Hi All,

I have done some rough calculations and come up with what I think I need for the outer and inner skin surfaces of my whole cars body work, this will be a twill weave carbon fibre, I plan to add other layers of biax in either Glass or Carbon. I will be making some test panels eventually to see how stiff they come out with a few different architectures I have been thinking about and also I can check the final made weights.

I've come up with a figure of around 20 - 22 m2 with a healthy margin.

Question is, has anyone else done a full carbon body for this type of car and what surface area did you find you needed? Does it sound about right? I have ordered 20m of carbon which is 1250mm wide - so I'll have 25m2 to play with. Ideally this will only be used on visible parts only, so the inside of my rear diffuser for example, could be left in a carbon Biax as it wont be seen, but the underside will be in Twill as you will see it - if that makes sense.

My side panels will be monolithic sheets, but the bonnet and rear clam shell will have a core. I'm pretty sure it will be enough, I am just looking for a little encouragement, its expensive stuff, I'm not ready to do it yet, but starting to buy the stock now will reduce the cost impact further down the line, plus I can do some development work, I'll be infusing it, so I can trial my set up and methods.

Rob

There is a guy on Pistonheads (Andygtt IIRC is his user name) that re-built his Nobel M12 tub and body in carbon (also had a 700hp engine!), may be worth making contact with him.

He is on here as well.

Andrew Jackson made his whole body himself in his garage. Have a look at that!

Have a look here http://www.talkcomposites.com/9255/Westfield-parts-from-a-newbie

A friend of mine has now done most of his Westfield in carbon fibre, he made a terrific job of it but it takes quite a bit of time and effort.

Keith

That takes some commitment! Some great looking parts there. Would be good to know the final vs. initial car weight as well. Is he finished?

Always liked the idea of a sandwich composite monocoque seven chassis getting rid if the steel chassis. Iirc sculptural engineering (also larini / ballista makers) looked into doing it using racing yacht techniques.