Keep in mind it's a work in progress, I don't figure it to be smooth enough for paint until late spring at the earliest, there's still gfx to mold and doors to make before I really hit it with the DA sander. Happy Holidays!



edit- yeah that's Snow melting off in the pic.

 

That's lookin great! those sunfire lights really have an agressive look... they look totally out of place on the sunfire.

I like how you've rounded off the corners on the front bumper now... comin along great.. you are in for alot of work to sand that and get it smooth and straight... but from the looks of it you aren't scared of that.

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks! I thought the straight carbon fiber weave was hard to sand using 24grit, this carbon/kevlar weave is a lot harder to tackle. I won't be buying any more of it after the roll is gone. I'll probably use the remainder for floor boards or something that will never see paint. It's so tough the epoxy doesn't even like to soak in to the fibers, other than a cosmetic application using a good two piece rubber mold and a vacume bag/pump I wouldn't reccomend it for anything.

 

sweet I was wondering what happened to this car...keep us updated

 

Just wondering, what was the purpose of using those materials? Just readily available to you or were there other reasons?

 

I made a custom 6" ducktail spoiler out of fiberglass... I spent forever making it perfectly smooth so it looked factory. Here's a few things I learned while doing the spoiler...

-Rough it in with a disc grinder when doing the cloth/resin stage... don't bother with sanding it is too much work at this stage.

-After you have it fairly straight start doing coats of pure resin and blocking it with heavy grit paper (40 then 80) and a long board for the straight areas and a DA for the curves. During this stage, the high spots will get knocked down and the low spots will remain shiny... when applying the resin, put extra in the low spots... also scratch the shiny spots up with a die grinder just before applying the next resin coat for better adhesion.

-Keep doing coats of pure resin... making them thinner each time and using finer paper... always use a long block for anything close to flat and a D/A if it has too much curve. The final coat of resin I just smeared on with my hand as thin as I could possibly get it... then i sanded working up to 220 grit to get it ready for high build primer.

-I had good luck with a product called "slicksand" for high-build primer.

 

I'll be quite honest. It's hideous. It looks a lot like import trash to me. Yeah it's custom, that don't mean it isn't ugly...

 

Can't wait to see the final version. Thats very cool that your taking the time to design your own look.

Atleast it will be that of your own and you can be proud! Its great to see something new. Keep it up and post some more again soon.

 

cool your doin your own thing but to me, concept looks fugly

 

+1...sunfires and firebirds are different models for a reason...one's ugly and one's sexy

 

what the **** are you doing?

 

Nice work man. I love it when people take their own path instead of following the crowd. The pic you have posted does not do it justice. If I was only to look at that I would think it was just so so. But when you get a full view of the car like in your signature. She is beautiful. Nice work!!

Ric

 

That hood doesn't go with your 'concept' either...

 

I think it nice to see what people can make out of a third gen. what are you doing with the rear? are you still going to use that hatch you made? what about tail lights. the front is sort of NASCAR style so maybe a spoiler like that would be cool. nice work

 

lightweight, strength compared to fiberglass I can generally get away with 3layers of CF on body panels compared to 4-5 layers of fiberglass for the same strength. The red Cf/kvlr was about 3.oo a yard cheaper than the straight carbon fiber and supposedly stronger. It's carbon weave in one direction and kevlar fibers the other so depending on which way you place the material you can have more strength in one direction or overlap it to get the best properties of both materials. I thought it would be cool to say it's a kevlar hood, it just turned out that the kevlar is just too much of a pain to cut, sand, and smooth.

Thanks for the tips, that's the process I'll use. I also have had good luck using "micro beads" which mix into the resin to form a kind of filler, hopefully I won't need to use much of it!

Roll pan type rear, I've got a rough form started and I'll build on it from there. I still can't decide if I'm going to shorten the rearend or not. It would look good with less body behind the rear tires in my eyes, that's in the future though. The hatch is still how I left it for now, I put some better weather stripping on it so it doesn't leak in the rain it still needs different style hinges I'm thinking about snagging trunk style hinges from the J yard.

Your not the only one to say that and I think the new camaro style scoop would look better or even a flat firebird hood. I just don't want to change it now since I've already got so many other things to work on body-wise. There will be a nice phoenix painted on top of the ram air scoop which should help it fit in a bit.

There's so much left to do, I can understand the ugly comments at this point because it is ugly! I'm sure even when it's finished with two tone paintjob, some still wont like it. Where's redraif? I need some backup here! lol I know the appearance of a custom will never appeal to everyone, I'd still like it this car to appeal to most people though so specific suggestions are appreciated. A lot of guys suggested putting the spoiler back on so I'll be making something up for that.

 

LOTS of work right there i can appreciate that. Custom and going on your own is one thing. Stuff like fender vents that Sickness did to his camaro very custom and looks great...only like 2-3 people ive seen have done that. To me "being different" is...anyone can be different, its just that what you do and how it looks like in the end is what matters. Different doesnt always mean better...ive had several little things u can call custom and different but they didnt look good in the end and it didnt flow right. I think ur opinion on that is...that if people dont do custom and go the normal 5 spoke design/cowl hood/chrome dual exhaust tips is that there all the same. It looks good and its popular for a reason as to why u see so many SS and cowl hoods. Im sure whatever type of concept ur making its tons and tons of work and im sure it will all fall together at the end and who knows i may like it. I just think right now all the things youve done to that front end, nothing really fits the car you put it on. All opinions so dont take me as just your normal criticism. Its pretty unique that the things people can do these cars ud never imagine could be possible(like what ur doing).

We are all different, got different opinions, and different cars and ill leave it at that. But keep us updated id like to see the finished product.

Sorry there is like no use of grammar or anything in that i just wrote...nows not the time for me...

 

Isnt your car gonna weigh like a bujillion pounds?

 

With all the structural **** he cut out of the car? no way.

 

Keep us updated.

 

cool stuff man. if youre making youre own piece i wouldnt use a da, unless youre prepping for paint and using like 400 on primer and 800 on paint. get a softblock or just do it by hand and feel it often. if anything, id use a da on the flat part (assuming you keep the da flat) since its faster. then you can point it at all the low spots till the go away, and then put filler over the entire section. like if there was a low spot the size of a dime, take down a spot as big as a quarter and put filler on a space as big as a couple half dollars. always put on more filler than you think you need (not like layer, like perimeter). if any of this makes sense i would use it, lol. its hard to describe what you see and feel in words.