R34 Sports Sedan Build

[Unzipped Composites]

Go with what Soric specify in their data sheet. I actually meant 550g per m2 per mm thickness, so that's about right. But I couldn't remember exact numbers, it's been awhile since I used Coremat. 1kg per m2 for 2mm thick Coremat seems right.

 

Resin ratio for wet layup of woven, unidirectional or stitched (double bias is a stitched material) is 1:1. So for a 400g DB, you will need 400g of resin per square metre per layer. 

 

Your layup schedule sounds good. Make sure you add an extra couple layers of the double bias in the areas where the bodywork is going to be mounted to spread those loads. Also if you are going to use bonnet pins, leave the core out of those areas and do extra double bias. Cores don't like compressive loads, so better to make those areas solid fibreglass.

 

Happy to help man, that's what forums are for! Looking forward to seeing you nail this layup, then later I'll talk you into redoing it in carbon ?

[rcs_888]

31 minutes ago, Unzipped Composites said:

Go with what Soric specify in their data sheet. I actually meant 550g per m2 per mm thickness, so that's about right. But I couldn't remember exact numbers, it's been awhile since I used Coremat. 1kg per m2 for 2mm thick Coremat seems right.

 

Resin ratio for wet layup of woven, unidirectional or stitched (double bias is a stitched material) is 1:1. So for a 400g DB, you will need 400g of resin per square metre per layer. 

 

Your layup schedule sounds good. Make sure you add an extra couple layers of the double bias in the areas where the bodywork is going to be mounted to spread those loads. Also if you are going to use bonnet pins, leave the core out of those areas and do extra double bias. Cores don't like compressive loads, so better to make those areas solid fibreglass.

 

Happy to help man, that's what forums are for! Looking forward to seeing you nail this layup, then later I'll talk you into redoing it in carbon ?

Carbon is the eventual dream and i was checking out your website the other night and thinking that oneday i might have to fly over and do one the the workshops  Do you think this current mould would work for carbon? the surface finish is far from mint and my plan was just to wet sand it but unfortunatey the Gelcoat is too thin  so im guessing that im going to need to do the wax styrene to build it back up to sand it out. 

Whats your thoughts on a rough cost to do it in carbon would you use similar layup layers? just wanting to try and maybe get my head around it and maybe start stockpiling some gear to be able to do it

 

[Unzipped Composites]

Yeh unfortunately you'll never get a great surface finish using PVA release agent. It forms it's own surface, and even sprayed, it will get bits of dust in it and not lay down flat etc. It has it's uses, but I use it very rarely these days. Semi-permanent chemical release agents are the way to go.

 

There's no reason your current mould can't work for carbon. The biggest issue would be whether you have used a polyester or vinyl ester tooling gelcoat, as you would want to use epoxy to make your carbon component and epoxy isn't compatible with polyester, it will stick to it. If you've used polyester, then to use your current mould you would need to spray PVA release agent in order to build up a nice thick film with absolutely no fish eyes or porosity where the epoxy can come into direct contact with the mould surface. 

 

For that reason, I wouldn't bother trying to sort out the surface finish on your current mould. I assume you'll be painting the fibreglass bodywork, in which case that will sort out the finish on that, and if you do end up using it for carbon then you'll have to use PVA anyway and then clear coating the carbon will be the best way to get a decent surface finish on that.

 

In all honesty though, I wouldn't bother with trying to wet-lay carbon. You really need vacuum to get good consolidation and get full advantage of the strength to weight, and if you've got the equipment for vacuum then you may as well be infusing to really get a perfect result straight from the mould. To infuse, your current mould may be a bit troublesome. The flanges are quite small, so you will struggle to position your consumables and get a good seal, which is critical. Really need a 5" flange for infusion. Then with infusion as I mentioned above, you can get a perfect surface finish straight from the mould - so then you would want your mould surface to be vinyl ester and have the surface finish you want so that you can use a chemical release agent.

 

Carbon layup could be quite a bit lighter than the fibreglass layup. On the bonnet section I would do a single layer of 200g twill, a 2mm core, and then another layer of the 200g twill. The fenders and front bumper sections don't need the core, they could be a single layer of 200g and a single layer of 450g and that would be plenty strong enough. Extra reinforcement around the mounting points again and you're dusted. With infusion, you should be able to get the total weight of the entire front end down to about 4-5kg. 

 

If you get the chance, definitely come over for one of my courses. It's a great 4 days, bunch of fun, you'll learn way more than anyone can handle, and it's worth it just for the lunches ? haha seriously though, if you're interested let me know. For my interstate guys I try to do 4 days in a row rather than splitting it over two weekends. You lose a bit of the course content because there isn't enough time to post cure the moulds you make to use them with pre-preg, so I have to supply some moulds for that part of it, but it saves you spending a week over here. 

