Mr. G. Brettin's Slow Motion Leg Hump

Rusty

Talk about chicken chit welds. Looks like you used bubble gum.

You have to start somewhere. The more you weld. The better you get at it. You just need someone to show you a few methods on how to move the weld puddle to smooth out the weld. You pushing or pulling the puddle? And are you using a steady motion (looks steady to me with a nervous tick), or stop and go? Always practice on a piece of scrap before you weld your parts. Before you weld. Get yourself in a comfortable position. Hands supported. If not. It will show in your welds.

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浪人 - 殺し屋
"The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only"
http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

gbrettin

Basically you nailed it, I got nervous. I was going slow then I started moving fast and then slowed down again. I didn't work with the puddle. My pace was messed up.

I was pulling toward me.

Ghostvette

I think the welds look 100x better than what I could do. All I can reliable do with a torch is burn holes in something.

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2015 Magma Red 6MT Sport Tech/2012 Fairlady MB 6MT Base (RIP 08032018)https://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/370Z/Coupe/

BettyZ

Just like EW's azz!

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'14 MB Nismo | Boost Lab 6870 1.32 AR 553 HP / 471 ft.-lbs.
Betty Mods

madwi

So we dont clog up your amazing build thread too much:
West Michigan Summer Z Meetup

gbrettin

From IG @gbrettin

This Fast Intentions exhaust is going back on my 370z. guess we'll know what a V8 sounds like through Fast Intentions exhaust. But first i'm going to polish it out.

Custom pan being made for the Z, way out of my swim lane. Letting the pros knock that one out.

Time to knock my pin on hood mould out! (I like the British spelling for mould). Composite Envisions still cranking out shipments, thank you. Their site says they are taking all the Covid-19 precautions while working and more importantly, I trust them they are. Their support staff has been great to deal with when ever I have questions or need assistance! Highly recommend!

Bolts came in for the flywheel. Tightened them down to spec, 85ft/lb, and managed to punch my head with an 85ft/lb thump...

The "big" 4L80e is in the Z. It fits no problem . TBH, stock 7AT is larger and blows up at 450hp. This one can hold about 1500.

Final layer for pin on hood mould. My safety gear is for fighting all the Covids of 19. * Edit * ... It needs two more layers...

Last leg of the night and done. Made room for turbo piping. ... I'm beat.

Took off the harmonic balancer, put it on, pulled it off, put it on --- then got my timing marks set up on the harmonic balancer and my @motionraceworks timing pointer. Why didn't I do it the first time I put it on? Squirrel... Moving on... I notched out an area for turbo plumbing. Welds will go where the missing pinch welds are. As far as the pin on hood goes, I need to put two more layers of fiberglass on... Heh. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Two 3" boost actuated dumps came in. At 5/6 lbs of boost my car will bypass the Fast Intentions 2.5" exhaust and switch automatically to open dumps near the turbo. This is the best of both worlds, quiet exhaust when cruising and open hells gates when I'm into the gas.

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Picture heavy since I was working on my car and hood the last few days.

F.I. Exhaust and Loud Valve



Custom Pan










Composite Supplies!






Transmission Installation











Mould reinforcement







Making room for turbo piping


Caught my hand inbetween car frame and ratchet. Impact facilitated the hand crushing.

gbrettin

From IG @gbrettin
Good news! Popped my hood from the mould and it's going to be useable! I have a few problem areas but I honestly anticipated A LOT more. Everything can be repaired and I have the tools. Next mould will be a lot easier due to some of the pain points on this one.

Carved out pin holes and detects with the grinder. Now I can build it back up. ... A different night.

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Extra info:

The PVA that was used on the hood created a crazy static charge. When I popped the hood from the mould with my buddy, we got shocked... It felt like we got hit by 110. Actually, I should have gotten pictures of the PVA coming off because it was awesome to see it pull out of the mould.

Breaking the hood from the mould was pretty wild. Dave put a couple plastic pry tools in a corner while I went beast mode breaking the hood free from. when it released there was a huge * POP *. Not gonna lie, I was pumped off some anxiety when it released. I was expecting it to be WAY worse. I sent the same pictures to a guy I know that does carbon fiber and he wasn't put off from any of the pictures. He was like, "Yeah, that can be fixed in a few days no problem." Only issue I see is doing one corner. everything else can be blocked easy(ish). The edge of the mould will not be part of the hood. I just need to get it filled.

Cut extra flange off

madwi

This is a really great thread.

Hotrodz

^^^Agreed!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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Fast Intentions TT Installed and Tuned by Seb at SpecialtyZ 610whp 560tq:|Fast Intentions 3" TT-TDX|SpecialtyZ/Fast Intentions 72 Row Oil Cooler|SZ 6 Puck Clutch & Flywheel|3GsCustoms|Z1|Wavetrac|Hotchkis|Whiteline |Blitz|Fortune Auto 500|Fujimura|SPL|H&R|TK|TWM|RPM Rollbar|Sparco|Next Level Performance|TrackSpec|AeroFlow Dynamics|Pioneer|

gbrettin

IG @gbrettin:
The GOAT, @cjmotorsportsinc ,of fuel systems anodized my FPR. It looks awesome and I like how the Aeromotive is shadowed. ��

Man, this is going to be a lot of sanding.

