Question about carbon fiber pieces

[Retired Chief]

I often have projects going on in my garage so my Z sometimes spends days or even weeks parked in the driveway exposed to the elements. I'm considering a CF front lip and CF side skirts and I do not plan to paint them. A guy I work with said in a matter of months, the sun can wreak havoc on unprotected CF parts. Any truth to this? Is there anything I can do to them, maybe a clear coat, to protect them? I want to keep the look of the CF so covering it with paint is not an option.

[evildky]

most cf parts get painted or clear coated, most CF hoods come clear coated, bta motorsports sells theirs unprotected as they are intended for race applications where people want to paont them

if you bought standard off the shelp cf parts they most likley came with a clear coat already ont hem, if nto any standard automotive clear coat will do

[Sentientbydesign]

most cf parts get painted or clear coated, most CF hoods come clear coated, bta motorsports sells theirs unprotected as they are intended for race applications where people want to paont them

if you bought standard off the shelp cf parts they most likley came with a clear coat already ont hem, if nto any standard automotive clear coat will do

Not true.

UV and epoxy don't go well together. A standard clear coat will generally protect the CF short term, but all of those CF hoods you see that are yellow and oxidized are from UV exposure.

I believe Chevy has a ridiculously expensive paint additive (10s of thousands per gallon) that they use in the clearcoat for the CF on one of the Vettes.

[BrianHarte]

It is very important to CLEAR COAT your CF parts. Most do NOT come coated.There are many reasons for this, but it is very important to clear coat a CF part that you will use everyday on your car.

[evildky]

maybe the amount of sun in CA wear on the CF more quickly, seems most of the ricers wreck and ruin their hoods long before the sun gets them in KY

[Sentientbydesign]

maybe the amount of sun in CA wear on the CF more quickly, seems most of the ricers wreck and ruin their hoods long before the sun gets them in KY

But we ALL know that CA is ricer capital of the world!!!

Actually, when I went to Hawaii last year, it looked like CA did 3-5 years ago. Everybody with a wing, fart can, and gay emblems everywhere.

[tchurch]

i have had a cf hood on my car for a couple years now and the clear coat has protected it through rain snow and sun, there are no spots on it or anything and the hood looks brand new

[sluggoZ]

What brand name? BTW good thread....anyone else who would want to chime in on your actual cf experience?

Also...another issue...cf weaves are different from various manufacturers.

[Retired Chief]

I’m still looking. I’ve been doing some research on CF and have learned a lot about true CF and the fake stuff. This is a copy and paste from another site. Jet Pilot is the original author. I’ve left some of the original content out to shorten it. It’s long but still a good read if you’re considering CF.

"We have all seen carbon fiber in the auto industry used to construct body panels, and other parts for tuner and race cars. But did you know that the carbon fiber used on inexpensive tuner car parts has little to do with that used on jet fighters and race cars.

…The carbon fibers used to create the interwoven CF fabric comes from 2 very different sources and processed in 2 distinctly different ways. One process makes a very high quality high tensile strength fiber and the other process more flexible CF with less tensile strength.

The high quality high tensile strength CF get’s made into pre-preg CF sheets. This product is often called “dry carbon”. The sheets of woven fiber are already impregnated with an appropriate amount of resin to cure the product into a molded form when heated. Pre-preg creates an incredibly strong and lightweight product.

The process for making a pre-preg CF part is to apply pre-preg CF into a mold. The mold is then vacuum bagged to remove all air bubbles from the laminated piece, and then placed in an autoclave and heated to harden the CF.

What we generally see in the auto industry are CF reinforced fiberglass pieces which is simply a fiberglass part being covered in a veneer of carbon fiber cloth and then a resin applied to harden the laminate. Low modulus carbon fiber does not come pre-impregnated with resin. It comes like a textile sheet on a roll. It is dry. The carbon fiber in this case is not structural. The fiberglass and polyester resin are the supporting structure. The CF is simply a covering for visual reasons. The resins used to cure the fiberglass are heavy and remove any weight savings from using CF in the first place.

How can you tell pre-preg CF from the fake? That’s easy. A dry CF hood for a 350Z will cost you approx $2000. A CF veneer hood will cost you about $500. The pre-preg CF has a low gloss hazy finish. The veneer hood will have a high gloss finish. It is true that a pre-preg CF can be finished with an automotive clear coat to make it look shiny, but they usually aren’t. A pre-preg CF piece will often weigh ¼ of what the fiberglass and CF hood weigh. Yeah… ¼ That’s how light it is!

Who needs pre-preg CF? Well no one except for true competitive race cars. It’s cost is prohibitive for anyone except Le Mans or Formula 1 cars for the few seconds you can shave from a lap time from using pre-preg CF pieces. Is it baller status? Damn Straight!"

[Sentientbydesign]

$2000 seems excessive for a dry CF hood. I'm sure companies will charge that, but only because they want to, not because it's necessary. Tooling for dry CF is definitely more expensive as is the autoclave, but the material itself isn't horribly expensive.