[project] Nothing To Do With 205's, But Behold!

[M3Evo 0]

Ooooooh, will this one have worked?!

 

 

 

Fingers crossed that it comes out reasonably bubble free!

[tom_m 0]

Ooooooh, will this one have worked?!

 

Fingers crossed that it comes out reasonably bubble free!

 

certainly looks awsome!

 

 

fancy turning your hand to 205 sunroof blanking plates? (or new roof skins )

[taylorspug 7]

I want some of your carbon panels for my E30, sod the fact they will be illegal in most classes, at least il look good whilst getting thrown out of scrutineering...

[Dom9 2]

Looking excellent mate - I am really impressed with the CFRP work!

 

Keep the pictures coming!

 

I'm with dan, I need a bonnet for my Porsche and various other bits and pieces! Fancy the job?

[M3Evo 0]

He heeee, seems lots of people want CF bits now from all over the place!

 

Think I need a lot more practice before I could start selling things to people though.

 

Really looking forward to the front wings as they're such an interesting shape...although there's probably more potential for them to end up as a sticky mess

[Dom9 2]

Well, keep at it and you will be a pro by the start of next year...

 

You can have all my bits done by summer, ready for the next track day season!

 

I don't mind about uneven weave or pin holes as i will paint over them, so... We are good to go, right?! LOL

[M3Evo 0]

You'd need to entrust various panels from your car to me for looooong periods of time Dom

 

 

Put some reinforcement structure on the back of the panel in addition to an extra two layers of cloth so with any luck it should be quite rigid. Gotta leave it for about a week before I'll know though!

 

The good news is that the panel and mould combined weigh less than the original sunroof! And with all the motor and other gubbins gone it should represent even more of a weight saving

 

 

[M3Evo 0]

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:

 

 

[M3Evo 0]

Got one of those jobs I've been really putting off done today. Modded the block to accept the M52B28 crank. I've got a VANOS crank so the webs are all over the place and foul a couple of things. Easily sorted, although grinding things in the block isn't synonymous with the clenliness you'd like to have around your crank!

 

Here's our block, an M20B20 which I think had done about 150k or so, can't really remember!

 

 

 

The crank sitting in the block, unable to turn due to obstructions at the crank case breather and jackshaft rear bearing.

 

 

 

The solution at the crank case breather having ground away enough material to give about 1mm clearance:

 

 

 

And the same kind of thing at the jackshaft rear bearing. Need to remove a fair amount of material here to gain clearance: (sorry, the photo doesn't really show anything!!

 

 

 

And here are the tools I used to do the job: An electric drill, a pair of goggles, ear defenders, a little grind stone mouned on a long M8 bolt, and a cutting disc from an angle grinder again mounted on an M8 bolt.

 

The little stone was used on the breather, the cutting disc was used to tackle the jackshaft bearing:

 

 

 

Here's a random pic of the flywheel on the crank:

 

 

 

Will call the machine shop during the week and see if I can't get my bits booked in. Need to get the manifold skimmed flat too!

 

 

Lastly, here's a couple of pics of the exhaust downpipe. First time I've put it together off the car! Doesn't it look strange, the route it takes?!

 

Oh well, it fits and that's the main thing

 

 

[shalmaneser 26]

following this on e30zone too. looks like you've got your work cut out, but getting on with it nicely!

 

CF stuff looks great too!

[M3Evo 0]

Cheers dude Progress has been a bit slow of late, but will be taking the block off for machining this weekend along with the manifold

 

Ooooh, I've finally managed to track down a pre-preg supplier willing to deal in small quantities!

 

The best bit is that, once you've factored in for the costs of epoxy resin and carbon fabric, it actually only works out about £4.50 more per square metre to use pre-preg!

 

The key advantages are that you should be able to make much more efficient laminates with pre-pregs where you waste less resin and don't have to carry the weight of additional resin in your components, and the resins used are much tougher in themselves so your panels become more efficient still!

 

Going to be making a mould for a front wing over the next couple of weeks and think that's when I'll start using pre-pregs. Due to the complex shapes of the front wings with lots of tight corners and the like, vacuum bagging is gonna be absolutely necessary, and having up to five days rather than about 20mins to lay up the carbon in the complex mould is again a big bonus!

 

Should make it easier to achieve good looking panels where the weave isn't all distorted too with any luck!

 

Next question is how to make an economical oven to bake the pre-preg panels in.

 

I was thinking something along the line of a few, say 10 or so, 60W lightbulbs arranged in rows in a box made from something fireproof like plasterboard which can be skinned in polystyrene insulation for good measure.

 

That way the distribution of heat should be fairly even, and it shouldn't cost tooooo much to make an oven big enough to cure a bonnet in.

 

Question is, will it be able to reach somewhere in the region of 70degrees C?

 

Any thoughts anybody?

[jackherer 543]

If normal incandescent bulbs don't get it hot enough try halogen lights, they are cheap and very inefficient.

[hman205 1]

how about using a few heater elements from something like a Dishwasher would generate enought heat shouldn't cost the earth

[Bonzai 2]

in work we use 3phase heater blankets, although we cook at 250degrees or more. would a household electric blanket be up to the job i wonder?

