Dear Darren,

Like You asked I starded a new topic for comments and reply's

Very good info for everybody interested in working with cabon fibre.Thanks for this.!!

I'm plannig on making a inlet manifold for my engine.I have the advantage that there are no water connections, and that the injectors are in a sandwich plate between cilinderhead and manifold.

I try to cut the existing manifold, so I have the flenches for the throtlle body and head.

What wories me are two things:

* Is there epoxie that can wihtstand temp from +/- 130 °C

*What is needed to make sure that the carbon/epoxie and the aluminium is joined in a good way.


Any news from the headlights ??

AvonBelgium

strange you should post this

great info but.....

its what made me give up on the locost theory list a couple years back.

The discussion seemed to describe a process that was a bit outside of what can be done at home in a single garage for locost like money. They were mooting building a whole chassis from it.

.....lifes too hard as it is! why make a locost that hard and expensive!

atb

steve

yeah, dont you have to bake the prepreg stuff in a kiln at a high pressure? and store it in a fridge? and all the f1 stuff is cut from sheets by cnc machines for each layer to be the right sape, and then when complete, the parts are tested with ultrasound to make sure there are no cracks, the ultra sound testing is prbably overther top for a locost i suppose because they arent subject o the same stresses as a f1 car, but it still needs to be safe.

Hi Stephen,

Great thing about this forum is if your not interested in a topic you don't have to read it unlike the Yahoo lists!

I'll get onto the curing etc later.

As regards the carbon throttle bodies. The types of pre-preg materials used generally are cured at around 120-135C anyway and can be postcured higher which makes them able to stand these temps. There are various expensive materials that can take around 200C.

To join the the aluminium to the carbon you would need to use a two part adhesive like 3M Scotch weld 9323. You would need to clean the aluminium well, prepare the fit in the carbon such that you had a gap of around 0.2mm and also blast or chemically etch the aluminium to get the best from the bond.

We are making something similar for Porsche at the moment and the temperatures don't seem to be a problem.

Kind regards,

Darren

yes your right - i didnt read all of your article - althou if I was gonna use carbon fibre, you would be the man to ask!

atb

steve

Theoretical questions, could you make tubes out of carbon fibre and then make a chassis out of these tubes?

Would their be any advantage of doing this over using normal steel?

i guess carbon may be stronger than steel, but if you use carbon it is probably easier to make a monocoque.

Carbon is neither stronger nor stiffer than steel. Its got a higher stiffness to weight ratio which is an important thing to bear in mind.

Its also worth keeping in mind that the common engineering metals all have the same stiffness to weight ratio. So you can make something in aluminium but for the same stiffness it will weigh exactly the same as a steel part.

You could make tubes from carbon and make a space frame. They do it all the time on bicycles. Its better though to use carbon in a monocoque style construction as the manufacturing techniques lends itself to that. Also a monocoque will be stiffer.

Kind regards,
Darren