Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

I poked around and saw some people making custom intakes out of cf or fiberglass, but didn't find anything on covering the stock intake with cf sheeting. I have seen someone somewhere cover a TPI intake/runners with CF and I'm just wondering if anyone's had much experience with this stuff, can I heat it with a heat gun to get it to conform better? I'm planning on doing this because my aircleaner lid is all looking pretty bad, and I'd like to spruce it up a little. Any input greatly appreciated guys! Thanks

Will

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

You can't heat up carbon fiber or fiberglass to bend it.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

Its not real carbon fiber, it's a sheet, an adhesive overlay that closely resembles carbon fiber.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

So it's like a giant sticker? Yeah, you should be able to heat it a little to form it around some curves just don't get carried away with it because it will stretch the pattern or leave ripple that you won't be able to get out. To get the sticker to stick to the intake it will have to be really smooth. Have you already sanded down the intake to get rid of the grainy cast finish?

I don't know how much you want to spend but I know there are companies that will coat various things in different patterns such as carbon fiber. I can't remember what it's called, but they suspend this pattern almost like a liquid wallpaper in water and then push the part down into the pool of water and the patern pulls itself over the part. As long as there are no cut backs in the part they should be able to coat it. I've seen the stuff in person and it looks really neat. I was talking with a guy that had it done on his '01 SS and he maid it sound like the price wasn't bad either. I have pictures of the parts he had coated somewhere on my computer...

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

3m has a product called di noc or something to that effect, but supposedly is actually textured and looks way better than the normal vinyl stuff. Anyway, that can be heated with a heat gun and such, people have done all kinds of stuff with it, if you look it up there is a lot of documentation on using it for various applications.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

check this out
www.hydro-dip.com

they quoted me 250.00 for the top of the TPI air filter box

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

That's what I was talking about. Thanks for the link.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

thanks guys. I'll look into it and post some pics when it's done

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

does that mean your having it done...for sure?

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

You can buy carbon fiber patterned vinyl (sticker material) from Oracal & it'll work perfectly fine on an air lid. Go to your local sign shop & they can either cut it out for you, in whatever patter/design/lettering you need, or sell you a sheet that you can use to overlay & trim to fit.

I cut out some & tested a flame cut out piece directly on the intake plenum, expecting the engine heat to cause it to blister & peel. Also did WS6 lettering on the air box....Nothing ever happened to it either. It never did.

I've been doing signs, from simple lettering on windows to billboards, to electrical neon lettering for almost 15 years.....I pretty much knew it would be fine, just wasn't positive, it being directly on the under hood heat of a car, but it was.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

Agreed, I'm going to do it myself. 250 is too much for my budget. No doubt it looks good, but I'll do it myself first

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

stickers are just that "STICKERS"........ your not going to be able to get all the nicks and cranny's with overlay...just my opinion

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

Yea I hear what you're saying, and if you want to send me 250 to get it hydro-dipped or whatever, I'll gladly do it. But 10 bucks for a 2x5 sheet of this stuff to try myself, that seems better for a first attempt.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

I agree I was thinking the same way...........I'm thinking winter project myself, and see how I like the vinyl first.....and see what kind of response we get from the vinyl.

Re: Covering TPI aircleaner with carbon fiber sheet.
 

I have the original CF design on my dash, console & my door handles.....

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...F/Console1.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...F/CFhandle.jpg

And had it on my center caps, until I got replacement OEM emblems from ROH.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...Fcentercap.jpg

Absolutely NONE of that has ever peeled, blistered or nothing. You can now get the diagonal stripe design CF vinyl too.