How to make aluminum or carbon fiber door panels need help
 

I was wondering if anybody know how to make aluminum or carbon fiber door panels I have never done it before so I was wondering if anybody could me help out with the materials needed and how to do it. Im ditching my factory door panels because im building my 1st gen rx7 into a track car and I want aluminum or carbon fiber door panels.

IF anybody could help it would be awesome :) !!!! Thanks.

Adam

Simply speaking. If you've never done fab work before just buy pre made. You could cut some nice aluminum ones but carbon fiber is a skill craft and takes experience. Just youtube it. If you want aluminum that would be the way to go.

Agreed. I will be doing aluminum ones. As for money savings as carbon fiber is not cheap of course and also you have really no room for error with carbon fiber as well so I will be doing aluminum door panels. I have already made a aluminum undertray for my fb as well for weight savings versus the factory steel one.

Carbon fiber isn't too hard to deal with for the flat panels of an FB. I made a set for a car I had, I used the stock padded top sections and the lower carpeted pockets and the middle was CF.

You'll need a piece of glass to use for a smooth surface to lay up on. I got a used sliding door for free out of a house being remodeled. Wax the glass, lay down a layer of CF using surfboard resin. Surfboard resin has UV protection built in. Get all the little bubbles out of it and make sure the strands are straight because it looks bad when it isn't. Once the CF is done put a couple layers of 1 1/2 oz matte to give the part some thickness, otherwise it will be like a razor blade.

I would start by making a fiber glass mold, it's cheaper than going straight to CF. The window idea is good for flat panels (I generally use sheet metal), only thing is you'll have to have a bend at the top for it to look right (if not you'll have a gap).

Take a look at how the stock panel is made. You can take it apart pretty easily. I recovered my top with some motorcycle seat vinyl and contact cement. Mine used all the stock handles too.

You won't be able to bend the CF around compound curves without a vacuum bag set up.

You can get the "bend" without vac bagging with a simple wet lay up an mold. I haven't made a set yet but will be in the future, if you wanna buy a set check bubbletech.us he makes them out of CF an metal.

I've never had any luck getting two bends in different axis with CF. There may be a special weave that I can't get locally that will do it but I've never found one. Single bend, no problem. Try to make a dome shape and you're fighting the weave and it will look like crap.

oh ok. I was looking at how it was done on youtube and it wasn't as hard as I thought. Just very time consuming. I want to make carbon fiber door panels but I might stick to making ones out of aluminum sheet metal and possibly doing a carbon fiber overlay but still getting a final idea. I definitely want to make carbon fiber guage panel for my gauges and switches in my RX.

Anybody have any pictures of what they have done to to their car as far as the aluminum door panels or carbon fiber door panels. Would like to see some to help get some ideas to base off of.

It's always looks easy. It's still a skill set vas the tools to do it right are very expensive. Wet lay up is sloppy abs bit strong. It's good for covering fiberglass but it's pretty much just a sticker. It can't hold good firm on its own. Vaccum is the only way to go in carbon fiber unless you can aquire an autoclave.

Oh ok lets see how it comes out for me as this will be my first time doing carbon fiber lol

Don't know if you've made your door cards already, but you could do something simple like what is in my car. They are made out if that really thing wood that feels like cardboard/particle board. Then get some of those vinyl sheets off of eBay, and voila!

Attachment 655111

If you're okay with flat panels, you can buy sheets of nice, autoclave-cured carbon for a reasonable(ish) price and then trim them with a Dremel (careful of the dust, though).

Wet layup flat sheets aren't difficult to do if you have a nice flat table. I think you can get composite practice kits (with resin, catalyst, etc) at places like Aircraft Spruce.

I like that :) could do that as well. I have the door panels off the the car now and I have made templates out of cardboard and then deciding two things now

1. Make the new door panels out of carbon fiber
2. Make the new door panels out of aluminum sheet metal (super thin aluminum sheet metal)

How much do the sheets go for? Do you have websites that you can post on here that are good reasonable price (I understand that I wont be cheap) for the flat panels that I can just cut and trim.

Any update on this? I need door panels too.