Twin Seq. Dry sumping for beginners :D

[march109]

My ex missus started out as a trim little GTI and ended up a bit of a citroen picasso....

FPMSL!

Icould neverget long distant relationships to work, long distance no strings sex worked just fine, butnot relationships.

Lost foam is a piece of cake, I've described it allready in one of Alex' threads. Just get some foam, and some grp materials and practise. Alex is finally proving what I have allways said - that composites are NOT a black art.

I prefer building foam stuff myslf that can be poured into a mould. But if you want to arse about like I do prepare to read lots ofboring chemistry stuff.

[jaistanley]

S'ok though.. I traded her in for a newer model (an 81 instead of a 78 ) that's been track lightened and seriously has only had one careful owner in the last 26 years (yes, they do exist in Essex...). I'm still trying to carefully bed her in, get it all runing loose before giving her a proper good ragging.

I've dabbled in using GRP, with stretchy cloth over an MDF frame to make speaker door builds and a nice amp cover back in my yoof. You can make really nice caternery curves like that. Never tried the lost foam or laying up carbon fibre. How do you go about getting that awesome finish of factory made parts? Is it a matter of using a nice woven cloth to finish and loads of resin that you flat back and polish?

[march109]

well basically its like grp except in your example (of not using a mould or in the case of lost foam) you would layer the CF over the top (as you would grp impregnated with resin) and then put on a few layers of clear gelcoat, I prefer surfboard gelcoat its more resiliant to UV and water and is super clear. Then you would polish the bollocks out of it, possibly even applying clear coat paint over it too.

With lost foam you cover the outside of the mould, which is made from something that will not be dissolved by the catalyst, clearcoat or resin, but will dissolve in something (usually petrol) so when the laminate drys you can dissolve the inside and be left with a hollow component.

Trouble is most foams will dissolve in pretty much anything, so then comes stuff like pva glue or liquid rubber (or latex) are good too.

I have also painted and clearcoated a mould to ensure the resin didn't dissolve the mould though this is time consuming so I don't recomend it, but it gives a very nice even flat texture.

[gareth]

My ex missus started out as a trim little GTI and ended up a bit of a citroen picasso....

mine started as more of a spritley mini cooper, and ended up a fat allegro (all aggro)

[Turbo-Brown]

Hooray! Have made a start on wrapping one of the foam cores with CF.

I can't believe how conformable the fabric is! I wrapped the alloy stub and first bit of the foam using some 100mm wide plain weave carbon tape and as long as you work progressively over it's surface you can easily get it to adopt a compound curvature.

Then used a larger piece of twill weave cloth to wrap the larger part. Had imagined that I'd have to do the very tight return under the foam in more than one piece, but once you've got part of the CF sitting in the resin, all you have to do it kind of tap it into position with your fingers and the weave all adjusts itself to suit!

Anyway, here's the first two layers. Think I'll go for four layers in total and add some vertial struts to help stop it puffing up under boost.

[march109]

have you tested the foam to see if it dissolves first?

[Jon_Bmw]

Petrol 'should' disolve it.

[Turbo-Brown]

just this minute gone out to see. Put a tiny bit of acetone on a spare bit of foam and it dissolved instantly

Phhhhhew!

[Coyote_ar]

Amazing work there mate, keep it coming

[appletree]

Whats this, a bank holiday weekend and no up date????? wahts going on??

Also what did you use to cut the polystyreane?

[law]

Wow. Just spent the last hour and a bit reading this thread...

Truely inspiational!

[Turbo-Brown]

Cheers Law, you're very kind!

sorry about that, have had a bit of a disjointed weekend so haven't really achieved much.

First excuse is that I have MAAAAAN FLUUUUUUU!

However, managed to get all but the last bend in the primary 3" exhaust system done so it all clears the steering by miles (thank God!) and you can also dismantle the system to get bits in and out. There's two whole bits to the down pipe alone as space is just so tight!

Also, as I was feeling really sorry for myself on Sunday (and everybody was at Reading) I layed up the CF boot lid

No idea how well it'll come out, need to laminate up a reinforcement structure on the back and then release it. Fingers very much crossed that it looks alright, although I know the weave's all over the place....but balls to it

[Chuntington101]

great project.

is there any reason why you aren't using normal chagecooler cores???

Chris.

[Turbo-Brown]

Cheers Chris Not really sure what a normal charge cooler core would be. I was using a plate type thing, but I think the heat from welding made it leak.

Really just wanted some pressure rated (the oil coolers are rated to 10bar) radiators which could easily be incorporated into the air system when I chose the Setrab oil coolers I'm using.

[Turbo-Brown]

Arse, forgot to take my camera to the parent's house this weekend, but the 3" exhaust system is all tacked together from the turbo to the tail pipe! It's not too convoluted either which is nice, it's just made in lots of little bits at the front so that you can get the thing in and out!

Next up is the WG pipe, be great to have all the exhaust system done!

[d6dph]

Good progress being made Alex. Bit dissapointed in a lack of pictures of late

[Turbo-Brown]

Sorry dude, how about this one

[Chuntington101]

Cheers Chris Not really sure what a normal charge cooler core would be. I was using a plate type thing, but I think the heat from welding made it leak.

Really just wanted some pressure rated (the oil coolers are rated to 10bar) radiators which could easily be incorporated into the air system when I chose the Setrab oil coolers I'm using.

if you do a quick google mate yiou will see what i mena. basically like thin intercoolers. same idea as yours but would be easier to work with and alot les fab work involved in sealing the oil coolers..

someone like pace or Allisport could do you something.

bassically a nice 500bhp core with dual water pass would fit where your current heat exchangers sit.

Chris.

