Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

gbrettin

From IG @gbrettin

This Fast Intentions exhaust is going back on my 370z. guess we'll know what a V8 sounds like through Fast Intentions exhaust. But first i'm going to polish it out.

Custom pan being made for the Z, way out of my swim lane. Letting the pros knock that one out.

Time to knock my pin on hood mould out! (I like the British spelling for mould). Composite Envisions still cranking out shipments, thank you. Their site says they are taking all the Covid-19 precautions while working and more importantly, I trust them they are. Their support staff has been great to deal with when ever I have questions or need assistance! Highly recommend!

Bolts came in for the flywheel. Tightened them down to spec, 85ft/lb, and managed to punch my head with an 85ft/lb thump...

The "big" 4L80e is in the Z. It fits no problem . TBH, stock 7AT is larger and blows up at 450hp. This one can hold about 1500.

Final layer for pin on hood mould. My safety gear is for fighting all the Covids of 19. * Edit * ... It needs two more layers...

Last leg of the night and done. Made room for turbo piping. ... I'm beat.

Took off the harmonic balancer, put it on, pulled it off, put it on --- then got my timing marks set up on the harmonic balancer and my @motionraceworks timing pointer. Why didn't I do it the first time I put it on? Squirrel... Moving on... I notched out an area for turbo plumbing. Welds will go where the missing pinch welds are. As far as the pin on hood goes, I need to put two more layers of fiberglass on... Heh. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Two 3" boost actuated dumps came in. At 5/6 lbs of boost my car will bypass the Fast Intentions 2.5" exhaust and switch automatically to open dumps near the turbo. This is the best of both worlds, quiet exhaust when cruising and open hells gates when I'm into the gas.

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Picture heavy since I was working on my car and hood the last few days.

F.I. Exhaust and Loud Valve



Custom Pan










Composite Supplies!






Transmission Installation











Mould reinforcement







Making room for turbo piping


Caught my hand inbetween car frame and ratchet. Impact facilitated the hand crushing.

gbrettin

From IG @gbrettin
Good news! Popped my hood from the mould and it's going to be useable! I have a few problem areas but I honestly anticipated A LOT more. Everything can be repaired and I have the tools. Next mould will be a lot easier due to some of the pain points on this one.

Carved out pin holes and detects with the grinder. Now I can build it back up. ... A different night.

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Extra info:

The PVA that was used on the hood created a crazy static charge. When I popped the hood from the mould with my buddy, we got shocked... It felt like we got hit by 110. Actually, I should have gotten pictures of the PVA coming off because it was awesome to see it pull out of the mould.

Breaking the hood from the mould was pretty wild. Dave put a couple plastic pry tools in a corner while I went beast mode breaking the hood free from. when it released there was a huge * POP *. Not gonna lie, I was pumped off some anxiety when it released. I was expecting it to be WAY worse. I sent the same pictures to a guy I know that does carbon fiber and he wasn't put off from any of the pictures. He was like, "Yeah, that can be fixed in a few days no problem." Only issue I see is doing one corner. everything else can be blocked easy(ish). The edge of the mould will not be part of the hood. I just need to get it filled.

Cut extra flange off

madwi

This is a really great thread.

Hotrodz

^^^Agreed!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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gbrettin

IG @gbrettin:
The GOAT, @cjmotorsportsinc ,of fuel systems anodized my FPR. It looks awesome and I like how the Aeromotive is shadowed. ��

Man, this is going to be a lot of sanding.

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MAN, you have no idea how much that means to me that a few of you guys enjoy going through some of these pictures. They really are a PITA sometimes to get. Also, it’s a real kick in the nuts posting some of the fails that go hand and hand with being new at doing this. If seeing these pictures helps someone somehow then it's worth it. Having a cataloged path of completion is pretty cool to have on a build is pretty rad in the long run.

IG comments summed it up what is happening well. I see lots of sanding in my future. The good news is that I have some nice sanding blocks and can chew through the high spots easy. Worst case scenario for this mold is this: I don't do a beauty layer of carbon fiber later. I can do two layers of CF with the mould and then do a wet lay up over the vacuum infused part. I don't anticipate going that route but it's nice to have a plan B.

Maybe I should do a better job explaining what is happening in pictures... The perimeter of the mould had some dry fiberglass issues. I cut all that out previously with trusty death wheel. I filled in the pockets with fiberglass. The high up perimeter isn't terrible important because I can sand that back to the flange no issue. I just needed something to sand back for a transition from the mould.

The inner part of the mould was filled with tooling gel with a mixture of wax. The wax is needed so that the tooling gel can cure properly. Tooling gel is typically sealed off by the fiber glassing process and cures that way. Normally, people make a mould that doesn't suck so bad and can pop off a perfect mould. My inexperience shows you the long road.... yay...

Also, Charles/Phunk anodized my FPR. Me being me, I marred it up within a few minutes putting it on with a big *** crescent wrench.

Rusty

I really do enjoy reading on what you are doing. Brings back nightmares of me doing some of the this. Best of luck to you with this project.

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浪人 - 殺し屋
"The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only"
http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

gbrettin

Started in on sanding the hood and let me tell you this, tooling gel gets hard AF! I started off with my 400grit sanding block and quickly went down to 60. You are looking at 3.5hrs of sanding. There's a LOT more sanding to go as well. I'm going to try doing some surgical hits with the death wheel tonight to reduce arm fatigue. I will also need to do a skim coat in almost all the areas and do another knockdown with fine grit. Eventually I will make it up to 1500 wet sanding. Last step is polishing, distant horizon at this rate. Like I said, this mould is workable and will take a lot of work.

