DIY: Carbon Fiber Fender Vents/Mold Making

Builds
21

famous last words: “this will be my only mod, with the exception of maybe wheels”

will start that thread soon i guess. :deadhorse2:

yeah, first mold is a bust, mainly because it wasn’t 100% perfect due to my inexperience. Plus, the rubber was expensive (over $100 for that single pour) and i still needed to do the passanger side vent. The 2nd mold is much cheaper, ~$30 for both passanger and driver side molds.

Everything price wise is jacked up for Rovers…so a modest $300 for a set wouldn’t be out of the question. Carbon Fiber interior Trim is about $7K… so by comparison it doesn’t seem bad.

mold release. These are just overlays. I sacraficed a single set of OEM parts for the molding process. They are just slip-on and adhere. Nothing needs to come off the truck to put these on.

22

i figured as much.
are the front and rear the same? or 4 separate parts?

23

easier to sell them that way…people don’t like spending extra money and doing extra work for the same end result.

all 4 are seperate…and different from eachother. I had to make 4 molds.

24

if i had to guess… (knowing how lotus guys were)

they would rather buy a replacement part than deal with adhering the overlays.
In fact, if you do intend to sell, i would recommend against selling them as overlays, and only selling completed parts.

If people want overlays, they can contact you for a special offer.

25

Impressive work! Can’t wait to see what they look like installed.

26

personally, that’s the way i would do it for myself. But these pieces literally snap on because the fit is so tight. Also, the overlay wraps 100% around the corners so it looks like a solid piece. The “adhesive” would likely be a couple drops of silicon to make them more difficult to remove.

I guess when i think of overlays, people tend to think of “pull and peel” with nasty edges and it looks like a sticker

The main problem with doing replacement pieces…i would need to purchase OEM parts, because the mounting tabs can’t be easily replaced with a single layer CF (they are multi dimensional)

i’ll try taking a picture shortly with them on…they just wont be clear coated.

EDIT: I think i know what you meant…yeah, i could use my current process and just bond them to the OEM pieces myself.

27

do a core charge on the parts you sell… I really think you would have better sales.

28

i dont know, I would have to see them installed. when you left the house I was thinking about it and thought “why not just get them color matched to the paint?”

29

Looking great as usual.

Good stuff.

30

pics to show fit, NOT FINISHED
These will appear more black once they are clear coated.

because that’s easy and already done by others. I wanted to do something a bit different.

31

look really nice.

32

Now that you have on the rover, it looks good. I dont like the marker light…

33

oh yeah,…forgot…that’ll be changed too.

34

Looks Great Josh, I actually prefer the matte look.

I’ve never really like the look of everything on a car being color matched, it usually ends up looking weird, makes the car lack contrast or something.

The change is subtle, and looks factory - which is awesome.

35

that looks really good… and if i didnt see all the screwups :wink: it would have said that you made it look too easy. :slight_smile:

Brian

36

It needs a subtle, embossed, LAFENGAS logo going up the side. :tup: