How I made my forged carbon rad brackets

The first thing I did when creating my part was research. to be honest, I had no prior experience working with raw materials like this and creating something. my experience and knowledge goes as far as sanding carbon down and reapplying epoxy to it. I spent countless hours on the internet looking up everything I needed to know from WHAT IS CARBON FIBER to HOW TO MAKE FORGED CARBON PARTS. Once I was confident enough that I had enough knowledge and resources ready, I started…

Once I figured out how to make the brackets the next step was to get the supplies. I had to find products to buy of course, so here I am again spending hours looking for products. Well, I decided the best product for what I was doing, and the obvious choice was Easy Composites. With Easy Composites, I was able to use their company website as a one stop shop since they had all the resources I needed from how to make the mold, the products I needed to create the final product. So yeah, they had everything. the next thing I needed to actually do was find a calculator to do the math for how many of parts ‘A’ and how many of parts ‘B’ I needed because I’m not great with math so that pretty much took care of all of that for me. Once all those materials did show up, I realize that I didn’t have anywhere to create the molds themselves. I didn’t have the plastic or polypropylene that was shown in their videos. So, here comes the research… I had to find somewhere that had it that also wouldn’t break the bank. I found The Plastic People online and they sold polypropylene sheets in any size you needed, and they were priced fairly well, especially for the amount of plastic I actually bought. Of course, these sheets were reusable, so it was convenient for creating multiple parts that I wanted to make without having to buy more. So that was great. I ended up also buying a single big polypropylene sheet that was big enough to cover the base of my work table, which was where I was making everything.

            So now I have all the parts, I have the polypropylene, I have the part I want to make, I have the materials to make the mold, now I got a put it all together. For making the mold, I started out by making a 5 x 5 x 5 box with the polypropylene sheets. Creating the mold for the part I wanted, I had to make sure I had smooth out the part and clean the surface of any contaminants. Once the original part was prepped nicely, I essentially took plasticine and covered one of the side of the brackets, and smoothed the sides of the plasticine with a small angle to ensure the mold, or final part wont mechanically lock itself in the A side of the mold. I placed that into the cavity ensuring there was enough space around the sides so the mold wouldn’t crumble under compression. After that, I had to figure out how much TC80 I needed to mix and fill the cavity. I wasn’t sure how to do this, so I googled it and found HANDY CALCULATOR. TC80 requires a 100:6 ‘by weight’ so for my 5x5x5 mix of epoxy to hardener. I needed THIS MUCH. Once that’s mixed, I poured it into the cavity and let it cure for 24 hours. A side of the mold is now done, just need to turn it over and prep it. To get ready for the B side I had to clean the surface of the A side. I pulled off the polypropylene sheets and pulled out the plasticine from the mold and started cleaning it. Now that the mold surface is clean, I used a mold release wax to ensure when I poured in more TC80, the two surfaces wouldn’t bond together. I put the poly propylene sheets back on the sides of the mold and created another cavity so I could pour the TC80 to create the B side. Poured, cured, both sides separated, bracket removed, and now I have a complete and perfect 2 piece mold of my OEM bracket. With the mold complete, now I needed to use it. I had to figure out the density of the OEM bracket. Once I got that, I had to then use an equation to come up with the final weight. With the projected weight of the final product, I was able figure out how much carbon and epoxy I had to use. Keep in mind all these numbers are being written down as I go so I can look back and make corrections if possible (in case I had too much resin or carbon). What I mean is, for a 32G part out the mold, I needed a 60:40 ratio of carbon to resin. I Separated the amount of carbon I needed (60% of the final weight being, 19.2G) into a mixing cup to have ready. Then for the 40% of resin, the resin needed to be mixed in a 100:30 ‘by weight’. Its confusing. After the first bracket did come out, I decided the amount of resin I used didn’t feel like enough, so I mixed an extra 25% which was plenty. Hopefully my attached notes will help visualize it. Anyway, I used a calculator for this also, saved me time and a headache. I’m not great at math. The molds were prepped by putting a few coats of mold release wax to each surface. Once I got all my numbers and the mold surfaces prepped, I went ahead and threw on some gloves, got my mixing cups ready, and I started mixing. After a few minutes of mixing the resin thoroughly, I started by applying light coat of resin to the female side of the mold and started applying the carbon on top of that and stippled it in with a brush wetting out the fibers. Once each layer of carbon was wet, I applied more until all, but a small amount of carbon was left, then applied the same process to the male aside of the mold and being sure to fill the detailed spots like ridges in carbon to ensure a nice even finish. After all the carbon is placed and there’s no more resin to apply, I put the molds together and used the clamps to close and compress them. The compression part was done slowly, ensuring each side was compressed evenly over the span of 10 minutes. Don’t be alarmed when the resin starts finding its way out the edges of the mold, that’s normal.   

