Carbon fiber dash . Pics and weight added

Picked up the new Dash today going to have a hard time painting over the nice looking carbon fiber look

4 lb 11 oz.

Are there UV inhibitors in the binder?
If so I would not paint it, if not maybe use a UV inhibitor clear Poly.

Looks nice

. I have no idea I guess that would have been a good question I can find out though..

Does this dash replace the whole dash and the dash pad ? Nice looking piece for sure. Who is making/supplying these ? Price ???

thanks

Looks better than my pvc plastic wannabe carbon dash.

The dash is made here locally buy a company called Unlimited fiberglass.. the cost I'm not sure you might have to call them to find out yes it is a direct replacement for the entire Dash..

Unpainted I don't think it helps the story of "it's just a old Dodge with a truck motor, that weighs about 3100lbs"

price is listed in their catalog.......

not sure if this is it or not...

Dash Board, Carbon, Clear Gel Coat for the "Carbon Look"
67-69 Dart Fiberglass Dash Board (ups ok)

Come on ....spill the beans ON THE PRICE

That's Nice looking

Same piece Chris was selling a few years back...

How much does the steel dash weigh empty?
Doug

thanks I will check it out

. This is a cut and paste from their website

It would be cool if the vendors start modifying their molds so Racepaks or the new Holley Pro Dash will bolt on. Here is a picture of the new Pro Dash compared to a stock A body cluster. I can't quite tell from your picture if the Pro Dash would fit on the carbon dash or not. If it didn't fit it wouldn't take much reshaping for the vendor to get it to fit. If I was making glass parts that is how I'd sell stuff but could just be me.

That's a beauty. I don't know if I could paint over it, myself.

Wow .... how this market has changed ! .... and the desire for that carbon fiber look! And people used to beat me up on a 20$ price difference on my hood with custom bracing !! I even went so far as aluminum and MAG tubing .... now that was extra !

Almost TWICE THE MONEY than a regular FG dash and not that much of a weight savings. There was a biz OVER THERE that was EXCLUSIVELY in the CF biz and I had a chat or two with him about that market.

He said .... CF is to guys ... what diamonds are to chicks ! ..

GOOD for UNLIMITED PRODUCTS if they can capitalize on that !!!

Actually they have, just not for Mopars....

Racepak:
http://classicdash.com/racepak/

Holley
http://classicdash.com/holley-dashes/

When I built a mold and a CF hood for my car
I painted but if you want the CF look and its
in the sun all the time.. shoot it with a
quality clear coat.. I used PPG.. its made to
be in the sun light

I guess it's whatever the market will bear I'm willing to pay the price if it's something that I need and something that will work the way it's supposed to..

Mr P ..... I totally agree ! .... NO sarcasm meant here ! .... I in fact have some OEM CF radio panel trim in my 05 CarrotVan and it sure looks good.

NO guessing about it WD ..... and I truly meant GOOD FOR THEM ! .... honestly - I’ve never done any CF work and based on my few convos with people who have - THEY CAN HAVE IT ! .... it’s a PITA to work with ... the cost of materials, the minimal weight saving for the huge dollars spent AND from what I’ve heard reports of - other than SOME of the funny car bodies and a select few drag-race parts - It’s not laid up or vacuum bagged correctly for the maximum weight saving.

Stuff done 110% right ? Contact any F1 team.

Looks good Shiloh!

I have a glass one in the Duster (real light) I love it because it covers all the bars and junk next to the fire wall.

Have you fit it in the car yet?

Unlimited used to be junk. Not any longer. Most of their stuff is high quality.

not yet but it will be fine..I'm sure

I have made carbon parts for airplanes that doubled in weight when I painted them. If you bag them right and get good vacuum, they are uber light. 3 layers of carbon, part weighed 7 oz, painted was over a pound, good for 200 MPH...

ast .... so how do well made CF aircraft parts compare - weight wise - to nicely made FRP parts ? How about the diff in cost ? ...

Cost of materials is 30-50% more than pure bidirectional e-glass if I use the minimum layers of carbon and have double the glass layers, biggest thing is building molds...I found that weight was double or more with straight glass just because I could use way less material with carbon. I used an e-glass cloth layer between the layers of carbon which helped save cost and the carbon was so much stiffer than glass when it is separated with layers glass, glass parts were .040-.125 thick, carbon .020-.030 with a layer of glass in between the carbon. These were not overly large parts, just farings but weight adds up quickly on an aircraft. Tim

Bagging made a huge difference in weight vs just a gel coated wet layup with chopped matt or heavy glass cloth to get the same stiffness.

Speculation or truth?
I picked up a couple glass ones when he was selling them.

