xsboost90

so now that i have a pile o' parts laying here its just a wait until after the chumpcar race to start ripping the white car apart. Ive received my engine parts, rollbar, brake stuff, window net and center net, harnesses, ordered my tires finally, and i have new shocks coming as well as torsions. I decided that i wanted to try something different after seeing what the Spec944 guys are doing with their dashes. I figured i would give fiberglass a try. Here is what i have so far....

xsboost90

so after coating the factory dash w/ PAM cooking spray liberally, i stretched some fiberglass cloth over the entire dash and painted on some resin w/ a paintbrush. In the future i would suggest using a large piece of t-shirt like material as the fiberglass isnt as easy to work with.

After the resin dryed i peeled the "skin" off the dash. It was rather thin and would not hold its shape without several more layers of material and resin. I placed the skin back over the dash and put one more layer of t-shirt and resin over the exhisting skin.

Once that layer dried it would hold its shape slightly better. I then put two more layers of fiberglass cloth, t-shirt and fiberglass matting on the inside of the dash to stiffen the whole unit up. Im using an old gauge cluster trim surround to fit into the new dash so once its done, the stock cluster and trim will fit in like stock. My goal is to almost look stock once its all finished.

Once the dash was rigid enough to hold its own shape rather well, i started on smoothing the surface out. I coated the outside with one more coat of resin on its own. Then i sanded it down slightly and coated it with metal glaze- a polyester based filler for smoothing out bodywork. I used filler in a few areas to make the dash even smoother and trimmed the bottom down , shorter than stock.

Tonite i sanded the entire thing smooth and i have been filling in small imperfections and mostly working on smoothing out the trim belt through the center that ended up rather lumpy from the casting.

So far ive weighed both the stock and new dash- the stock was around 20lb and the fiberglass version about 5lb. I'll have to add a few metal braces from the rollbar to hold up the dash and gauge cluster, but all together i would say ill save about 10-15lb installed and it'll just be cool.

Voith

Nice method.

I would buy burgundy armrest and both door panels if they are in perfect condition..

Would you ship them to europe?

SamGrant951

Nice job dude, make me one

Indy Rev

Very Cool. I always wanted to try fiber glassing something.

Darth Coupe

Very cool all around. I am jealous. I will say that there are a lot of examples of good P-car paint schemes in the Cayman Interseries.

xsboost90

started friday on stripping the car out. Managed to pull a couple hundred pounds of crap out- especially since all the padding was soaking wet. Soon i'll be pulling the drive train out and swapping motors, pulling the non-essentials and stripping the interior to the metal for preparation for the rollbar install.

btw i have some stuff FOR SALE that i pulled from the car

Clarion CD changer w/ chord
Clarion Tape deck w/ cd changer hookup
Clarion 2x 4x6 speakers like new.

offers on this stuff....^

leather center console, burgundy but could be dyed.

set of 16x7/8 D90 wheels w/ ok tires $350 obo

xsboost90

ive almost got the floors completely stripped of all the glue and nastiness so i can paint the inside of the car. I decided tonite to unpack my Hanksville rollbar and check things out. Pretty nice unit, cant wait to start welding this thing all in. Hopefully this week i can get the floor primed and start welding in the rollbar plates.

The other day i pulled the HVAC out since im not going to run a/c and im not sure the rollbar knee bar i ordered will clear the box. I started tinkering w/ putting the idea of putting the heater core into a custom box to eliminate fog on the inside of the windows during rain. I think i have decided to ditch the heater core and run the factory blower on a 12v switch and build a custom box that sends air just to the defrost vents.

Rock

Why does your car look like its tearing *** just sitting there on jackstands, and mine looks like its sucking ***.

Keep up the good work XSBOOST!

seafeye

Here is a blower that some has been used in some race cars.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Boat-...-/230600138409

xsboost90

got some time in the garage again tonite and decided to weld the mounting plates for the cage in. After i was done i decided to fit the rollbar, which turned into lets go ahead and weld some of the rollbar. Basically have the whole thing in and tack welded w/ a few pieces finish welded like the harness bar (now) but its time for more argon.

87944turbo

Looking good, like the door DS bars. How do you like the fit of the cage out of the box?

xsboost90

fitment with the Hanksville cage is awsome. Did some final welding tonite and got almost the whole thing done besides a few spots in the front that i need to pull the windshield to get to. I was going to have it out already but the glass guy is hard to get ahold of sometimes.

dv8nxs944

You'd know all about that wouldn't you?

vt951

Dan, that cage looks great. Can't wait to see it in person. Also, looks like somebody did an excellent job cleaning green fuzz off of the passenger side wheel well.