slimsdizz

I recently did my interior in carbon fiber and I thought I'd post some tips. This was one of the most difficult mods I've ever done to a car but now that I understand it through trial and error maybe my information will help you with your project. I purchased my carbon fiber cloth off ebay blue and black so it's technically kevlar and carbon fiber of course they don't tell you that.

1. Always use epoxy resin if you don't want it to crack up overtime
2. I found it's best not to cut the cloth it frays all over the place
3. Before doing a floorboard overlay paint the floorboard black so any blemishes won't show.
4. What I did was lay out my carbon fiber cloth and I used fabric adhesive to hold it in place in the tough spots.
5. Then I mixed up my epoxy resin and laid it down with a paint brush. I then placed my cloth down and smoothed it gently with my hand. I used slow cure resin so I'd have a longer time to work. Once I laid the cloth down I trimmed it oops it frayed all over the place so I pulled it up and decided to start over.
6. I put down more epoxy resin while it was still wet and this time I laid my cloth down and refused to cut it at all it laid down nice no frays.
7. I then went back over it with a paint brush and put a nice thick layer of epoxy resin I let it sit for about an hour and then cut on my heat gun and smoothed it out at this point it was looking fantastic.
8. I then shut my car doors armed my alarm and walked away for 2 weeks I had put down a very thick coat of resin and it was going to take some time to dry.
9. After it cured 2 weeks later I came back and then trimmed the excess with my dremel wow no frays so cutting it after it cures seems to be the best way at least for being a newb to carbon fiber work
10. I sanded with 2000 grit and then tac clothed it to get up all the dust after vacuuming. To tac cloth a lightly wetted bath cloth works great.
11. Then I sprayed my clear I did three coats sanding between coats and I let everything dry for another week.

Overlaying any part is easy trim off the excess once it's cured and you'll have awesome parts and your cloth won't fray. I overlay my floor boards because my carpet was bad and it was cheaper to buy the carbon fiber then new carpet.

I'm pretty much against the carbon fiber hood manufacturers out there they use fiberglass allot of the time and you never realize that your buying fake carbon fiber. Most of there products are made in china and they don't use epoxy resin thats why they crack up and get dull over time. If your going to do it I'd say do it yourself and if I got into replacing parts and not doing overlays I'd build my own vacuum forming machine for my molds Check youtube for ideas. Good luck hope this helps some of you out there.

94rs-turbo

iTrader: (6)

different?

slimsdizz

thx I have not seen it done before so I figured I'd give it a shot. The carbon fiber seems to hold the weight of your feet just fine it doesn't flex. I realize some people will probably like it some people might not. I was trying to be creative. I plan to do the entire headliner and replace the dashboard I will probably do the door panels as well. The seats are being redone in white leather I figured it would look good when it's done.

el crapitan

holy ****. that's a lotta carbon. i'd have been fine with soft carpet, but hey, do your thing

slimsdizz

total cost for the floorboards and the console was 200 dollars thats for the fabric and resin I priced doing the rest of the car interior 500 dollars for a total interior cost of 700 dollars

letsdrive

it just looks too rough, like it needs more resin. the center console looks pretty good but the floor i'm iffy on. its pretty wavy...how big are the sheets?

slimsdizz

you talking about the roll I used I bought ten yards three feet wide. The center console to me is the thin part I've got the resin very deep about 1/4 inch but it is hard to take photos of CF. Everyone who has actually seen it really likes it for my first time working with it I think it turned out really well.

slimsdizz

If anybody else thinks it needs more resin I can add a few more coats of resin it's not a problem.

thaynebates

more pics so we can see the rest of it?

PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

ehhh wayy too busy looking for me. Looks like my eyes would go crazy sitting in there. Doing the whole dash would make it even worse I'm afraid.

slimsdizz

Actually patrick I think your right I got the seats back today doing more CF would make it too busy. I don't think the floorboards are too busy it's actually very subtle once you lay down the floor matts.

Thanks for all your input guys I'll take some more pics soon. I'm happy with it guess thats all that matters. Won best of show with it at our local show but I'm sure the rest of the car had the majority to do with it.

josephcmiller2

Nice job. You really took the time to get the details down. Plenty of people have done dash and trim in carbon fiber, I think yours is more unique if you leave the dash and trim alone. Then you'll have cf carpet and stock dash/trim while everyone else has stock carpet and cf dash/trim, haha.

slimsdizz

when I recently saw a company making CF floormatts for subaru STI and selling them for 2000 dollars for 2 floor matts. I thought doing the whole floorboard for right at 200 dollars was the better option thx for the compliment.