[Turbo-Brown]

Will have a look out of interest, but I'm pretty confident that my solution's gonna work for these. The end plates / holders I've made should be easy to seal up and with a flatish plate top and bottom bonded on I reckon that'll be job jobbed.....plus the cores weigh very little (empty) and the CF weighs veeeeery little.

Might not sound all that important, but sitting right ontop of the engine the weight saving might make a fair ol' difference to the handling, although hopefully the CF front end will help with that too!

Quite looking forward to making a start on the bonnet and wings now, be really interesting to see what the wings look like in CF as they're full of compound curves

[Aubs]

Its just taken me quite a while to read this entire thread, It's got to be said that you are a hero.

You should consider mentioning this to PPC when its done - if this kind of project isn;t what they're all about I don't know what is!

[e30_Turbo]

Alex,

Looking good buddy! I'll place my order now for CF bonnet, sunroof, doors, boot lid, dash, delivery when?????


Ow and I can wait a little for the CF e30 shell, I'll give you a few weeks before I start chasing you for that

@ Mr Gerbic - Alex is a one time PPC feature owner already, he's known to the PPC world! ( He gets about quite a bit )

Fozz

[Chuntington101]

Will have a look out of interest, but I'm pretty confident that my solution's gonna work for these. The end plates / holders I've made should be easy to seal up and with a flatish plate top and bottom bonded on I reckon that'll be job jobbed.....plus the cores weigh very little (empty) and the CF weighs veeeeery little.

Might not sound all that important, but sitting right ontop of the engine the weight saving might make a fair ol' difference to the handling, although hopefully the CF front end will help with that too!

Quite looking forward to making a start on the bonnet and wings now, be really interesting to see what the wings look like in CF as they're full of compound curves

cool mate. and from the rest of the tread you seem like a guys thats not about to use something off the shelf if yuo can build it yourself! thuimbs upto you mate ;)

just keep in mind that there are other solutions out there is you need them.

Chris.

[Turbo-Brown]

Ooooh, carbon dash would save some fairly serious weight!

Not sure I could be bothered to take a dash out and try to replicate all the fixing brackets and the like though

why do things the easy way eh Some of the decisions I've made on the project so far have been down to cost rather than just being cussid, like having a custom made charge cooler would cost a fortune I would think and would be a real bugger to get accurately made as the space for it to fit into is such a funny shape.

[JazzMan]

I've got a spare dash if you want it for modelling on

[Chuntington101]

Ooooh, carbon dash would save some fairly serious weight!

Not sure I could be bothered to take a dash out and try to replicate all the fixing brackets and the like though

why do things the easy way eh Some of the decisions I've made on the project so far have been down to cost rather than just being cussid, like having a custom made charge cooler would cost a fortune I would think and would be a real bugger to get accurately made as the space for it to fit into is such a funny shape.

i think you would be supprised mate. at the end of the day they are using stock corse its just the end tanks that take the effort. if you can weld ally you can make your own!! lol

Chris.

[Chuntington101]

Ooooh, carbon dash would save some fairly serious weight!

Not sure I could be bothered to take a dash out and try to replicate all the fixing brackets and the like though

why do things the easy way eh Some of the decisions I've made on the project so far have been down to cost rather than just being cussid, like having a custom made charge cooler would cost a fortune I would think and would be a real bugger to get accurately made as the space for it to fit into is such a funny shape.

i think you would be supprised mate. at the end of the day they are using stock corse its just the end tanks that take the effort. if you can weld ally you can make your own!! lol

Chris.

[Turbo-Brown]

Blimey, been a bit slow of late, so here's a random selection of piccies of the little bits and bobs I've been working on.

We've got a trimmed sunroof panel which weighs in at 1200g. It's heavier than it could've been, but making it has been a valuable learning experience in what the various readily available resins are capable of.




An adaptor to fit an old M20 front pulley to the charge cooler's water pump. Gonna make a pulley for the vac pump from scratch as it doesn't need an offset like the water pump does.






And a fairly mundane little bit of down pipe which needs a lambda boss welding on:

[Andy335Touring]

Nice progress there, i love C/F bits, just a shame it's generally so expensive.

Is the sunroof going to still be able to tilt/slide or is it a bond it in place kind of set up and junk the motor/ect for maximum weight saving ?

[Andy335Touring]

BTW, how heavy's the steel S/R panel ?

[Turbo-Brown]

The one I've made is just to bond in place so I can junk the motor and associated gubbins. The roof of the car has gotta be a good place to lose weight from looking at it from a handling perspective!

Still gotta weigh the steel sunroof, but they're surprisingly heavy as they're double skinned for some reason!

Will take the steel one to work on Friday and see for sure. I gather that the mechanism weighs a good 7 or 8kgs alone so should stand to lose a good 10kgs from the very top of the car with any luck.

[hoshy]

Hey Alex - still coming on nicely I see.

What's the reason for a vac pump, control of some sort I presume?

[Gunni]

for vacuum controlled actuators I would assume.

Needs more engine finishing and tuning and results and less playing around with carbon ;)

[Chuntington101]

what made you go mechanical drive chargecooler pump as opposed to electric??

Chris.

[Turbo-Brown]

It is indeed for the vacuum powered actuators

Gonna have a bit of a blitz this weekend and see if I can't finish some more stuff off. Haven't really had much chance to get over to the parent's house for a while unfortunately (unfortunately for the car anyway)

This weekend we try and get the new crank to turn in the block and then take that off for machining

[Turbo-Brown]

what made you go mechanical drive chargecooler pump as opposed to electric??

Chris.

I had a scout around for electrical ones and decided that they were all a bit too expensive, plus if they fail it'd make the car practically undrivable as the water over the engine would just get hotter and hotter.

It's a little bit more hassle providing drive to the water pump, but I need to drive the vac pump anyway so they can both go on the same bracket I think.