[rcs_888]

Well its been a little while with no updates but if some of you guys are following Wing It Garage on facebook you would have seen some more work done on it.. 

Well the front is out the mould and i have started trimming it up

So has been kinda trimmed and fitted up just needs final trimming and cleanup and it should be sweet!! I love the look of this thing!!!

So ive been wanting to run the Power Steering lines all the way to the boot but with funds being abit tight atm i had some hose laying around and if i mounted it on the front splitter i had enough hose so i made up some mounts for it and its mounted and it seems to work pretty well but time will tell!!

Then it was onto shocks and wheels and get it rolling again for the first time in months!!

Then i got to drive it out into the driveway and give it a pressure clean... 

I FREAKING LOVE THIS BEAST!!

oohhhhh yeahhhh wing and all lol

[PranK]

That looks amazing!!! 

[Unzipped Composites]

Well done Ryan ? So when are you doing it again in carbon? ?

[rcs_888]

23 hours ago, PranK said:

That looks amazing!!! 

Cheers dude all my dreams have been coming true!! YEWW

22 hours ago, Unzipped Composites said:

Well done Ryan ? So when are you doing it again in carbon? ?

yeahhhhhh no time soon this nearly killed me lol. if i could do the carbon in wet layup i would think about it but i just dont think its viable at this stage

[Unzipped Composites]

Maybe after you get over here to do one of our courses eh? ??

 

Out of interest, are you planning on leaving the front rad duct as a box like that? Or trimming it off at the bumper? I feel like in its current configuration, it will be hurting your aero under yaw?

[rcs_888]

2 hours ago, Unzipped Composites said:

Maybe after you get over here to do one of our courses eh? ??

 

Out of interest, are you planning on leaving the front rad duct as a box like that? Or trimming it off at the bumper? I feel like in its current configuration, it will be hurting your aero under yaw?

Its actually looking like i might be heading to kalgoorlie soon so will be in WA, Where abouts are you? 

Im undecided on cutting it tbh but i have a feeling i will cut it back but have maybe 10mm protruding through. 

[Unzipped Composites]

10mm probably won't matter too much. Just remember that when you're going around a corner and you're in yaw, the car is essentially moving through the air sideways. So having it protrude out will not only cause drag, but it will limit the amount of airflow actually going into the duct.

[robbo_rb180]

Awesome work. Mounting the power steering pump with short lines is a lot better as there can be "lag" due to pressure drop. A few guys I know run them in the boot with varying opinions on Feeling/response. 

[Unzipped Composites]

Forgot the first part of your post - I am no where near Kalgoorlie! Haha. I'm quite near Perth, Kal is about 7 hours from here.

[rcs_888]

11 hours ago, Unzipped Composites said:

10mm probably won't matter too much. Just remember that when you're going around a corner and you're in yaw, the car is essentially moving through the air sideways. So having it protrude out will not only cause drag, but it will limit the amount of airflow actually going into the duct.

Yeah fair enough, ill cut it to the 10mlm and see how it all fits up because the front end kinda indexes on that if that makes sence? 

 

10 hours ago, robbo_rb180 said:

Awesome work. Mounting the power steering pump with short lines is a lot better as there can be "lag" due to pressure drop. A few guys I know run them in the boot with varying opinions on Feeling/response. 

yeah im going to be running closer to a -8 hose for the feed line so hopefully there will be less of a pressure drop as i have heard of those issues before. 

[rcs_888]

On 26/05/2020 at 10:56 AM, Unzipped Composites said:

Yeh unfortunately you'll never get a great surface finish using PVA release agent. It forms it's own surface, and even sprayed, it will get bits of dust in it and not lay down flat etc. It has it's uses, but I use it very rarely these days. Semi-permanent chemical release agents are the way to go.

 

There's no reason your current mould can't work for carbon. The biggest issue would be whether you have used a polyester or vinyl ester tooling gelcoat, as you would want to use epoxy to make your carbon component and epoxy isn't compatible with polyester, it will stick to it. If you've used polyester, then to use your current mould you would need to spray PVA release agent in order to build up a nice thick film with absolutely no fish eyes or porosity where the epoxy can come into direct contact with the mould surface. 

 

For that reason, I wouldn't bother trying to sort out the surface finish on your current mould. I assume you'll be painting the fibreglass bodywork, in which case that will sort out the finish on that, and if you do end up using it for carbon then you'll have to use PVA anyway and then clear coating the carbon will be the best way to get a decent surface finish on that.

 

In all honesty though, I wouldn't bother with trying to wet-lay carbon. You really need vacuum to get good consolidation and get full advantage of the strength to weight, and if you've got the equipment for vacuum then you may as well be infusing to really get a perfect result straight from the mould. To infuse, your current mould may be a bit troublesome. The flanges are quite small, so you will struggle to position your consumables and get a good seal, which is critical. Really need a 5" flange for infusion. Then with infusion as I mentioned above, you can get a perfect surface finish straight from the mould - so then you would want your mould surface to be vinyl ester and have the surface finish you want so that you can use a chemical release agent.

