When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Take my opinion with a few grains of salt, since I only have a little fiberglass fabrication experience and it was a long time ago.
That said, the basic process is to use the existing piece to make a negative mold. Then you lay fiberglass and resin into the negative to produce, hopefully, a nearly exact copy of the original.
I think the hood would probably not be too difficult to mold and lay up, since it's pretty flat and doesn't have many sharp curves. The bumper might be a challenge, though.
I will be replacing a lot of heavy steel with light fiberglass on my car, and I've considered making a hood. I will almost definitely be buying the bumper and fenders, though. It's just not a terribly favorable cost/time tradeoff for me, and working with fiberglass can be a true pain in the ***.
You want to talk to someone in the fiberglass boat building business. After you see the amount of work and cost of materials (for one piece I assume) you'll want to look at pre-made pieces.
Take my opinion with a few grains of salt, since I only have a little fiberglass fabrication experience and it was a long time ago.
That said, the basic process is to use the existing piece to make a negative mold. Then you lay fiberglass and resin into the negative to produce, hopefully, a nearly exact copy of the original.
I think the hood would probably not be too difficult to mold and lay up, since it's pretty flat and doesn't have many sharp curves. The bumper might be a challenge, though.
I will be replacing a lot of heavy steel with light fiberglass on my car, and I've considered making a hood. I will almost definitely be buying the bumper and fenders, though. It's just not a terribly favorable cost/time tradeoff for me, and working with fiberglass can be a true pain in the ***.
Nice job, Cyril...is it easily removable, or did you pivot it so that the entire hood/front end assembly pivots up like on an XKE? The hood itself looks awesome with all the vents and scoops, etc..
Nice job, Cyril...is it easily removable, or did you pivot it so that the entire hood/front end assembly pivots up like on an XKE? The hood itself looks awesome with all the vents and scoops, etc..
Thank you. The hood is still functional with the stock hinges. The front end is mounted with few Dzus and it takes few seconds to remove it.
The hood looks nice but it is not very efficient.
Cyril, your build is incredible. Well thought out. I would love to mimic your approach to the front end body work. I started re-reading your thread so thank you for the link. When you say "hood not very efficient, what do you mean?
Cyril, your build is incredible. Well thought out. I would love to mimic your approach to the front end body work. I started re-reading your thread so thank you for the link. When you say "hood not very efficient, what do you mean?
Thank you. The only way to minimize lift (and reduce heat) is to extract the air stuck under the hood coming from the radiator, cooler and intercooler openings.
Then the location of the openings and more importantly the air flow.
Aerodynamically, the smart way to do this is what Patrick did by optimizing the openings on the bumper (location and size), convert coolers to Laminova type (water to oil),...
More info here: https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...-race-car.html
Aerodynamically, the smart way to do this is what Patrick did by optimizing the openings on the bumper (location and size), convert coolers to Laminova type (water to oil),...
Is this because you can rely on the rad to cool the coolant therefore requiring less holes in the front??
Thank you Scott. From what I see, you have a lot of fun projects!
Please share your work on Herbie.
Cyril,
I have another thread that is starting off quite slowly. It's covering the RallyCross build of Young Herbie. Poor Herbie met his demise a few years ago when rear-ended by a distracted driver. But - much of him will live on.
Noah,
I'll post a little bit on how I make many of my fiberglass parts. I have been doing this for quite some time and I am happy with the results. My method does not follow the generally accepted procedure of creating a female mold off the original part. Instead, I render the original part useless for anything but creating an "internal" mold.
This has many advantages and a few disadvantages. Mainly less material and costs are involved. However, exact duplication of the part is compromised slightly and the final dimensions differ ever so slightly from the original. Some pictures should help explain some of this.
This is a hood I made about ten years ago for the Partial Eclipse. The original hood weighed 39 pounds. My finished piece weighed 14.
Start by cutting the outer skin from the rest of the structure by grinding along the edge.
The inside of the skin will be the mold. It needs to be perfectly clean and smooth.
Much of the labor involved is in preparing the surface to accept the fiberglass. Here all the paint and sealer is being removed.
Surface is cleaned and prepped. Depressions, defects, etc. are filled with body filler.
04-14-2017, 02:45 PM
