Carbon fiber car parts

The thing that got me interested in engineering and manufacturing was CARS!!! HOT RODS!!! I was into classic muscle cars in high school, owned a '66 Chevy Pick-up that enabled me to take part in the rite of passage which is doing a burn-out anytime you leave school. After high school the sport-compact scene was what it was all about and eventually I got over my fear of cars with computers in them and got a Honda Civic. Here are some carbon fiber parts I made for it. The tubes are made from pre-preg & the naca duct was done with a VARTM method.

Straight & curved 3" id tubing.

Programming of the smaller tool. I had to include this photo because it got me a job at Applied Aerospace when I showed it to one of their employees who knew they were hiring a programmer.

I Machined the molds on the CNCs in my machine shop class.

Here are the 2 tools in use. With the VARTM (Vaccum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding) method you lay down your dry plys then seal a vaccum bag over them & compact them while they're still dry. Next mix up your resin & let the vaccum draw it into the layup through a hose which passes through your bag.

Here's a part straight out of the mold, nice gloss.