Carbon Fibre Door panels for Optra5/Lacetti/Reno

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:35 pm

Well I finally started doing some fibreglass work and here are some of the pictures of the first stage of production on some carbon fibre door panels for the Optra5/Lacetti/Reno and there is a posibility they might fit the Forenza and Nubira III as well (I haven't looked yet to see if they have the same doors)

Please don't try this at home.... you will end up damaging your door panels... there are specific techniques to making a mold (which I will show as I go along)

Eventually these panels will be sold through Tom ( GSiTurbo ) on his new online store.

I plan to manufacture a number of goodies for the Optra/Nubria/Lacetti/Forenza so we will be taking requests.

Just post your suggestions on this link.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:40 pm

Just as a note.... this is a "pre-mold" door imprint designed to give the general shape of the existing door panel.

You may note that the lower part of the door is totally missing but that is because this whole lower section will end up being a sealed cabinet for a 6 1/2" low mid base woofer and a 3" high midbase woofer.

I will try to make the setup universal so that people can use 6.5", 6", 5.25", 4" and 3" speakers.

If only one speaker is to be used the second hole can accomidate a CNC machined aluminum plate with some type of graphics on it.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:28 am

well.... here is step 2 where I pry away the fibreglass imprint of the door

As you can see the original door panel came off ok (although there is resin all over the place and it will need a few hours of cleaning)

The center section of the door panel didn't fare to well due to the shape... I was forced to destroy it to get it off.

Well now that the original panel is FUBAR I guess I have to follow this project all the way through to the end.

Next I will trim this fibreglass imprint and make an exact copy of the original door panel. After that comes 20 to 40 hours of modifying it and turning it into the panel I want to have at the end of all this.

Then I make a mold of this new "perfect" panel and then it can go into production.

If this was done by a local fibreglass shop the time to take it from an original panel to a "production mold" would be in the neighborhood of $6000 to $8000.

I've allready invested about 5 hours which would have cost about $200 if done by a fibreglass manufacutrer ( $40 an hour is actually cheap considering how few people are actually in business doing this for a living)

So you can now see why carbon fibre and fibreglass production parts tend to be expensive....the material itself is not much money.... it's all the time required to make a mold in the first place.

Plus molds only last so long before you need to make another one so it's an ongoing cost in the production.

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz · Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:55 am

Very nice work so far.

The only thing I hate about fiberglass work is the smell!
Having worked in a fiberglass production shop about 10 yrs ago, that horrible smell is something that stays embedded in your memory forever.
When you smell it again, you are taken back to the first time you smelled it.
BLECH! LOL

If I have space after I move (in the process of moving right now) I am going to see about making molds for the Lanos & Leganza hoods to reporduce in fiberglass & carbon fibre.

You may or may not have a source for colored weave CF, so here is a link to a place I found that has many colours available: http://www.shopmaninc.com/
I have been considering requesting a product sample to see what the different weave quality/consistancy is like.

Keep up the good work!

Cliff

Goldenboy · Post by **Goldenboy** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:30 pm

GG keep on the good work.

Mat

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 10:27 pm

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:The only thing I hate about fiberglass work is the smell!

To be honest I've been fibreglassing things since I was 12 so I don't smell it any more.... my wife on the other hand is another story... she's says I stink up the house whenever I'm fooling with fibreglass.

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote: You may or may not have a source for colored weave CF, so here is a link to a place I found that has many colours available: http://www.shopmaninc.com/

Yup....I allready know about this place... I posted a link to this place last year around this time when we were talking about manufacturing some hoods.

Tom (GsiTurbo) is partnered with a fellow who owned one of the best aftermarket Fibreglass production companies in Canada. He's retired now but he's going to help Tom (and hopefully me) learn about the art of fibreglass production.

I'm doing this first one on my own because I want to get things going on the prototype but I would imagine that once I've created the ideal door panel I will turn production over to Tom (although I will be helping)

Post by **Efratech** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:14 pm

Lovely work!

