Fiberglass or Carbon Fiber Fenders

bditty50 said:

Would a carbon fiber driveshaft be a ricer driveshaft? I dont understand when something is made alittle modern or updated from the 80's or 90's its ricer. I think people should be alittle more open minded about updates. If people weren't open minded then some of the awesome retro mod classics wouldnt be around that changed how we look at classic cars.

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Being updated from the 80s or 90s has nothing to do with labeling carbon fiber as being the avenue of a rice rocketeer. CNC ported cylinder heads among other things are examples of "updated" parts that no one on these boards would call ricer.

Uselessness, needless expense, and sometimes being downright ugly is why parts are labeled ricer (with the necessary condition of course that countless rice rocket owners use these particular mods and relatively little or no domestic drivers do). Carbon fiber can easily be lumped into the categories of neon ground effects lighting, colored windshield wiper blades, all the countless billet purple door lock knobs and billet neon green parking brake handles, inoperational boost guages in gauge clusters on N/A cars, gi-freaking-gantic rear spoilers, "Euro" looking replacement brake and headlights, not to mention racing seat covers (for their stock seats) and Momo or other similarly branded seat belt pads.

I am an open minded person, but if to you open mindedness means not laughing my ass off and shaking my head when I see red "Type R" badges being stuck on six cylinder mustangs by owners that hope that someday they can instead afford to run "sauce on a sick ass Civic hatch yo", than being closed minded might not be such a bad thing after all.

I actually want a carbon fibr hood on my car, I guess i am a ricer.

Wait till Itell my buddy Joe he is a ricer. He just put a CF hood and trunk on his LS1 powerd E36 BMW M3......thats right LS1 M3. The LS1 we dropped in was 32 pounds lighter than the staright 6 we took out of it.

The one Urban posted is HOT!!! Great work with that vent also!!

Yeah carbon fiber is not rice,its hard core rodding!!

Carbon fiber is the way to go for body panels on a race car. It's very strong, even stronger than steel. If you think carbon fiber is for ricers, go look at a set of carbon fiber rims. They weigh about 4lbs, and thats because the hunk of aluminum at the center for the hub, which in turn means little in terms of rolling weight. Whoever says a 4lb rim is ricey is a COMPLETE dumba$$.

It's gonna break. What's great about carbon fiber over fiberglass is it tends to only break as much as it needs to. So if you make/repair your own panels as many racers do, you only patch up what was broken.

Race cars aren't good looking up close though. They are rattley and shakey and have huge gaps here and there and everything is zeus'd on. On a race car, you don't care that it's got blemishes right and left. On a street car just patching up your fiber panels when they get busted up probably isn't going to give you the look you're going for.
Unless you want that racecar on the street look, and I havn't met a single person who truly wants that when they realize what it really is.

seijirou said:

It's gonna break. What's great about carbon fiber over fiberglass is it tends to only break as much as it needs to. So if you make/repair your own panels as many racers do, you only patch up what was broken.

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Carbon and glass will suffer the same failure mechanisms... unless you can see the color of the fiber, you won't be able to tell material just by the failure mode....

Saying that Carbon will break less than glass is wrong.



If the Carbon fiber panel was fabricated using a 'wet layup' technique, then it is a rice mod. The resin content and void content will be so high with wet layups, that the strength and weight savings will not be there over glass, at least not enough to justify the increased cost. Wet layup will be cheaper to make.

If a 'vac bag' fabrication technique is used, then void content and resin content will be lower.

The best way to fabricate a carbon panel is in an autoclave... this will produce the strongest parts possible for the weight.
I highly doubt there are many autoclaved car fenders being made, as it is expensive to run one of these.

My opinion...
If carbon body panels are autoclaved, then they are a ricer mod, as you simply aren't taking advantage of the structural benefits of carbon with out an autoclave.

I'd be interested in seeing the interior side of one of these carbon/glass fenders.

Anyone have pics showing some of the reinforcements and supports on the inside?

jason

vristang said:

Carbon and glass will suffer the same failure mechanisms... unless you can see the color of the fiber, you won't be able to tell material just by the failure mode....

Saying that Carbon will break less than glass is wrong.

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Man, it's Halloween season and even threads are rising from the grave.

Booo....

Anyway, Jason's right. This is a misconception I had about fiberglass vs. carbonfiber 2 years ago. Thanks for setting the record straight Jason

I didn't even see how old it was........ ooooppsss.......

vristang said:

I didn't even see how old it was........ ooooppsss.......

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I couldn't even remember posting in this thread, it came up in my subscriptions, and i was confused.

I like CF, it certainly has it's uses in supercars.
Is the cost justified on a foxbody mustang? Probably not. I still wouldn't consider it rice, i'd just consider it a waste of money.
Far more cost effective to just buy parts for the engine that produce more power in a quest to get the power to weight ratio where you want it.
And let's be realistic, there is a never ending list of power adding parts to the 5.0.