 

from memory you need to arrange it something like this:

 

-----------vacuum bag-------------

--------fluffy blanket ----------

---------------heater blanket--------------

---------- impervious cloth----------

-------vacuum tube-----------

-------pourous cloth-----------

------pre-preg sheets-----------

 

the fluffy blanket stops heat from your heater blanket melting the vacuum bag and burning you if you touch it

the impervious cloth stops any resin being sucked up and sticking to the heater mat

the pourous cloth allows the piece to be smothered in a vacuum (if you leave it out then you only get a vacuum directly around the tube)

 

 

sorry if you know all this already, just hoping to be of some help. if you need a "sample" of anything i'll see what i can do

[M3Evo 0]

Have had a bit of a weekend of finishing things off (and taking pics with the phone as I forgot my camera!)

 

Had a quick trial fit of the plenum before comitting it to carbon fibre. All looks to be well clearancewise, the bonnet even shuts believe it or not! Have decided to bond the outlet trumpets, IACV spigot and dump valve outlet on after the bulk of the plenum has been formed.

 

 

 

 

Also finished the dump valve off properly. It doesn't look any different than it did a few months ago, but now it has a spring and a spring guide inside, a piston ring (which actually seals! ) and a little pipe connection on top

 

 

 

Spent about four hours today making a pulley for the vac pump. The original pulley was tiny which is presumably as the pump came from a diesel engine which didn't rev very high. I'm aiming for about 7k with this engine (maybe 7500rpm actually) so I reckoned a bigger pulley was gonna be needed.

 

 

 

 

Lastly, I've been making a gauge pod for the oil pressure, boost pressure and AFR gauges during the evenings. Just needs a trimp over on the right hand side to fit the E30's binacle, holes for the gauges, a sand back and laquer and it's done

 

 

 

[Dom9 2]

Great stuff as always mate - Keep the updates coming!!!

[hexhamstu 9]

any updates??!?!

[M3Evo 0]

It's all been a bit quiet of late for one reason or another (either buying cars to drive to Scotland and see my girlfriend, trying to fix said car as the coolant was going missing, then finding that the headgasket's gone and buying something else!)

 

Have had some bits made up to fit E36 (5 stud) front hubs onto the E30 front suspension

 

Didn't get a chance to play with the new hub adaptors this today unfortunately, but I did buy a car to replace the piece of s*it touring I bought which has suddenly developed a blown head gasket (I'm now the proud owner of a sewing machine (Honda Civic 1.8VTi ) ) and having done that, went to my folks' house to build this:

 

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd299/t...wn/machines.jpg

 

with my Dad. It's been a long time coming this bench, and we need to remove the shelf above it so that the drill press and mill can be moved back a bit and bolted down, but having a mill means I can easily machine the manifold flanges flat, make brake caliper brackets, gear linkage parts, the throttle linkage....basically all the things I've not wanted to do using cobbled together attachments for the lathe

[Rippthrough 98]

Tidy little manual mill that, what make is it?

 

Could do with something like that for little parts that don't warrant setting the CNC up.

[M3Evo 0]

Can't actually remember what make it is!

 

Read the accuracy test report last night though, all in Engrish. Things like deviation of "Parlellism" from the "Talbe"

 

Apparently there's a kit you can buy for it to make it CNC, but in the first instance I wanna buy some encoders and readouts for it.

 

Can't wait to start machining things with it though, been wanting a mill for years but've been making do with odds and sods for the lathe.

 

Anyway, think it's pretty much the cheapy mill you can buy from Axminster (which is where the drill press came from) but the mill has more travel than the Axminster one.

 

Apologies for the giant piccy! Had assumed it'd be weeny as it just came off the mobile

[dodsworth_gti 11]

how much did the mill set you back if you dont mind me asking,loks like a nice lil machine,ives got a huge pillar drill thats 20 year old but old ones are best i say

 

project looks good though buddy

[Rippthrough 98]

Apparently there's a kit you can buy for it to make it CNC, but in the first instance I wanna buy some encoders and readouts for it.

 

Bugger that, have enough fun setting the other one up, I'm just after a little one that can go in the shed and I can use to skim things flat or make small one-offs, looks ideal, let me know how you get on with it and any problems, seems like virtually ever cheap little mill these days has some quirks.

 

Oh, and if you want some (carbide only I'm afraid) end-mills and holders, try Mari-Tool, cheap as chips and they last damned well.

[M3Evo 0]

Think I paid about £500 for it second hand, had been used about twice I believe

 

I'm itching to get going on it this weekend so will post up results and experiences Rippthrough

[M3Evo 0]

It's nothing to do with this project, but I got sent this link to a vid of a set of ITBs I made about two years ago for a guy with a 5litre Nissan V8. The spec on this engine is incredible, it's got 6bolt mains and various other niceties which seem incredible for a production engine! He's had it rebuilt to a very high spec and wanted a set of ITBs to sit ontop.

 

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=500z...emb=0&aq=f#

[welshpug 1,657]