Carbon fibre bling engine cover

[Brendonian]

I've decided to ditch the fibreglass engine cover, and try to make the engine bay look reasonably tidy through the glass rear hatch. That's quite a goal considering how ugly the N/A engine bay is.

I've made a few minor changes, and fitted the BOE induction kit, and for my next trick, I'm installing the front engine cover from a V6 Exige, but skinning it with carbon fibre.

A few clips showing my progress so far:

http://myeye.watch/brendan_2016_04_30_11_16_29
http://myeye.watch/brendan_2016_04_30_11_39_21
http://myeye.watch/brendan_2016_04_30_14_30_36

[Brendonian]

It's never going to look pretty, but I just think there's something dishonest about the standard engine cover. It sort of tries to hint at being the engine without looking at all functional.

[JayEmm]

Wow, I've never seen the NA engine bay before. That looks radically different to the later items.

The Carbon thing is looking very good, will be even better when you get it down from the ceiling

[C8RKH]

What fittings did you need. I could live with that easily and the carbon effect looks good. Might have to scout out a real carbon one

 

[Brendonian]

Ah, now I'm posting circular links in the forums

Fitting is discussed in this thread:

I'm using real carbon on mine, but I guess you mean to find a part actually made only from carbon, rather than just skinned.

My carbon skinning effort has gone a bit wrong at the final stage. I'm looking into a solution, but if you can get a "proper" one for reasonable money, that would certainly save a lot of work.

[21gg]

Whats 'gone wrong' with it?

 

Gav

[Brendonian]

I followed the guide to the best of my ability, and reached the point where I had finished applying the layers of clear resin. Around 30 hours later, the resin seemed to be fairly well cured, but when I held it for a few seconds, my hand would leave a slight imprint in the surface. Thinking that the curing process was going just a little slow, I thought a bit of heat might help things along a bit. I wanted to test-fit the panel above my engine anyway, so I fitted it, and used the car normally today. 

It now looks to me like the resin has pulled away from the carbon sheet in places, leaving cloudy whitish patches.

I don't know whether it was too soon for that heat, or if I should have bought the high temperature kit, or maybe the problem could be caused by the resin mix ratio being off.

[ramjet]

I'd suggest mix ratio, but my knowledge of fibreglassing issues can be written on the head of a pin.  

Or bonding to the original material?

[C8RKH]

Thanks Brendon. Currently looking for a carbon part and will let you know what I find too. I'm sure removing the big cover will assist with heat dissipation in the engine bay.

[Brendonian]

I'm now quite satisfied that a few changes in the engine bay can make it look quite decent through the rear hatch. The biggest downside to removing the original engine cover is the view in the rear view mirror.

[Brendonian]

To give you an idea of where it's heading. I'm thinking of adding the "Lotus Performance" badge from the standard engine cover onto the sloping part of the Exige cover.

I'd also really like to replace the fat breather pipe that runs back to the inlet plenum with a nice braided steel item, but I have no idea what kind is needed.

I made a start on polishing the throttle body, which looks better already, but needs more work.

Finally, I'm considering getting the inlet plenum painted. I think a crackle finish black would look quite good.

[C8RKH]

Ok. Looks like Komotec make the carbon covers. Hmmmmmm.......

[Brendonian]

They only list them as a pair. I wonder if they would do you a price for the front cover only.

[C8RKH]

HKFEVER does them individually. Change all my hoses and leads to red ones too. Yummy. Look like a right Chav mobile

[Danelaw]

I looked at CF covers late last night and found a vendor in the states who said they used high temp CF (as per Reverie do apparently) as it was in the engine compartment, but in any event the appearance would change as the colour turns to 'olive' with exposure to temperature.

I found this a bit off-putting. Not least because being a man I have a restricted colour range I can comprehend. I'm guessing they mean green, as it wouldn't be worth mentioning if they were thinking of a black olive. This may be OK with some car colours, but wasn't what I'd want for mine if I'd spent a small fortune on a piece of CF for the engine bay.

PS. Brendan- apologies I had seen your post. It probably even started me thinking about this again but it's been an odd week so somehow I thought I was starting being original with my similar post!

 

[Brendonian]

Ha, no worries Danelaw. I was mildly frustrated by the lack of interest in my post. Grumpy sod, ain't I?

C8RKH, can you post a pic of your engine bay with the chavvy pipes, please? I'm interested to see what other stuff I can think about changing.

[Danelaw]

I've been pondering whether a chavvy gold anodised aluminium oil filler cap might improve the look by drawing the eye from the wiring. There's one on feabay for around £4 from china so worth a punt, but I wonder if it will be a cheap imitation of the quality product it purports to be...  I quite fancy gold as it fits well with the blue in my car.

[Brendonian]

You'd have to follow through with gold heat shields etc!

An aluminium oil cap would weigh a lot more than the plastic one!

 

[Danelaw]

Yes that does worry me and breaks my rule to only replace with lighter better parts...

[Brendonian]

Well, I tried sanding my cover back, but I'm sure the bubbles are actually between the carbon and the resin. It's not possible to fix.

Therefore, I have just ordered a replacement front engine cover from HKFever. 

[C8RKH]

Great news, well, if you know what I mean.

Can you give a ball park price?  Failing carbon I may just get a used one and get it painted red to match the car...

[Brendonian]

18 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

Great news, well, if you know what I mean.

Can you give a ball park price?  Failing carbon I may just get a used one and get it painted red to match the car...

You have a PM. Painted red should look pretty good, and will be much cheaper than carbon.

BTW, you didn't respond to my request for pictures of your engine bay with your replacement pipes!

[C8RKH]

Sorry, missed that. Think you miss-read, I was day dreaming how good it would look IF I did the red pipes. Not yet done, sorry if that was not clear.

[Brendonian]

Ah, gotcha!

[Danelaw]

33 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

Sorry, missed that. Think you miss-read, I was day dreaming how good it would look IF I did the red pipes. Not yet done, sorry if that was not clear.

You could wrap a self-sealing silicone tape around your pipes and/or wiring. This comes in different colours and is heat proof to good temperatures.