A friends friend had a Nissan Skyline GTR.
He used the car mainly for time attack track days.
A Rocket bunny body kit were put on and all seams were puttied to make it flush.
Due to the extra finnish details each fender weight 5,5kg.
The weight issue was not the owners main concern. It was the fact that these fenders were one of a kind,
and there were risk of close contact at the tracks. He wanted to have the possibility to make new just in case.
Step one is to wax, tape and add edges around the entire fender.
Release agent, gelcoat, polyester and fibre glass.
I want the mould to be rock solid (or as close to it as possible).
As the polyester have hardened I add a line of spray foam.
When it has dried I cover it with more polyester and fibre glass.
I made separate parts in the mould for the flanges under the hood and behind the door.
If trying to make the mould in one piece the original part is most likely locked in there.
Its a special feeling to de moulding a part.
Here it clearly visible how the release agent affects the paint.
The release agent I use is water solvable but not water based.
The paint gets soft. If the de moulding didnt damage it the paint will harden after a couple of days.
In worst cases (normally) a new paint is required.
One of the fenders cracked during de moulding so I had to repair it.
Lots of work fixing the moulds.
Putty, sand, putty and sand again.
When Im happy with the result I spray paint them in full with top coat to bind all putty in place.
As I seem to be a rather talentless painter I got some hours polishing the moulds before Im happy.
All pieces of carbon fibre, peelply, vacuum bags etc is cut and tested before I get going.
Preferable the day before, so I can start laminating after a good nights sleep.
The nature of the fenders and the extra flange I added to reach the stock inner liner
resulted in a quite complicated shape. The owner told me he will have them painted and
that he wouldn't mind if the pattern of the fibres would turn out ugly, but its challenging to try making it perfect.
Even if it didnt need to be perfect, the woven fibres kept struggling all the way since they simply do not stretch.
In the last picture all layers of carbon is in place (3 layers), peelply, release film, breather and vacuum bag.
Two days later or 30 hours in room temperature (whichever happens first) its christmas.
I inserted my logo on the inside of the fenders.
Its clearly not perfection when it comes to pattern wise.
One or two air bubbles here and there too, but in general I must say Im pleased with the outcome.
If the owner changes his mind and want to just clear coat it,
there are some spots needed to be filled but in general it would work.
The owner clearly told me the weight was secondary.
Stiffness and the fact that we now had moulds was the main issue.
Therefore I made them slightly thicker than I would normally have done,
but they still weight 1300g so in total I have lightened his car with 8,4kg.
I made him a front end with included splitter too,
but I will tell you more about that later on.