Also, its listed as 67-69, but should fit 70-72 as well, no?

be interested to see how it fits up

My 62 Lancer hood, CF/Kevlar/epoxy, with a 1/4" DivinyCell Core weighs 11 lbs. A first run of same hood had a vacuum pump failure during lay up, ended up weighing approx 14 lbs. Guy who bought it as a "second" was happy.

http://www.diabgroup.com/en-GB/Products-and-services/Core-Material/Divinycell-H

. I just seen one that was put into a 69 Dodge Dart it was fiberglass but the same mode. It fit nicely

I saw the same one when I went out to the garage. I got mine from
Chris.

So ast ... jsta as a comparision - what should a FRP one weigh if built with the same craftsmanship as this CF one?

very nice piece !!!

If one is marketing a CF hybrid item , for cost saving, I understand the E glass internal layer, but the cost saving IMO for a personal use item, in the big picture, is not significant. I use Kevlar as a bulk internal layer in addition to its other well known attributes.

It wont be as stiff...and therefore would require more structure and thus more weight to be equivalent to a carbon/epoxy based matrix. Testing is the only way to make a legitimate comparison. Stiffness is the key with carbon, kevlar resists penetration, glass cloth is strong but lacks stiffness compared to the other 2 fibers. 100% of the load in a composite structure goes through the stiffest fiber until it fails, then the load transfers to the next stiffest fiber type. So carbon is the stiffest, then aramids like kevlar, then glass. If you layup just carbon, you are wasting material, you create a box beam like structure if you fill with glass or Kevlar. The separation of layers allows the structure to maintain sufficient stiffness with reduced costs vs. pure carbon.

Unidirectional fibers also lose about 95% of their stiffness when you get 3-4 degrees away from perpendicular to the fiber flow, that is one reason to use a multi directional cloth and layer in 90/60/45/30 degree increments or some variation, meaning don't layup everything in the same direction.

Excess resin also adds weight but doesn't add anything significant to the structure, that is why they vacuum bag, to get rid of excess resin and VOC's. Autoclaves, do more of the same as bagging.

When using Kevlar, it makes it very hard to cut the matrix, that is why i use glass. Kevlar is terrible on scissors and saws. If you throw titanium fibers into the matrix, it is even worse, you will need to cut with a water jet or laser.

Doing some test fitting and trimming so far seems to fit fairly nice

A few picks

Looking good Shiloh! Did you happen to weigh the old dash?

.. yes mine weighed 23.8oz lb. With upper and lower dash pads.. the new setup in the car will probably be 6 lb that includes the new racepak Dash

Good info, thank you. Are you going to continue to run your tach or any other gauges aside from the Racepak dash?

As of right now I'm going to run the tack... I'm not 100% sure on the other gauges yet

Tell us about your steering column.

Mike

It's a Chassis Works steering column kit.. basically cut to length and weld together.. it saves a bunch of weight and cost around two hundred bucks..

Thanks!
Mike

Thank you for all the information and pictures! The dash in my Valiant has been hacked and chopped on so much I think a dash like this will be the next big project on it.

Looks killer is the flat area for the gauges vertical or angled cant tell from the pics and could you measure it wording how large of a gauge it will hold.

WD 40
That dash looks dashing.
That's a good amount of weight loss that got my radar going.

Good luck moving forward which should be fairly easier now that you've got 16 lbs less to haul.
Go get 'em.

It's so purty!! Almost would be hesitant to cut the race pak dash hole

let's just say you have inspired me.. in all reality a stock Dash is closer to 30 lb... but my current Dash had already been on a pretty decent diet. I think this is going to be just shy of 20 lb gross after I got rid of some more weight that was hanging around in that area

I haven't forgot about you I just haven't had the opportunity to get out there and take those measurements for you hopefully over the weekend I can get back at it

The fit and finish is done on the dash now but apparently there was a gopher that got into the garage..

Swiss Cheese Mouse?

. Yeah good point I bet you that's what it was

Thank you.
If it wasn't that your car bites like a pit bull, I would have said to throw that 20-30 lbs in the trunk.
As far as paint, being that you are going to run a race pac and other various gauges on the board, I'd keep the dash as it is....Though , have you checked if the cross fibers of the dash top give off a distracting reflection from the windshield?

If anything, I'd paint the top portion a matte/flat black and leave the face in the natural fibers.

We have talked extensively regarding glare.. unfortunately. Kevin at unlimited worked us a special deal I kind of need to run it the way it is kind of as a show and tell. I hope you know what I mean.. at some point it may get painted..

Totally get it.
It is a nice piece and even nicer that it weighs close to nothing for its size.
I guess you have to run longer grounds and such to the side kick panels now that you can't ground things to the dash anymore.

Sorry it took so long for me to get back with the measurements

Few more

The top section is about 5 in lower section is approximately 2.5 inches.. and yes it has the basic shape of the original Dash..

Thanks for getting the measurements.Looks killer