Carbon Fiber Fan Shroud

[kellzey]

Does anyone have any experience with a carbon fiber fan shroud setup?

Looking for companies that produce and anyone's experience with fit, finish, and quality.

Interested for my 914-6 conversion as it is all quite visible from above.

Regards,

[Randy Webb]

Very expensive. I think Smart Racing Products has them. IF so, it should be high quality. I am going with a new red one, and will save $200 to $250.

[kellzey]

http://www.autometricsmotorsports.com/products/911/index.htm

This company sells one for $450.

[typ550]

For my 550 Spyder reproduction, which has a 911-style cooling system, I had a carbon fiber shroud made by Mike Sharpe at Sharpbuilt in Austrailia. I had seen some of their products at a friend's engine building shop and had been impressed by the quality. They were also able to color my shroud to match the paint job I gave to my Spyder. You can find them at www.sharpbuilt.au.com.

[typ550]

Sorry, I think that address should've been www.sharpbuilt.com.au.

[Leland Pate]

Shoot, make one yourself...
Buy some carbonfiber fabric and some acrylic resin and make your own copy.
If my shoud wasn't almost completely covered by that CIS contraption, I'd be considering it...

[MIK911]

Speaking of Carbon Fiber, does anyone know of source/existence of a Carbon Fiber FAN? eg for 3.2 Carrera?
What are pros/cons?

thanks
mike

[poorb0yw]

MIK911-
Cartridge Limited
Telephone: (212) 628-6778
E-mail: rdlinton@cartridgelimited.com

He makes almost every part of a 993 in either carbon or titanium if there is weight to be saved by converting the piece. I know he has a 993 fan. Looks pretty darn cool if you ask me. You could check to see if there is one for the 3.2. Seems like he can produce or do prototype development for nearly any part you need ($$).

[Wrecked944]

Originally posted by Leland Pate
Shoot, make one yourself...

Leland is right. Here is a link where you can buy the raw materials for less than $100 USD...Throw in a good book on composite fiber fabrication and you can have your exotic shroud for way less than retail plus you get to have fun...

http://www.shopmaninc.com

[john_colasante]

Rennspeed makes them.
http://www.rennspd.com/
Speak to Peter, Tel: 626-256-8878

[ChrisBennet]

John,
I went to Rennspeed's site and found the price but I couldn't get a picture. I clicked on the link put it didn't go anywhere. Did you get the pic from some other place or is there something wrong on my end?
thanks,
Chris

[Leland Pate]

Janus, I'm thinking more and more about buying some raw materials to experiment with.
I'd start off with simple things like flat panels and such and most likely do the first couple in fiberglass to "work on my technique".

Then I could play around with some Carbon Fiber.

Here's a quick list of some stuff that I thought would be cool to fabricate out of CF.

Front side marker oil cooler scoop

Engine compartment fuse panel cover

Door threshold plates

Of course, the fan shoud

Rear seat mat (when they are folded down)

Seat bracket covers

Dashboard intrument panel cover

The fiberboard plate that sits in the trunk and protects the fresh air blower

Engine tin... all sorts of small pieces back there to make

And my most ambitious project idea... a CIS airfilter housing



Hmmmmmmmm??? Hmmmmmmm?

This could be fun.

[Randy Webb]

A CF air grill to replace the plastic or Al grill on the rear deck lid would be great. Anybody want to start making them?

[widebody911]

I've learned a lot about carbon fiber in the past few months. It's neat stuff, but can be a pain at time. On the plus side, I like it better than fiberglass, as you don't have the nasty glass hairs to deal with. On the downside, it's super-pricey due to the bling-quotient. The guy who's doing the RS heater bypasses for me gave me a tour of his shop and showed me some of his fabrication tricks. Some of the coolest tricks are so blatantly obvious that they never would have occured to me.

For my next project, I want to build a surfboard using carbon fiber and carbon-kevlar instead of fiberglass. I'm thinking a single layer of carbon fiber on top, and a single layer of carbon kevlar on the bottom, and maybe kevlar nose and tail "blocks." There wouldn't be any performance advantage, other than weight, but it would look cool as hell.

[Wrecked944]

Originally posted by Leland Pate
Janus, I'm thinking more and more about buying some raw materials to experiment with.

Rock on. I'll gladly share any info I can. Here is a link to a Pelican thread I started on the topic of lightweight materials. We discused carbon, kevlar, titanium, chocolate (yes, chocolate), aluminum, etc etc. The guys (other guys, definitely not me) on this board know a ton of stuff and there is a lot to be mined here...

What would you make your car out of?

I've got some carbon fiber and kevlar in my basement waiting to be mangled. I will be experiencing "forced early retirement at age 37" (i.e. layoff) on Friday of this week anfd expect to have lots of time to play with composites. I'll be reviving that thread with any results I find.

Soooo widebody911, what are those cool tricks? Or did you have to swear to secrecy to get them?

[widebody911]

Originally posted by JanusCole
Soooo widebody911, what are those cool tricks? Or did you have to swear to secrecy to get them?

I guess in the fab industry, they're probably common knowlege.

* They make a mold by applying bondo to a part and then letting it dry, reinforcing with fiberglass, then cutting apart.

* To mold hollow parts, they will either make a 'bladder' using RTV silicone, adding on a tire valve to inflate it; or fill the cavity with expanding foam to force the material into the voids of the mold. They then use a solvent to disolve the foam.

[Early_S_Man]

Lee,

Just a suggestion ... get some West Systems epoxy from Wicks or Aircraft Spruce rather than the boat shop polyester resin ... lots stronger at boiling water temps of our engines!

[Leland Pate]

Good info Warren,
I also thought about making an engine grill but it just seemed so hard.

You'd have to make a blank then use a dremel tool or something to cut out all of the holes... sounds really hard.


As soon as I have some play money, I may just try a few of these projects.

[JMPRO]

Carbon fiber is stiffer than fiberglass and doesn't want to bend into tight corners and bends, if you just lay it into a mold it keeps popping up. Many pro shops us vacume bag technology to hold the cf in the mold untill it sets up. I have heard that cf needs a lower matt to resin ratio in order to be very strong. You can also get a cf called "pre-preg" it already has the resin in it and all you do is mold it , vacume bag it then stick it in the oven for a few hours. I have a pro i deal with and i wish i could remember 10% of the stuff he tells me. One of the reasons that cf is expensive for beauty parts is that there is a lot of wasted parts do to flaws in the cf after its pulled from the mold, ie, crooked patterns and air bubbles. I made a few oil cooler air scoops of of cf and they were hard to make and didn't really look that great for double the price. I am thinking of making a cf cap for the targa bar, any one interested in a $800.00 targa bar cap?
Jerry

[Jim Sims]

I fail to understand why one would make a cooling shroud out of cf composite? This isn't a highly stressed or deflection driven part. I would guess there is not a whole lot of weight saved versus the much higher cost. Is the CF version that much lighter? Jim