If anyone is curious about the weight of the mould, the weight is around 75 -100lbs. lol

This Saturday I'm going to start in on making the cowl. I'll need to come up with a bone structure made out of wood. It will look similar to the cardboard structure I made previously but have widths as well as height. The wooden structure will give me stop points for my tungsten carbide sanding block.

Cardboard will sit around the wood structure and on top while it is sitting on the hood. This will allow the foam to take the shape of the hood, encapsulate the wood structure and then rise up to the top of the cardboard. Relief holes will be cut into the top of the cardboard so that the expanding foam doesn't bust through like the Kool-aid man.

The cowl needs to come in close to perfection. I'm glad I started with my hood and have worked through all the repairs. I've seen with my own eyes and connected the dots why certain aspects went well and other items turned out like garbage.

Most important of all, I've always wanted to make a meaningful composite part stretching myself into new areas. Honestly, I can't suggest starting on a hood. Personally, I go head first into projects so it is what it is; however, I think that's been well f*cking established how far I'll go off the beaten path.

Good thing I have the hood because I am currently waiting on my order of wastegates, blow off valves, couplers and v-bands. The wastegates, BOV and couplers are all VSRacing. VSRacing recently had a design change and look REALLY nice. The shop bought a few for a twin turbo sandrail and was able to inspect them before I ordered. Vband clamps... That has got to be one of the biggest kicks to the balls. Ordering a handful of clamps was a rude awakening.

Guess my post is a little bit wordy today yet needed. Hopefully you can see the same path forward as I'm seeing.

madwi

When you get good at sanding try your hand at finishing a plastic injection mold for clear plastic part like a headlight. I never had the patience to sit there but the guys would sand with 220 and work up to a finish with Charmin toilet paper, and it had to be charmin.

gbrettin

I have a buddy that polished metal die sets for injection moulding. He said that the metal had to be absolutely mirror finish perfect and would spend weeks sanding to absurd high number using diamond paper. THAT would be terrible. He said that he would find flaws for some reason or another late in the process and need to kick the part back to milling. That meant starting over.

JLarson

Less text, more boost noises!!

Looking good man. Cool to read about a different kind of fab project than normal.

__________________
2014 370z Touring Sport Magma Red MT // BP Single Turbo 6467 // 63mm TB's // Z1 Ported Upper Mani // RJM Pedal // Zspeed Stage 3 Clutch // 526 WHP, 451 WTQ
2006 350z (Sold) // 1990 300zx (Sold) // 1985 300zx 2+2 (Sold)

madwi

Thats exactly it what im talking about, final polish was the tp. I could never do it, about an hour in and I said f this and went back to my machine. Made me appreciate them that much more and always tried to get the best machined finish to start with to save time. Ran a few extra cycles in the EDM machines crisping up the sharp corners and blending in transitions.
We made the molds for inifinty, honda and others. If you ever notice the seatbelt latch covers in a viper; I made the electrodes and burned the snake's face into the mold.

Your mold looks awesome and that cowl doesnt seem like its gonna be fun to mess with.

gbrettin

The cowl will have its own challenges of getting the left and right side mirrored, but I know I can nail the gel coat process on it. That will cut 90% of the repair work out.

I'm really considering moulding some vents into the cowl as well, so that engine bay air pressure can get out too.

On my hood, I really need a small duckbill to divert air up over the windscreen which would take care of a high pressure area that builds up at the center base. I forgot where I saw that particular 3d rendering of pressure zones on this site. The duckbill/diverter really should have been baked into the hood mould but I guess that can be a challenge for a different day. There are too many spinning plates as is.

madwi

You are making good progress, keep it up and moving forward. Cant wait to see how it goes as this is no small undertaking.

gbrettin

Not a whole lot to say other than getting a perfect surface is a PITA. I was doing this by hand and then realized there are tools for this type of job... I purchased the best orbital sander I could get my hands on and haven't looked back.

The thermal process that happens after 30min or so is pretty wild in the tooling gel. I took too much time applying the first skim coat and the tooling gel melted my plastic cup.

I suspect there will be one more knock down after the last skim coat mould is really looking good now.


First complete knock down and corner rebuild:











Tooling coat thermal heat:



First skim coat of tooling gel:




Knocked out a few high areas





Gelcoat applied again to fill in low spots (will need additional coats)

gbrettin

IG@gbrettin:
Most all area are coming out great. Only a few touch up areas are needed. Tooling gel is incredibly hard. I've been at this with 60grit and changing the sanding pad many times. Moral of the story? Do your mould correct the first time. If you can't... Then you can repair with many hours of sanding. Many hours.. many many...

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All this time sanding gives me time to reflect how I would do the moulding process. Doing it again, I would start it off like this:

These steps were fine: flange construction, clay, Partel Wax and PVA.

Corrective steps:
Tooling gel coats (Weekend process):
1. In the AM. Apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (Orange or Red)
2. In the Evening. Apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (Orange or Red)
3. Next day. In the AM apply 1 coat of tooling gel. (black)
4. Afternoon - 2 layers of fiberglass (lighter fiberglass) using tooling polyester resin (2gal)

Next Weekend
5. 4 layers of heavy fiberglass. using tooling polyester resin (4gal)
6. Next day same as step 5.

Couple days later
7. evaluate for additional layers or pop mould.

I think that would yield the perfect mould or atleast have minimal repair.

This pictures below are about 6 hours of sanding. You may have asked yourself why I didn't start over? I have hundreds of dollars into the mould materials. Each tooling polyester gallon is about 40 dollars. I have about 7 gallons on my hood mould. Tooling gel costs about the same. Good fiberglass is about 4 dollars a yard. I used about 15yds (guessing). And so on. SO there is the cost but also the time of setup. Most importantly, I think it's worthwhile to fix the mould and show everyone the long road if you're new at something.

Thanks for watching my crazy build process so far.