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MAN, you have no idea how much that means to me that a few of you guys enjoy going through some of these pictures. They really are a PITA sometimes to get. Also, it’s a real kick in the nuts posting some of the fails that go hand and hand with being new at doing this. If seeing these pictures helps someone somehow then it's worth it. Having a cataloged path of completion is pretty cool to have on a build is pretty rad in the long run.

IG comments summed it up what is happening well. I see lots of sanding in my future. The good news is that I have some nice sanding blocks and can chew through the high spots easy. Worst case scenario for this mold is this: I don't do a beauty layer of carbon fiber later. I can do two layers of CF with the mould and then do a wet lay up over the vacuum infused part. I don't anticipate going that route but it's nice to have a plan B.

Maybe I should do a better job explaining what is happening in pictures... The perimeter of the mould had some dry fiberglass issues. I cut all that out previously with trusty death wheel. I filled in the pockets with fiberglass. The high up perimeter isn't terrible important because I can sand that back to the flange no issue. I just needed something to sand back for a transition from the mould.

The inner part of the mould was filled with tooling gel with a mixture of wax. The wax is needed so that the tooling gel can cure properly. Tooling gel is typically sealed off by the fiber glassing process and cures that way. Normally, people make a mould that doesn't suck so bad and can pop off a perfect mould. My inexperience shows you the long road.... yay...

Also, Charles/Phunk anodized my FPR. Me being me, I marred it up within a few minutes putting it on with a big *** crescent wrench.

Rusty

I really do enjoy reading on what you are doing. Brings back nightmares of me doing some of the this. Best of luck to you with this project.

__________________

浪人 - 殺し屋
"The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only"
http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

gbrettin

Started in on sanding the hood and let me tell you this, tooling gel gets hard AF! I started off with my 400grit sanding block and quickly went down to 60. You are looking at 3.5hrs of sanding. There's a LOT more sanding to go as well. I'm going to try doing some surgical hits with the death wheel tonight to reduce arm fatigue. I will also need to do a skim coat in almost all the areas and do another knockdown with fine grit. Eventually I will make it up to 1500 wet sanding. Last step is polishing, distant horizon at this rate. Like I said, this mould is workable and will take a lot of work.

If anyone is curious about the weight of the mould, the weight is around 75 -100lbs. lol

This Saturday I'm going to start in on making the cowl. I'll need to come up with a bone structure made out of wood. It will look similar to the cardboard structure I made previously but have widths as well as height. The wooden structure will give me stop points for my tungsten carbide sanding block.

Cardboard will sit around the wood structure and on top while it is sitting on the hood. This will allow the foam to take the shape of the hood, encapsulate the wood structure and then rise up to the top of the cardboard. Relief holes will be cut into the top of the cardboard so that the expanding foam doesn't bust through like the Kool-aid man.

The cowl needs to come in close to perfection. I'm glad I started with my hood and have worked through all the repairs. I've seen with my own eyes and connected the dots why certain aspects went well and other items turned out like garbage.

Most important of all, I've always wanted to make a meaningful composite part stretching myself into new areas. Honestly, I can't suggest starting on a hood. Personally, I go head first into projects so it is what it is; however, I think that's been well f*cking established how far I'll go off the beaten path.

Good thing I have the hood because I am currently waiting on my order of wastegates, blow off valves, couplers and v-bands. The wastegates, BOV and couplers are all VSRacing. VSRacing recently had a design change and look REALLY nice. The shop bought a few for a twin turbo sandrail and was able to inspect them before I ordered. Vband clamps... That has got to be one of the biggest kicks to the balls. Ordering a handful of clamps was a rude awakening.

Guess my post is a little bit wordy today yet needed. Hopefully you can see the same path forward as I'm seeing.

madwi

When you get good at sanding try your hand at finishing a plastic injection mold for clear plastic part like a headlight. I never had the patience to sit there but the guys would sand with 220 and work up to a finish with Charmin toilet paper, and it had to be charmin.

gbrettin

I have a buddy that polished metal die sets for injection moulding. He said that the metal had to be absolutely mirror finish perfect and would spend weeks sanding to absurd high number using diamond paper. THAT would be terrible. He said that he would find flaws for some reason or another late in the process and need to kick the part back to milling. That meant starting over.

JLarson

Less text, more boost noises!!

Looking good man. Cool to read about a different kind of fab project than normal.

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2014 370z Touring Sport Magma Red MT // BP Single Turbo 6467 // 63mm TB's // Z1 Ported Upper Mani // RJM Pedal // Zspeed Stage 3 Clutch // 526 WHP, 451 WTQ
2006 350z (Sold) // 1990 300zx (Sold) // 1985 300zx 2+2 (Sold)