Keep it up!

philou · Post by **philou** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:27 pm

Awsome work man!!, nice too see some expert make work for the optra5, and other car on the same chasis!

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 12:25 am

Well... here is the next step

I used a whole pail of bondo to coat the fibreglass imprint panel and then went back and filled in the large gaps with some expanding foam.

Once cured (several days for best results) I then ground and sanded off certain areas so as to be able to remove the imprint panel in small pieces.

Once the imprint panel was removed the bondo was an exact duplicate of my original door panel.

I then did some shaping of the panel and filled in a few areas that had small voids and built up areas that I want to expand.

This is the result......

The bottom black part is the original imprint panel which I left on because I plan on building this up for the speaker mounts. The pink is the bondo.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:01 am

Well.... the door is finally getting close to it's final shape

After 8 gallons of Bondo

I'm close to getting the basic shape of the front section of the door panel form .... and yes there is still a back section to this panel.... it's a two piece mold.

I've spent countless hours allready but all I really need to do now is find the correct speaker mount center.... router out a hole.... and make a subset area for the speaker to sit in.

I'm guessing another 10-15 hours and it will be ready to be tried out in a mold.

Then comes the hard part.... the inner liner.... which must allow the panel to be firmly attached to the door (as well it makes up the back half of the speaker enclosure.

Tim04 · Post by **Tim04** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 12:14 am

Looks very nice my friend

Keep it up

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 11:16 pm

Well.... it's been a long time but I'm somewhat happy with the shape of the door mold.

I kept on changing my mind on the design style but I'm going to stick with this one for now. (might make another one later )

I put some primer on it so that it looks more "normal" since it had about a dozen shades of pink from the bondo layers..... it still has a rough surface, It has to have a couple hours of fine sanding and patching before it will look decent.

Let me know what you guys like or dislike about this design.... I'm not overly happy with it but I just can't figure out why.

Wolf-Spirit · Post by **Wolf-Spirit** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:31 am

well i like it..... i want it even

but 1 thing strikes me.... why is the tweater at the bottem? wont it be more of use a little more upwards?

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:23 pm

The tweeter in my car is in the door handle.... the lower one is for a couple different things....

1) you can cap it with a nice aluminum cap that says something on it... perhaps I could machine a Daewoo symbol into it.
2) you can also use it as a port for your woofer... JL audio make flexible ports so getting the right length shouldn't be too hard.
3) you can also put a huge ass tweeter in there. (it's about 2" in diameter)

I know it doesn't seem like a great place but I figured it might be usefull for something.

I can't remember the dimensions off hand but my JL Audio 8W-1 will fit inside that large hole.... so it will be subset from the main surface.

I'm thinking it's about 8.5" in diameter.... possibly 9"

I never really thought about it but on the real design there would be a hole inside the big and mid holes.... so it would mount inside the present hole (not on top)

I think I made the other hole around 7" so that you can drop in a 6.5" speaker.... again... I modeled it after the stuff I have.

My idea is to have multiple "plates" which will allow any sized speaker to go into the panel.

So for example... lets say you have a 6.5" woofer and a 3" mid.

My idea is to have aluminum rings that go around the speaker and use up the rest of the space in the hole.

It would look dumb to have a 6.5" speaker sitting in a 8.5" hole.... so instead you would have an aluminum piece that has a 8.5" OD and 6.5" ID

Who knows... I might make this thing and hate it.... which will be a huge waist of time.

Post by **PrecisionBoost** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:34 pm

I think the reason I don't like it is due to the transition on the right hand side.... I wanted it to be very smooth but if I raise the bottom right side any further it will start to interfere with the seat.

I will be installing one of the following combinations

8" woofer and 3" mid
6.5" woofer and 3" mid
6" woofer and 3" mid
8" woofer and 6" mid
8" woofer and 6.5" mid

Right now I'm not sure which setup to use.... I have a half dozen sets of speakers to fool with so I guess I will have to see how it sounds.