Protege5: Harder, not Smarter!

[Tamn]

Just wondering you ever go to any of the mazdasNW meets?

No I have not.

Carbon gas tank cover is finished. I'm putting down the clearcoats tonight, I'll have finished pics of it tomorrow. Carbon is definitely different to work with than glass. The strands come apart verrrrryyy easily. You can't even brush the resin on, it will part the strands. You gotta...press the resin on. And you can't really repair it once its done like with glass. I totally mangled the edges around the piece, bubbled all the way around very badly. Just one continuous air pocket, so I sanded it down, poured more resin in, got it looking very nice. There were also a few larger pockets in the front (well...popcorn kernal sized)

I cut them out with a razor, and poured resin into them and sanded it again.

I started with 220, then 400, 600, 800, 1000, and finished with 1200 grit. It looks nice, but if your within 1-2 feet you can see VERRRRY small bubbles throughout the front. *shrug* first time I think it turned out alright, if your any farther back you absolutely can't tell anyways. I almost think if your doing anything involving sharp edges with carbon you need vacuum bagging though.

Bonus...it weighs...officially nothing...I have the picture I'll post tomorrow, 1.4 ounces compared to 12 something stock.

Anyways...very fun stuff, I can't wait to make something else with it. Such a shame its so damned expensive. I wanna make some more small pieces though. Maybe I'll mold my mirror block offs and make some carbon ones. Can't think of anything else small right now xD

 

[Tamn]

friend posted this on my FB lol

 

[JDM_Pro5]

CF is expensive. Have you though about a different material. I'm sure kevlar is expensive too. Since most of the structure is made from resin and gelcoat, just use some flowery cloth from grandma's curtains, it would make an awesome spoiler hahahaha

 

[Tamn]

CF is expensive. Have you though about a different material. I'm sure kevlar is expensive too. Since most of the structure is made from resin and gelcoat, just use some flowery cloth from grandma's curtains, it would make an awesome spoiler hahahaha

Yea, kevlar is about the same as carbon, maybe a bit more in most cases.

Ah, well I'm really trying to use less resin in my parts now. Stuff's really expensive and it the more used makes the parts more brittle...and heavy xD

But it really is a learning curve when trying to lay stuff up and keep the resin down.

But anyways, looking at a set of coilovers (woo!) and I went out and got some paint/primer to use on the hatch with the spray gun, so we'll see how it turns out. Never sprayed paint before with it.
Also got the lexan shaped really nice for this hatch, used the dremel, which gave it a very nice cut. Lexan bounces too much on my bandsaw, especially when its just one person trying to manipulate these huge sheets and trying to be precise.

Gas cover is installed, it almost looks out of place its so shiny haha. But I'm really happy with it, it turned out very nicely for my first carbon part I think. It weighs 4 ounces with the hinges. Stock one was 14.

 

[Tamn]

Here you can see the air bubbling when I first pulled it from the mold. I cut all the larger ones out eventually. phew.


















New lexan hatch

 

[240rb]

your learning curve is short an flat. one off carbon parts in 4 months? who does that ??????(cool)

 

[Tamn]

Broke out my spray gun and some white primer. Looking good...or so I thought.





I go back out and start sanding it down with some 400...and this happens.



Some idiot...ahem me, forgot to sand the gelcoat rough before spraying primer. So...after a very long hour, and many clogged sand paper pieces late I cleared it all off and sanded the entire thing down with 220. Which might have been a bit rougher than I should have used but I was annoyed and didn't want to have primer problems again.

Resprayed it again...looking good.
Theres a few pinholes I I need to sand/fill and then I'll paint it black and get that lexan on.

 

[Tamn]

MSD dis-2 dual coilpack ignition box, MSD 8.5mm custom length spark plug kit, and a coilpack from a Mitsubishi.

YellowSpeed Coilovers ordered as well...yay first set of coils!

 

[CR3 Motorsports]

More info on the MSD ignition?

 

[Tamn]

Oh don't worry, I'll post plenty about it...gotta get the megasquirt running by itself first, then I'm adding it on. Don't wanna risk blowing up my fancy coils on the trial run.

Doing some light reading on "Engine Airflow Systems" and "Performance fuel injection systems" tonight.
One step at a time haha

::for those of you know don't know what an MSD ignition box is. It is the most popular system in use for domestic race cars for obtaining more spark.

It provides 20 degrees of sparking at 36,000 volts (in my setup) compared to the stock coils which are 20,000 if I read that right.

It is a multi-sparking discharge system whereby instead of one relatively unpowerful spark at one time. It emits multiple sparks for a 20 degree duration which are hotter, leading to a more efficient burn aka more power. There are also many small side benefits of the system.

A soft rev limiter, which is worlds better than a hard rev limiter, which can cause engine backfire leading to engine damage.

2 step burnout controls, methanol injection/nitrous stepping. List goes on and on.

 

[iamthewheelman]

Oh don't worry, I'll post plenty about it...gotta get the megasquirt running by itself first, then I'm adding it on. Don't wanna risk blowing up my fancy coils on the trial run.

