owning a 240Z, the Dash is the most conspicious and usually BAD. A carbon fibre dash would be quite an asset for these owners.

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Keep in mind that CF gets EXTREMELY hot when exposed to sunlight. As cool as it looks, we have had to resort to painting it or coloring the resin to keep the heat down. This is on small unmanned aircraft and some auto parts and its stinks to have to cover its original look. Not trying to rain on any parades, but if you think your interior gets hot now, make it shiney and will really give you a lesson... I do have a foam mold I started a while back to do exactly what your talking about but it will be a long road to hoe to do it right..

 

Myron

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Myron: Thanks much for the comment. Yes it is a shame to cover it up but that is what must be done in Arizona in the summer time. Just use a dash cover when outside. Inside take off the dash cover and show off the carbon fiber. It still remains in my mind the number one item that would sell to 240, 260 and 280Z owners. Since you have started a foam mold maybe the folks in Prescott Arizona could use same?

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Yeah, I pulled it out last night and looked at it.. IT has been sitting outside at my dads shop with the rest of the car and it looks like I should probabaly start over.. I have all the materials at our UAV shop.. I will have some time next week so I may just start a new one..

 

Myron

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As a 280z owner I have often wondered if MSA ever had any plans to make the fusible link covers in carbon fiber.

 

The plastic ones get brittle and shred in a few years. I'm not sure if CF is any more durable but maybe it is.

 

Think big and start small whaddaya think???

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would it be more cost effective to make the parts out of fg then lay cf over the fg? just a thought, i wanted to do my whole car that way i needed 57 yards or so, i found it for like 2400, then my friend that does interiors said he can get me the materials for 1200 or so. basically it would be a carbon wrap, no weight reduction but would look sinisterly cool lol:flamedevi

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RSICARD,

 

Would you try to make a mold from the original dash, or start from scratch for totally new look? When I started on mine, I did a totally one off dash and then I did a center console that fit up with the stock dash.. there is alot of complexity if you want a stock looking and functioning dash. If you were willing to install something like a vintage air ac/heat system it would make the job alot easier..

 

Myron

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RSICARD,

 

Would you try to make a mold from the original dash, or start from scratch for totally new look? When I started on mine, I did a totally one off dash and then I did a center console that fit up with the stock dash.. there is alot of complexity if you want a stock looking and functioning dash. If you were willing to install something like a vintage air ac/heat system it would make the job alot easier..

 

Myron

MYRON: I would try to make a mold from the original dash. And I am definitely going to install the smallest Vintage Air AC/Heat system. I am going to go with Autometer Speedo and Tach in a 3.x", such that green, blue and red LEDs can be mounted around the Speedo, dual Westach for oil pressure/coolant temp and Voltmeter/Fuel Quantity and a rebuild clock right most in the dash. I will use the metal portion of the instrument bucket to mount the Autometer gauges. Uncertain yet about mounting the Westach gauges. I will likely document this process with pictures. Now I need to sort out and document the wiring harness behind the instrument panel. Considering buying harness(es) to be able to document same much more thoroughly that is to include connectors and expansion of same.

 

I still maintain that a Carbon Fibre or Fiberglass dash that FITS like the original as in plug and play is STILL HIGHLY DESIREABLE

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If MSA are the guys that actually mfg the dash cap, all they would have to do is use the existing mold and lay CF over the top of it and vacuum bag it.. All the cap is now is a vacu-formed peice of Haircell ABS that cost about 25 bucks for a 4x8 sheet.. I have a dash cap, maybe aI should use it to make a mold and pull carbon over the top just as an experiment... I'm off to my garage to look it over...

 

Myron

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I did some digging and a little math.. MSA doesnt make the dash cap they sell.. It looks like they just sub it out.. Anyway, a full dash cap is only 85 bucks and I cant reallly see too many people paying real money for a CF unit.. For those that dont know how the whole process works, CF is VERY labor intensive.. Especially making the molds.. After you get your molds done and if you do a vacu-form or a squish mold, there is still alot of work to be done.. If you have any blemishes you have to repair those then you have to wet sand and clear coat.. Its a major PITA and to produce a good part, you may have 15-20 man hours in it not including materials.. There are many methods of doing CF and the vacuum bagging is the least expensive material wise, but getting the a final good looking part is the kicker...

 

Myron

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If they did produce these I doubt many people would be willing to fork over the cash. Is someone ready to pay $1000+ for a few interior panels??

 

I did some digging and a little math.. MSA doesnt make the dash cap they sell.. It looks like they just sub it out.. Anyway, a full dash cap is only 85 bucks and I cant reallly see too many people paying real money for a CF unit.. For those that dont know how the whole process works, CF is VERY labor intensive.. Especially making the molds.. After you get your molds done and if you do a vacu-form or a squish mold, there is still alot of work to be done.. If you have any blemishes you have to repair those then you have to wet sand and clear coat.. Its a major PITA and to produce a good part, you may have 15-20 man hours in it not including materials.. There are many methods of doing CF and the vacuum bagging is the least expensive material wise, but getting the a final good looking part is the kicker...

 

I along with many other people have been trying to tell people this everytime one of these threads come up.... nobody seems to get it.

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I along with many other people have been trying to tell people this everytime one of these threads come up.... nobody seems to get it.

 

I get a few calls each month from folks wanting CF this or that for their S30 or S130. Most get upset when I tell them that the tooling will be around $1,000 and will add $100 each to the first 10 parts, $500 each to the first 2 parts, or $1,000 to the one part they want. They think I should eat the cost of the tooling and be grateful that someone gave me the "idea" to build a CF widget.

Edited by johnc
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Hey John,

 

As a waterjet and cnc milling co. i used to cut allot of cf for air and space craft. But,I used to get these "inventors" come to my shop and pretty much want all cad and special jigs and set-up fees to be waived because we were "gonna be making 1000`s of these parts" and they just didn`t have the startup capitol for that. My response them ,in as kind of a voice as possible was,"Dude, if I had 5 of you a week come in I would go broke!"

Incidently, we never once made 1000`s.

I don`t think a grand is a bad price to make a mold,but I was thinking,maybe a service where they send you their dash and you vacuum bag the cf to the original dash after cracks are smoothed out of course. is that possible? I doing some custom work on my dash that the Z world hasn`t seen yet but not ready to reveal yet. Keep pushin`the envelope and it will happen!

Chris

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