klb67 said:I never built a splitter but I have worked with fiberglass and plywood and it would be super easy to use fiberglass resin on both sides of the plywood and a strip of fiberglass cloth on the edges to seal it from weather. Paint or coat as desired. That should greatly increase durability and prevent delaminating.
I always wanted to build a boat. Building a fiberglass reinforced splitter might be the next best thing. 
Cornucopia of air. That's my working idea for now.
There's plenty of room for a bracket and this will mostly replace the part of the fender liner that protects the pulleys from junk on the motor side and on the other side it will more than enough room.
Full lock. I can clearance this with some more design work.
Straight ahead.
And turned all the way open.
The plan would be to mock them up in......something, then build a mold out of wood and make them in pre-preg carbon in an autoclave. Just kidding, probalby t-shirt fabric and polyster resin.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Look at Fibre Glast's carbon fiber sleeve. Room temperature carbon fiber is a little easier to work than glass fiber, and the sleeve has a great size range, It is woven like a Chinese finger lock. Carve the shape you need from styrofoam, just a little under sized, do one layer of carbon sleeve on top and soak with epoxy resin, and when it is hard, you acetone melt the styrofoam away. Light and strong.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
I had no idea such a thing existed. That's cool. As someone with very very limited composites experience, what sort of foam/resin/epoxy combinations work for this sort of thing? It where can I go to do some more reading?
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
I have done similar to what he's describing with West System 105/205 Resin and Hardener (get it at a boat shop), Lowe's Blue Foam, and foil tape coated with mold release (makes it easier to remove from the center after melting). Works pretty well if you're careful and patient with it.
Be known that west system is highly sensitizing... so, where a “no kidding” respirator long sleeves and multiple gloves so none of the epoxy touches your skin. Sensitization is no joke / no fun... ask me how I know
In reply to sleepyhead :
Much caution will be had.
I wandered around the Grosh with coffee and ideas and stumbled upon the extra styrofoam that kid#2 used for a hydroponics experiment. I didn't throw away the extra because you never know. Much patterning, changing, hot glue, that sort of thing.
Why do I have a whole package of 80 grit sandpaper? I don't remember. Might be linked to decisions like not changing pants before sanding styrofoam. It cuts though this stuff like butter and leaves a much nicer finish than I expected.
Now it's smooth-ish and pretty and looks like a proper racecar part.
And in place. This is.......awesome.
This isn't the final mold and I didn't expect it would be. There are a few things I want to change and a few places I want to make more oversize before shaping. I'm going to order some carbon sleeve and figure out where to pick up epoxy.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
I buy my resin from Aircraft Spruce. They have many options, but I chose MGS for thermal resistance and work time. As an extra bonus, unlike most others, it is not sensitizing, no aromatic amines. Fibre Glast house brand is West. Make your patterns about 1/8 inch undersize, and a single layer of carbon sleeve will work well. Wrap it in peel ply (Fibre Glast) firmly while the resin is still runny wet. When cured you remove the peel ply, and you can then add any bracket shapes you need without surface prep. Also the peel ply will force out excess resin without resorting to the vacuum bag. If you really want the autoclave, the MGS cure is 135 F for 13 hours. Not terribly hot, and I was able to achieve it on an August day in a New Jersey barn for an entire Lotus Elite body shell. Sweatiest thing I have ever done!
In reply to TurnerX19 :
You're going to ruin me. Thank you.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Yea, I know the MGS resin is expensive, but it works super sweetly, and you will have loads left over for the future. Also works well with glass and Kevlar. when possible avoid Kevlar, it is misserable to work!
In reply to TurnerX19 :
I've been wanting to attempt to make some composite body panels for a while. Once I have a bunch of resin around it would seem foolish not to make things, right?
In all seriousness, this is one of those things that I've been wanting to get into but I haven't found the right project to start with. The brake ducts are small enough that they won't require a lot of material so I wont' feel too bad when I screw them up and make more. Then I can do a trunk lid, then a hood, wider fenders.....
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Read all of the Fibre Glast catalog, and all of the composite parts of Aircraft Spruce. Buy sample packs if they are still available as well. I taught myself, and as a geezer, I want to spread my experience. I do vacuum bag as well, and you probably want to if you start doing wings or flat panels.
