Interior Exterior
Q:
It is very cool and it does look good. I guess it's just that I know it's only a Toyota 4 cyl......you did a stellar job.
BTW: where did you get the CF tubes for the panel eliminator? Very innovative idea and looks great.
My source for CF tubing: http://www.graphitestore.com/. I used 5/8" OD, epoxied SS bolts into each end after cutting to fit. Worked great and is extremely light.
A:
would swapping out the black hoses for silicone or steel braided lines (for old schoolers) look better?
I like the clear engine cover. i wonder how clear acrylic louvered panels would look.
you must use a baby diaper to clean that thing to keep it from getting scratched, eh?
I made two sets of clear acrylic panels (I'll take a picture and post later). One set was molded, the other cut & glued to look like the OEM vents They were extremely tedious to fabricate. The molded version had too much distortion for my taste. The glued version - looked good, but I gave up after 5 hours of difficult cutting and glueing.
TAP Plastic http://www.tapplastics.com/ has special cleaners and towels for cleaning plastic - will not scratch.
A:
I have a question, would the lack of the slatted vents from the original cover reduce the venturi effect and 'pulling' heat away from the engine? Granted you have a rear panel eliminator, but for those who wont do that?
OTOH, it looks great. Might want to consider changing your oil cap to a billet Aluminium piece to finish the left side.
A:
What would be absolutely perfect solution would be to have slatted clear lexan strips to replace the corresponding black plastic pieces... just like the 2nd set that Miami mentioned above...
I'm having trouble finding a pic... but this is a close mockup... (white strips would be clear lexan)
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Thin Aluminum. Longer lasting
I love the azzof your car now.
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With the shape of the back of the car, I really doubt there is much 'pulling action' happening on the engine cover.
My guess is that not much air is moving over that area at all- except up from the engine (heat rising).
I recall from the Europa that they found putting vents in the engine cover of the S1/S2 would fill it with hot air, so the airflow would keep going over the car not hit the middle of the engine cover.
I couldn't see well how the clear cover was allowing hot air to exit, but it looked like it may have been toward the rear? I suppose clear slats would exit the hot air better, but may be not all that much.
I do think clear stats would look pretty neat and the clear cover show great, but I also think the way it came looks good.
mark
I have a question, would the lack of the slatted vents from the original cover reduce the venturi effect and 'pulling' heat away from the engine? Granted you have a rear panel eliminator, but for those who wont do that?
OTOH, it looks great. Might want to consider changing your oil cap to a billet Aluminium piece to finish the left side.
A:
With the shape of the back of the car, I really doubt there is much 'pulling action' happening on the engine cover.
My guess is that not much air is moving over that area at all- except up from the engine (heat rising).
I'll second that. I've watched leaves sit on my engine lid while going at very high speeds. There is not much air movement in that area at all.
A:
My source for CF tubing: http://www.graphitestore.com/. I used 5/8" OD, epoxied SS bolts into each end after cutting to fit. Worked great and is extremely light.
What did you use to cut the Graphite bars down to length?
A:
Nice man,
Thanks for the reply,
Love the post Great work..
Cany wait to get my Elise So I can Do some cool stuff Like you guys/Galz
Peace Troy
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What did you use to cut the Graphite bars down to length?
Use a dremel tool with a rotary cutoff. Cuts very easy.
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i like!!!
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What would be absolutely perfect solution would be to have slatted clear lexan strips to replace the corresponding black plastic pieces... just like the 2nd set that Miami mentioned above...
I'm having trouble finding a pic... but this is a close mockup... (white strips would be clear lexan)
I agree, that would look very nice. I can tell you from experience that cutting all the vents is difficult. Each vent is sized differently and has complex angles as it meets the fiberglass lid. The vents are trapezoid shaped and the edge that fits against the lid is angled also.
You also have the problem of how to mount the clear louvers. TAP Plastics sells clear adhesive, but it runs like super glue and ruins the clarity of the louver. One mistake and you're starting over again.
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Not the only one...
Definitely not the only one...
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Very nice! You are a much braver (and handier ) person than myself!
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Approx. 14 months ago Shinoo and I looked into producing clear plastic (heat resistant clear polymer) versions of OE parts. But the molds for them cost so much money that our cost for the set of 4 panels were quoted at almost $200/set at minimum of 200 sets. We tryed to make a simpler design of them but only lowered our cost by $20/set. We figured nobody wants to pay that kind of money for them and we dropped this project.
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Hmmm. I just imagined what smoked (80% - 90% light transmission) lexan would look like. IMHO that would look much better than purely clear.
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I wouldn't see a problem fetching $200 a set, or to allow a profit $400 or $600 a set (after all reportedly someone out there is apparantly willing to spend $5K on a muffler ) and I could see selling 10 or 20 of them but nowhere near 200. The parts cost nearly nothing to get produced in Malaysia but the molds get pricey. I'm involved with a product that cost 8 cents to get produced over there and here you get way way subpar quality on a bigger item for 38 cents! Same goes with another part over there. It costs us $150 each to get made here in crappy quality, and we have quotes for final product cost (and assuming better quality since everything else has been so far) of $8. They sell for $250 so you can see how the margin goes up with foreign vs US production. Unfortunatley we don't have the $40K for molds and then the minumum part run of a few thousand units, then shipping. Suddenly $8 turns into $100K. Sucks when you are sitting here looking at the profits but don't have the money to make the money. haha. That's life I guess.
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Approx. 14 months ago Shinoo and I looked into producing clear plastic (heat resistant clear polymer) versions of OE parts. But the molds for them cost so much money that our cost for the set of 4 panels were quoted at almost $200/set at minimum of 200 sets. We tryed to make a simpler design of them but only lowered our cost by $20/set. We figured nobody wants to pay that kind of money for them and we dropped this project.
Let us know if you guys decide to make them...I assume you mean clear plastic slats (4 segments on the rear lid). I don't think $200 is bad at all as long as you can use your current lid. I think it looks a lot better than the stock plastic. I really like how this guy's covers came out.
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Personally, I think it looks fantastic. Awesome job, can't wait to see more owners pushing the envelope!
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What thickness of acrylic panels did you use?
Also what were the specific dimensions of each
piece?