Doing some light reading on "Engine Airflow Systems" and "Performance fuel injection systems" tonight.
One step at a time haha

::for those of you know don't know what an MSD ignition box is. It is the most popular system in use for domestic race cars for obtaining more spark.

It provides 20 degrees of sparking at 36,000 volts (in my setup) compared to the stock coils which are 20,000 if I read that right.

It is a multi-sparking discharge system whereby instead of one relatively unpowerful spark at one time. It emits multiple sparks for a 20 degree duration which are hotter, leading to a more efficient burn aka more power. There are also many small side benefits of the system.

A soft rev limiter, which is worlds better than a hard rev limiter, which can cause engine backfire leading to engine damage.

2 step burnout controls, methanol injection/nitrous stepping. List goes on and on.

Interesting...

 

[Tamn]

Interesting...

Absolutely.

Most recent thumbnails may be "broken" when clicked atm, I was tinkering with my website server last night and managed to break something. lol

EDIT:: Eh, the gallery plugin I was using decide to go poop on me, I'm switching to a new one and I will re-upload all the thumbnails.

 

[Tamn]

Phew, spent the last two nights re-doing my gallery, website coding is hard stuff. Much nicer now I think though.

I've primered the hatch twice now. Laid down 3 coats of black paint after. Really difficult to get a real nice paint job instead of the spray bombs I've always done before.

I'll put down 3 more coats before I call it finished. Sanding the next coat with 320, the one after with 600 and the final layer with no sanding.

Pictures...pretty boring, just the same old hatch with lots of sanding and paint, lol.









Oh yea, laid down reinforcement for my hood mold, 5 layers plus some spare wood I had laying about.
I'll start the new one tomorrow.

 

[Tamn]

Hatch completed!

And boy does it look awesome! So much time and effort into making it. The fitment is amazing, way better than stock gaps. Totally waterproof, I spent 5 minutes spraying all the edges with a hose. Not a drop, between silicon beading the edges of the lexan, and the waterpoof foam between the 2 pieces. Factory rubber seal fits perfectly against the back of the hatch. Factory hinges/locks and latchs work like stock.

It is a wonderful thing to see something like this come together after getting all the "looks" from people when I would say I wanted to build my own fiberglass body panels.

Weighs in at 9 pounds. Now...for the new hood...
Sorry about the pics, it was getting very dark when I finished up. But I'm just so excited right now I'll upload them anyways! (mj)

(Theres dust all over everything on the car...and the badges still aren't on...but you get the idea)
















Nice fitment. *drool*






Zoom zoom!

EDIT: Oh yea, the paint job was 2 coats of white primer, 6 coats of flat black rustoleum. Cost me 9$ to do it. Damn nice for the price.

 

[CR3 Motorsports]

I like it because the window is bigger too. So how much for one of these? =)

 

[Tamn]

I like it because the window is bigger too. So how much for one of these? =)

Mmm still trying to figure out how much it actually costs me to build one and I still need to get my authorized vendor status from Antoine. So I don't wanna get in trouble before I'm "ready" but Guesstimate 600-800 for the 2 piece fiberglass, bit more to have it finished in 2 layers of carbon. I'll have more info on that after I get my vendor status this month.

(if you want it bonded together by me, really the only option would be the lexan on the outside, if I send both pieces and you bond them yourself, you could have the lexan on the inside, so you got quite a few options)

 

[Tamn]

I see a lot of mis-information given in other threads regarding flow characteristics.

Lots of innocent comments about the p5, like "the front of the cars are very blunt, you could clean that up and help your areo up a lot" kind of stuff.

General rule of thumb...By far the EASIEST gains are ALWAYS seen at the trailing wake of an object. Their are only a few ways to remove the Area of drag on a production vehicle. You can smooth airflow over the front end yes. AKA: filling gaps...replacing fogs with flat covers...what have you. But it is such a small effect we honestly shouldn't even be looking at it for any consideration.

Removing frontal area would decrease our drag coefficient, but not many people are out there cutting their roofs off and obtaining a more streamlined tapering roofline.

So whats next? We can "fix" either the turbulent trailing wake of the car. This is the air your vehicle has disturbed...or displaced as you shove it out of the way. As it comes off the rear of your car it is swirling
violently practically "sucking" your car backwards with a very strong force. By tapering the end, we can reduce the amount of area that is being acted upon by this sucking force.

Imagine a large rectangle...show below. The trailing rear has a huge amount of area to be "sucked" upon. Now...imagine you taper the end out like a boat...or the "streamlined body" below....by the time the air has flowed to the "end" of the body...it can only suck a very small section of area.

Now...the other cart of the modern car we can fix is the wheels...wheels create tons of drag. Most modern cars have 30%+ of their drag created by the them. Diverting airflow around the wheels from the side helps...as well as diverting it from the bottom of the car. You can place boat-tailed shapes behind the tires underneath to smooth airflow as well.

****obviously I'm attempting to explain in very simple terms how this works...this is not a technical post...just...trying to inform the 5 people who are actually halfway interested in this.****

 

[hat1018]

No pics.

 

[Tamn]

No pics.

say what? XD

 

[hat1018]

Your previous post says "see below" a few times. What I see is a red x, and no pics. I am interested in learning some of this aero biz and pics will help this old man a lot.