The first attempt came out pretty rough just because it was obviously my first time actually making something AND using all these new materials I’ve never experienced. Still to be fair, it came out amazing to my surprise. On top of that, I actually put the it on my car and I’ve driving around with it for about 1000 miles and there was nothing wrong with it. Its very strong and it is doing its job. It came out to be a third of the original weight, so that was actually really exciting and well, I made one side I did a whole process and I realize well Now I need to make the other side. Of course, the brackets unfortunately are different from the left and right. But they are exactly the same, just pointed in a different direction so I just repeated the entire process. Creating the mold for the second bracket was actually way easier and the raw finish of the bracket came out way better from the mold. So that was really cool. So, I have the left and right side bracket now I need to figure out a way to clear them and make them look glossy like you typically see carbon fiber, and Easy Composites was there for that. Using Easy Composites XCR Epoxy Coating Resin, I was very easily able to achieve that very nice glossy finish on my first attempt, so I didn’t waste too much epoxy. Learning how to use the XCR was quick, and painless because well, like I said Easy Composites had a very good tutorial on their site and extremely good detailed YouTube video. Using their products correctly the way they were supposed to be used and getting the results that I was supposed to get was almost flawless. So BIG kudos to easy composites for being great.

Now I have these two molds that I created just to make parts for my own car, I figured I could make more for others. At the same time, I could get some practice with the whole process. At this point I’m not even looking at my notes to make them. To be fair I do have the numbers memorized but the brackets are still coming out great. I have faith in the process.  else makes them genuine forged carbon fiber radiator brackets which is really cool because there isn’t a massive aftermarket for the Evo 4 to 6 so I can definitely say I created a brand new original part for our cars, which I hope you all enjoy. I have plans for more so keep an eye out… I might even have something else in the works…

The cost for all this was a decent amount because of unexpected costs like tools. I mainly didn’t have the wood I needed to put on the mold so that when I clamped it down it could clamp down evenly. I also didn’t have the clamps themselves. Of course, I didn’t have any of the raw materials which were TC80 Tool Casting Epoxy and Hardener, XCR Epoxy Coating Resin, Forge Carbon Fiber Development Kit. Easy Composites has all of that. I was able to get some stuff on amazon to minimize costs like mixing cups, wood blocks, sand paper. The TC80 needed pretty big mixing cups as well. I only had 1 L cups, so they weren’t big enough. Also cant forget the Polypropylene sheets from The Plastic People. The consumables did add up even though they were small costs. Things like mixing sticks, gloves, face masks for sanding, cups. Easy Composites was for sure a good bang for buck, I mean you have a good amount of material left over depending on what you make. Of course, with the mold making you can reused the molds until they start to weaken from the compression and heat. There is a list below of everything I needed for this project. 

So, would I do it again? Absolutely I’m actually currently in the process of making more radiator brackets for the Evo VIII/IX, Nissan skyline GTR and I’m looking at making some for other cars. These brackets are fairly easy to make, and I’ll say it now, I don’t think there is a whole lot of these being made. I enjoy making these things, it gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride because I created something that not only wasn’t made before, but I’ve never made anything, so this was actually really cool. The gratification of creating something that is not only cool but also is functional and looks great is wonderful. I do plan on making more interior parts for the Evo VI/V/VI because that’s what I have, and I think forged carbon looks absolutely amazing.