 

Carbon layup could be quite a bit lighter than the fibreglass layup. On the bonnet section I would do a single layer of 200g twill, a 2mm core, and then another layer of the 200g twill. The fenders and front bumper sections don't need the core, they could be a single layer of 200g and a single layer of 450g and that would be plenty strong enough. Extra reinforcement around the mounting points again and you're dusted. With infusion, you should be able to get the total weight of the entire front end down to about 4-5kg. 

 

If you get the chance, definitely come over for one of my courses. It's a great 4 days, bunch of fun, you'll learn way more than anyone can handle, and it's worth it just for the lunches ? haha seriously though, if you're interested let me know. For my interstate guys I try to do 4 days in a row rather than splitting it over two weekends. You lose a bit of the course content because there isn't enough time to post cure the moulds you make to use them with pre-preg, so I have to supply some moulds for that part of it, but it saves you spending a week over here. 

Hey Mate, Just thinking about having another go... the carbon is extremely tempting and im thinking about doing the doors etc of the car aswell... Ive been bitten by the bug. 

With doing carbon i need the Vinyl ester tooling gelcoat. Ive used polyester currently can i just lay down the vinyl ester ontop and will it bond or how do i go about getting vinyl ester down so i can try the carbon? 

[Unzipped Composites]

4 hours ago, rcs_888 said:

Hey Mate, Just thinking about having another go... the carbon is extremely tempting and im thinking about doing the doors etc of the car aswell... Ive been bitten by the bug. 

With doing carbon i need the Vinyl ester tooling gelcoat. Ive used polyester currently can i just lay down the vinyl ester ontop and will it bond or how do i go about getting vinyl ester down so i can try the carbon? 

 

Nah there's really nothing you can do with the current mould other than the way you've just done it. Resurfacing the mould won't work, biggest issue being that you lose the dimensional accuracy of the mould as you're building up a 1-2mm thick layer which you won't get even no matter how hard you try. Gelcoat doesn't lay down flat, even sprayed through a G100 gun it will give you a pretty horrific surface finish and varying thicknesses. And ontop of all that - gelcoat is air inhibited, so won't cure properly. You can use wax-in-styrene to make it cure hard, but then that will affect your bond.

 

So it's all over just impossible, you would really have to remake the mould. Which you would probably want to do anyway, considering you would really want to be going for resin infusion which means you need 5" wide flanges.

[rcs_888]

2 hours ago, Unzipped Composites said:

 

Nah there's really nothing you can do with the current mould other than the way you've just done it. Resurfacing the mould won't work, biggest issue being that you lose the dimensional accuracy of the mould as you're building up a 1-2mm thick layer which you won't get even no matter how hard you try. Gelcoat doesn't lay down flat, even sprayed through a G100 gun it will give you a pretty horrific surface finish and varying thicknesses. And ontop of all that - gelcoat is air inhibited, so won't cure properly. You can use wax-in-styrene to make it cure hard, but then that will affect your bond.

 

So it's all over just impossible, you would really have to remake the mould. Which you would probably want to do anyway, considering you would really want to be going for resin infusion which means you need 5" wide flanges.

If i widen the flanges could i use PVA for the infusion process? Obviously that will then mean i will need to clearcoat the final product as you will get the pva print through but could that work? 

[Unzipped Composites]

2 hours ago, rcs_888 said:

If i widen the flanges could i use PVA for the infusion process? Obviously that will then mean i will need to clearcoat the final product as you will get the pva print through but could that work? 

 

Yeh it will. Your biggest challenge will be making sure the flange extensions are 100% air tight. It shouldn't be too hard, but chasing leaks on a mould this size will result in hair pulling and cursing a plenty.

[rcs_888]

Unfortunatley spare time has been few and far between but i have started mocking up the exhaust that will exit out the side its mostly tacked together just needs to be fully welded and then i think its actually pretty close to go time.. 

[Unzipped Composites]

Don't forget to put those other 2 wheel nuts on! Haha

[rcs_888]

Another couple of months and a little bit more work done.. cant rush these things! I reckon were gonna hit the track in the next month or two for a shakedown I doubt the car will be painted and I really don't care im just keen to run it up and start sorting the bugs

So the front clip is mounted its abit fiddly to put on and off but I figure that with time I'll get the hang of it and just need to be abit less gentle with it lol.

I also finally have the wing mounted and done and made up some alloy end plates.

Getting closer to being able to hit the track hopefully next break i might be able to start it up and run it up and get it ready for a dyno session!!