Since it is winter and I have nothing better to do than consider
oddities that I shouldn’t, for the last couple of weeks I have been
casually researching carbon-fiber technology. My main motivation
for this is irrelevant, but brought me to the idea of
re-engineering the air intake on the '91. My idea is to put two
cold air scoops on the front of the hood, and blow it directly into
the intakes. Of course, the intake filter housings need to be
modified too. I have a few questions regarding what I am
contemplating:
1.) Has anyone here tried this? If so, were you sucessful? I
realize a hood is a pretty large part, and I have never worked with
carbon-fiber before. I do plan some smaller projects first, but
those don’t require a foam inner core.
2.) I am wanting to form an entirely new hood from carbon- fiber.
Has anyone here worked with it? I am considering both a female
mold and a male plug for my form. What would you recommend?
3.) Is a composite hood able to take the temperatures, and if so,
what epoxies would you recommend? I am currently looking at West
Systems, but if there is something better, I would like to know.
I also intend for this custom hood to have vents that can cool
the engine quicker. This is the one area where I have an issue
with the original design. I used to own a Nissan 280 ZX that had a
single vent above the turbo charger, and even though I ran it easy
for the last 15 minutes before I ever shut the engine down, there
was still an incredible amount of heat that rose through the vent.
Why didn’t Jaguar vent the hood on the XJS? They had to know heat
in these cars was a problem, didn’t they???
BTW, if this project turns out well, I am considering an
improved air-dam in the front, with brake ducts and a better design
which actually exerts some downforce on the nose at lower speeds.
This is a bit more complicated, but certainly not impossible. As a
pilot, I do know something of airflow, but cannot really think of
any way to do this but via a speed variable wing. This could be
easily accomplished by tying into the speed sensor and having a
stepper motor, controlled by a driver circuit with an inter-lock
system to allieviate power drain. Any ideas?
Matt
'95 VDP, '91 XJS V12–
Trilithon
–Posted using Jag-lovers JagFORUM [forums.jag-lovers.org]–
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