At Last!. I have started on my car ;-) PART 2

I am adhering to the seefood diet at the moment :)

A steady 85kg at the moment. That will be shown to 80kg come race day which is my ideal racing snake weight :)

Replacing roof and door skins with carbon will remove approx 10kg, not to be shiffed at.

Keeping the car below 700kg is doable. I would like to get as close to 650 as possible.
 
Weren't you originally aiming for 600 from the start? If so with the addition weight of the cage your doing a cracking job Steve!
 
Thanks.

My original ambition was to get below 600kg, but that was unrealistic once we decided that a carbon body was not really doable. Below 700 is, I believe, achieveable.
 
OCD/Anal alert!!!

Sorting out turbo oil feed pipework. Using aluminium pipe rather than stainless or rubber in order to reduce the weight. Notice that the spacers have been waisted and the bolts are also aluminium. While I was at it I replaced all of the cam cover bolts with aluminium ones, saving 120gms.





 
As I have 3 rolls of carbon fibre sitting around I decided to make a new roof. The exisiting one weighs over 7Kg so I should ba able to reduce this to under 3.

Cleaned and rubbed down the roof:



Brushed on a PVA releasing agent:



First layer positioned:



Second layer positioned and epoxied:



Once this has dried, I will trim the excess off and then finish the front and back screen edges. I will then fix it to the car and adjust the shape to match the doors. I was going to have to do this to the fibreglass roof but by doing it this way the original hood is resellable
 
More goodies arrived today.

A sheet of Zircoflex which I will use to protect the brake and clutch fluid reserviors from turbo heat.

The 8mm carbon tubes will be used to help support the rear section of the car. The 14mm tubes will attach the parachute mounting plate to the chassis.

 
I used a slow hardener for the roof resin, which gave me 90 minutes pot time. However, the downside is a 30 hour setting time. So, whilst the roof set I set about making a door skin. 2 layers, same as roof.



 
Very interested to see how these come out, whenever I've tried to make large panels in cf with just resin, they've ended up very floppy.
 
What else can you use, apart from cloth and resin?

I am only making the skin of the door which will be glued to the original fibreglass door (having removed the existing skin).

The roof may be floppy, but it's curved in all directions and will be glued to the roll cage :)

It is an experiment to see how light I can make these parts. I can always add another layer if required (oh, the weight ;) ) If successful I should remove approx 7kg.
 
The release agent worked so I was able to get the door skin and roof off of their respective moulds :)



Original roof weighs 7.1Kg, this weighs1.9Kg as it stands. Once flow coated and window support flanges added the CF one should weigh under 3Kg.



 
My confidence knows no bounds so I decided to attempt a seat, using my existing CF/fibreglass seat as the mould :)

The first layer went on OKish, but then it came to using the peel ply. This removes excess resin and gives the remaining resin a textured finish suitable for the next layer. I tried using a single sheet but ended up with bubbles. I didn't think that this would matter, how wrong I was.

When I peeled the ply off it left a great finish where it was applied properly, but where the bubbles were, well, see for yourself. I need to flatten these areas prior to the next layer of CF. Steep learning curve but I will get there.

 
It took me over an hour to release the seat from the mould! A little damage but easily repaired. Weighs 1.4Kg at the moment but needs a little reinforcement and fitting brackets, etc. Also needs a flow coat and paint but should still come in below 3Kg.



I fitted the passenger door to see how I was going to make it fit. It didn't take long to work out that, with the skin cut out, it would be easy to adjust the frame to fit the opening. The new skin doesn't fit around the edges now as the top of the door is 30mm longer but I can deal with that.













The two layers of CF are pretty stiff. I might experiement with one layer for the driver's door - half the weight :)
 
Steve by the time you finish you will be the TC go to CF guru and none other than Os will be knocking on your door and what a feather on your cap that would be |B :)
 
Steve I see you are in Essex and I loved working with an ex Essex class 1 driver/Plod when I was a defensive driver trainer with the previous company I worked for.
 
Achieved my goal of halving the weight of my doors. In standard form they weigh 6.1kg. Today I managed to get the passenger door down to just below 3Kg! Along with a carbon fibre door skin I drilled a few holes. A total of 6Kg removed which is just under 1% of car's weight, do this 99 more times and the car will be weightless :)

I am learning quickly about laying CF so the driver's door CF could be lighter :)

I also experimented in painting the CF skin. Early days on this.





 
Steve would you care to take a wild guess as to the total number of lightening holes of all sizes you have bored to date:)
 
Hmmmmm.....
400 in each door.
80 in each rear suspension upright.
28 in each chassis rear suspension towers.
Around 60 in the rest of the chassis.
I guess a 100 or so misc holes in various parts.

So, a little over a 1000....so far :) I have plans for more body lightening.
 
Made the driver door CF skin today. Learning from the passenger skin, I used peel ply on both layers. This soaks up excess resin so this skin should be lighter (peel is covering CF in the photo - it is removed once resin has set).

Thought about trying just one layer of CF, but it would have been see through :)

Counted the holes in the passenger door, a little over 400! Just have to do the same to the driver's door :-(

 
Driver's door skin weighs 75gms less than the passenger one, a 3% reduction :)

I don't think that we could have got the roll cage any nearer to the A pillars. Pillars now bonded to cage thereby adding to the stiffness.



 
Claymore got me thinking, and I thought "why the hell not?" So I am dipping my feet into the vacuum bagging pool.

The seat I made by simple wet lay isn't really up to scratch but the back is pretty good. I have decided to use this as the mould for the next attempt as it should give me a smooth front to the seat. To that end I ordered a vacuum bagging kit less a vacuum pump as I already have one of these for vacuum forming. Kit arrived yesterday.

I have started to smooth out the back of the CF seat. Once I am happy with it I will attempt to make another seat.

The tin is filler. It is like Isopon P40 but (for those who know about this stuff) it has chopped carbon fibre added to it rather than fibreglass.





 
Most of my car's switches and controls are mounted on the steering wheel so I need a large curly cable from wheel to dash.

Is there a compact IR sender (will be fitted inside steering wheel centre) and receiver system out there that can handle 30 odd separate signals?
 

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