Go look at Soller Composites website and tech articles, including resin choice and making tubes. Very helpful to me in sourcing materials and how to for a fiberglass tube project I had.
In reply to klb67 :
I stumbled on their stuff yesterday and was reading until my head was all melty. It's going to be a little bit before I dive into this as I need to focus on a few mechanical things (wheel bearings, splitter) before autocross next weekend.
In college we used to buy from ACP... but Aircraft Spruce is probably comparable.
one issue with using a single layer of Carbon is how brittle it is in shear. This part is going to be where there could be a lot of stuff coming off the tires. So, I think putting on at least one layer of 5.7oz f-glass around it to protect the carbon from impacts.
I haven’t worked directly with Kevlar, but I’ve been around it a little bit.
Most people know that it’s good for “stopping things”... which means it has a high shear strength. Which also means it’s really hard to cut, even before adding resin. You actually should have cutting tools that you *only* use with Kevlar. One other thing is that it’s still pretty rough after being resin impregnated. However, it has both a higher shear and higher bending strength than fiberglass. Back in ‘03 we found it being cheaper per #/strength*$. But, that was before we knew the issues with actually manufacturing with it.
something else to consider is buying a 6” wide roll of uni-directional carbon fiber.
Carbon is very strong... but only in tension along the axis of the fibers... so you really need to think through how it’s being loaded.
This process reminds me a bit of a motoiq article I recall seeing from years ago. They also used the chinese fingertrap type carbon. The use of shipping wrap to help keep the carbon tight to the plug seems possibly helpful.
https://motoiq.com/project-miatabusa-part-4-3-the-intake-manifold/2/
In reply to klodkrawler05 :
Shipping wrap does not let excess resin escape through the pososity of peel ply, nor does it leave a surface that you can bond to post cure. By using peel ply Seth can add glass reinforcements in impact areas or brackets without the need to sand the bloom off .
I put two more nutserts in the subframe for a total of four. In order to get holes (mostly) where they needed to be I made a hole marker with the bench grinder and an extra bolt. It was still hot here.
Once those were in place I measured for the cables on the front. Remarkably easy to make these.
The aluminum stock from the frame horns and the cables all in place.
And here we are. Four M8 bolts to the subframe, two aluminum stays and the cables. Quite solid.
Drove it around the block. Something is making noise right front from my adventures in wheel bearing so that needs to come back off tomorrow to see what I did wrong. In the mean time I stripped everything off, found a can of paint that was so old the lid was rusted on, and painted the bottom. Just trying to keep most of the water out for testing purposes. I suspect this one will die long before OLOA.
Doing the first time takes to much time. Now that I know how it's mounted and how to build all of the brackets, the next one will be easy. In fact, I'll probably start building the next one before I kill this one so I have the spare to swap on. That would be good.
Splitter is looking good. figure out how many square inches of splitter you there and dont forget to radius the bottom leading edge.
like the styrofoam brake duct plug too. for resins and glass, you may want reach out to Ed Malle. he is local and has some experience with composites.
Seth, the 'lost foam' brake duct experiment is very interesting and quite timely as the dear Dr. is trying to envision a similar execution on his '2001' CMC Camaro.......watching from afar....
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly with the exception of cutting things off flush with the T nuts.
It was great to put it back together knowing that things are basically how they're going to be and if I want I can just drive it everyday until I break things. I went out for a 35 mile drive. about 10 miles of that was freeway at 65, the rest 35-60 surface roads. Stopped at the bank, Home Depot and the grocery store. The front feels..... like damping is better? I don't want to say heavy, because that's not really it, but there is something going on. I have a clunk in the right rear and I really need to put all four wheels up and nut and bolt everything considering how many of the fasteners I've moved in the last little bit.
It was such a pleasant drive. AC blew cold (it's almost 80 here today) radio was playing podcasts, it tracked straight and true and was just comfortable. There was way too much grip to really test turning on public streets even before this and the little I did was so rock solid that I know I can't reach it without breaking laws that I don't want to break. Autocross this weekend. Time to sign up.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Those cones dont stand a chance
In reply to stafford1500 :
Yeah, he's gonna slice them off at the base with the splitter on his first run.....
Well... guess I need to do double runs in the Accord then on sunday...
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