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DanB
Moderator
Joined: Feb 2002
Location: San Diego
My Car: A bucket
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Get ready
for the long version...
To start, a well made carbon fiber hood will require a $5000.00 mold. Mold
costs vary by the person who makes 'em, and someone
with skill is needed to make a mold that will produce a hood nothing short of
art. I guess you could also CNC an aluminum mold, though it would weigh a ton
- and would likely cost more. The actual material involved - if 100% carbon
fiber - would probably be $500 alone (4.75/sq foot for pre-preg carbon fiber, assuming 5 layers of carbon used and a
hood which is 4.5x5 feet).
The layup itself would take several hours by a very
skilled person so that the bias was completely straight, and so that there
were no pinholes in the piece. After this, the whole thing would have to be
sealed in a vacuum bag to provide compaction, and cured in an autoclave
(which heats up while providing constant vacuum). Compaction essentially
squishes the carbon fiber against the mold, and forces the resin to flow in
the direction of the mold - forming a beautiful surface. If the person making
the piece is skilled, the piece will only need to be buffed a little to look like this. If not, the
whole hood will need to be sanded down and sprayed with an acrylic clearcoat to achieve the same finish. (which
adds weight). After the piece is cured in the autoclave, it is taken out,
popped out of the mold, and trimmed to the exact size it needs to be.
A secondary bonding process will be needed to incorporate the mounting points
for the OEM hinge and latch.
So taking into account a $5,000.00 mold, 8 hours or so to lay the piece up
and finish it, and profit for the shop, you're realistically looking at a
$2,000 - $2500.00 price tag on a well made lightweight carbon fiber hood,
$1500-$2,000 for fenders, and about the same for a trunk. This is assuming a
run of 50 of each product to ammortize the cost of
the mold, which puts the manufacturer over the fence for well over $150,000
to bring the product to market with an inventory. Of course, you could do
batches of 10 at a time for 17K/batch.
You might be asking why you see "Carbon Fiber" hoods for $200-$500? It's because they are made with several layers of
fiberglass, and maybe one layer of actual carbon fiber which is not pre-preg (pre impregnated with resin). After the layers of
fiberglass are applied (cheap, heavy, and known as a "filler"
material in the composites industry) they use a wet-layup
process on the one layer of carbon fiber. This means they lay a raw sheet of
carbon fiber (has the consistency of cloth) into the fiberglass, and
paintbrush resin into it. The whole thing is put in an oven and baked (not
using any compaction). This method produces a heavy hood which is often as
heavy as stock, and because of the resin they lay it up with - the piece will
have "paint strokes" and will likely rapidly turn yellow with UV
exposure.
Below are more examples of good carbon fiber which is made using pre-preg carbon fiber in an autoclaved process...
56K warning! Carbon Fiber intake
56K WARNING!!! Ducati
Fender
Another 56K warning! This is a Ducati rear fender.
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,
valve covers, etc) ~ 20 lbs