My louvers had to be taken off as their brackets for the top of the hatch started splitting. The idea of making mt own out of carbon fiber and aluminum or carbon fiber tubing came to mind. Has it ever been done or am I gonna be the test dummy for this.

 

Test dummy... I think this would be a trick piece if it can be pulled off with a close to OE look. Good luck man. Don't get too good at playing with the CF... Your way to close to me and I have a bunch of crazy ideas with the stuff lol

 

You need to ask yourself, why would you want carbon fiber louvers? The expense and time needed to make them would far outweigh any negotiable improvement on your car. The only thing that I could think of is that it would look cool. But then, if you have carbon louvers, you would need a carbon hood. Carbon louvers on a steel hood would look awkward.
I firmly believe the only place we need to see carbon is on parts that will save your car weight.
Just my $.02

 

I believe he is referencing rear window hatch louvers, not hood louvers.

 

Well the most obvious reason is to look good/ bad ***, but I absolutely love the look of a thirdgen with louvers and I miss mine. The downside to them is that the weight mixed with how poorly the brackets hold, at least mine, that they scratched up the rear hatch glass and would vibrate the whole car on the highway. I have a new hatch now and don't want to scratch up the glass when it cost $1600 to replace. I am very big on doing DIY projects and this is one I think I can handle fairly well. I already own louvers so I have the begining of a mold there, all I need is the CF and resin for it and I'm set.

Yes CF can be expensive, but its cheaper to mold your own rather than buy pre cut sheets and modify them. Besides, If I get good at it maybe guys like BADNBLK would wan't to buy it, for a reasonably set price of course. I'm sure there is a market for them and it could possibly turn a profit haha. If I find I have a hidden skill of using CF, I would have no problem what so ever making myself a CF hood that is perfect to my liking, maybe even do a hood louver style with functional vents. Now you have me really thinking what else I can make. I warn you that once I get started on my ideas I tend to hold to them which is a blessing and a curse, so I probably won't stray from this idea.

 

After making my big post I realized that he thought hood louvers
but yes I do mean rear hatch louvers haha.

 

Well I am open to suggestions, I have some buddies that can get CF sheets for decent prices, so I am making ideas now, like center console, shifter area, or even a full dash. But I may be moving out to CA in a few months so hopefully you could benefit from this before then.

 

If you can make me a carbon deck-lid (trunk lid) that would be awesome. The stock trunk lids weigh in excess of 50lbs! Let me know what you think!

 

I am not sure what the deck lid is haha, thr first thing that came to mind was the storage lid for the hatch, but that is more like 2lbs max. Is the deck lid for the convertible

 

Hey there, the decklid is just the trunk cover for the convertible. This piece weighs over 50lbs! I am sure a carbon decklid would weigh at most 10lbs. My carbon hood weighs in at 25lbs.

 

Ah ok, I can Imagine it has some weight to it, but I would think it would be less than 10lbs. 25 lbs is quite a lot for a CF hood, granted it's half of what stock is but that's still pretty substantial weight that I would expect from fiberglass but not CF. I was hoping to take it down to around 15 or less with my hood if I made it. I just saw a Honda Prelude with a CF hood weighing roughly 4 lbs so I have my standards set.

As far as actually getting into making CF parts, it may be a while as it is a couple grand to get the deluxe production parts like vacuum pumps to infuse the resin rather than paint it on like you would FG, and then making molds would require actually having the parts. Once I have the time and money to spare I will be getting into this, as I see a lot of people here on TGO and around my town that are interested in CF.

 

If you could make nice CF parts I would be highly interested! KEEP US POSTED!

 

Alright, I warn you though it could be a while my transmission needs replacing and that is my priority for projects.

 

Keep me in the loop. I have gobbled up what little pieces I have found and worked with my theme. I have ideas, but some thing I'm sure might not be all that cost effective

That vert trunk panel would be cool. Those are hard to find and original units cost a bunch anyway, but then again "most" vert guys seem to keep them pretty close to stock unlike some of the crazies ^^^^ around here

 

Add me to that crasies list..lol.. I might just have to dig out the extra tonneau cover and pull off my trunk lid.

 

I feel you on that. I blew a 700r4 in my car and it's a pain to remove all the crap without a lift. especially if it's all original bolts like mine were. Snapped a Trans cross member bolt :/ Had to drill it out and re tap it. POS lol

 

And I have to convert over to the 700r4 from the biggest joke of a transmission which will be some money, but I am still set on building infusion carbon fiber parts and will keep you guys posted once I get started on it.

 

That's all these cars are. Big money pits. Building a 350 for my 85 and keeping my '91 up to date breaks the bank.

 

I was saving up for my transmission when suddenly a bad ground wire on the distributor fried the distributir, coil and ignition control module so all my money went to that haha its a pain sometimes, but taking the car out for a drive and being told how cool your car is makes up for it IMO.

 

exactly! I used to get that when I first got my 3rd Gen but since it's my daily the icy road and black ice this year in south NJ didn't help me. Shift kit jumped into second right over a patch of black ice. Needless to say my 1/4 panel found a street sign. Now i'm in the midst of saving up for that to be replaced. Another $900 bucks down.

 

subscribed. i love the idea of cf rear louvers. im interested in cf decklid too. some cf t tops would be killer. im painting my car gunmetal grey metallic, and i think that cf would look awesome with it. CF decklid, t tops, and rear louvers. that would be badass.

edit:

I was searching on the internet, and for anyone interested, i found CF Cowl Hoods, CF trunk lids, and CF 5 inch rear spoilers. all made out of grade A CF. here.

spoiler: http://extremedimensions.com/82-92-C...-Xtreme-W.html
trunk: http://www.octanemotorsports.com/198...-p-144497.html
hood: http://www.carid.com/1982-chevy-cama...od-895160.html

 

For those prices they might be the fiberglass with a top coat of cf. But not positive.
I do remember a few months ago that someone on here tried to make a set of cf t tops, might wanna take a look around for that thread.

 

i followed that thread. they got warped, and he trashed them and quit

 

I should have followed that one better, that was a cool project

 

I cant get good prices but i work with cf all the time for my job working on aircraft and i start right from scratch so if you need and help let me know