[Bowtie70ss]

Has anyone seen the Year One Bandit car with the LS7?

I am doing a LS2 swap in my 70 Chevelle and I want to make a air cleaner/ air box to retain the coolest option ever offered on a car...Functional Cowl Induction. It is made of some kind of plastic. I have a original cowl induction air cleaner with a spacer and a flange/seal

that I can use for the mold or that I could add to. I don't really want to just weld something up I want it to look good like the one on the Trans Am.I also have the Cadillac CTS-v engine cover and it just clips onto the fuel rails. If I could get it done then there might be a market for the 70-72 guys. I haven't contacted Year One yet maybe I can do that to get some build info?

 

[pist0lpete]

I have always wanted to do this on my 67 as well. I have seen it done by a few others but none were a clean molded plastic design like the BAN1 cars have.

 

[stealth71]

Are you sure that one is molded plastic and not textured sheet metal? Some of the ceramic coatings go on thick like that.

Here is one example: http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-hybrids/643850-chevelle-cowl-induction.html

 

[pist0lpete]

Good point stealth that would be a pretty complicated plastic part to mold. I have looked on yearone's site before and and I do know that they do not offer them for sale.

 

[tunedbytad]

man that is slick and stealth.
looks OEM

 

[INTMD8]

You could probably make it out of fiberglass starting with a hand carved piece of styrofoam.

 

[vrooom3440]

x2 on the foam and fiberglass.

The basic air filter bucket would not be too hard to do in thermo-formed plastic... but the air duct would be very difficult to home-fabricate. Most of us do not have home plastic casting setups

To do the air duct in thermo-formed plastic you would need to make it in two halves and join them at a seam. Could be done but quite tricky to get it all "just right".

 

[Bowtie70ss]

After looking at a couple of builds on these air cleaners I guess I will make it out of metal. I need to start shopping for some 4 inch exhaust bends and something to use for a base or I guess I'll just make it. I'll keep you guys up to speed.

 

[vrooom3440]

Have you looked at a lost foam build process?

You cut and glue blocks of foam together and then cut/sand them to shape. Make a complete foam model of the part you want to make. Now if you use eopxy resin you can do the fiberglass layup right over the foam. But if you use the more common and cheaper polyester resin you will need to seal the foam (otherwise the resin eats it). Duct tape works fairly well. Do the complex corner parts first with small tape pieces. Then proceed to the simpler areas with longer tape pieces. When you have mummified the foam model you are ready to layup fiberglass. Start out with cloth cut into small pieces and do the complex parts just as you did with the tape. Proceed to the larger/simpler areas and cloth. Overlap all the pieces of fiberglass by 50% so that when you are done with the first layup you have a double layer.

Give it a break :beers:

Sand off/down any rough areas. Proceed with the next layup where you may use either more cloth or mat. Work through a couple layups this way.

Give it another break :beers:

Now work it out nice and flat with the coarse sandpaper so you have a good base to put the final finish layup on. Do the last layup using cloth.

One thing that helps with fiberglass work is to have your work area all setup and all of the materials available. Glass pieces cut and in stacks. Gloves are a very good idea. So is baby powder It keeps the gloves from sticking to your hands and keeps your hands from getting too pruned from transpiration. It can also be used on the outside of the gloves to reduce the tacky sticky problem quite a bit

Keep in mind that the strength comes from the fiberglass and NOT the resin. So try and use as little resin as possible. I like to use cheap paint brushes to put the resin on and paper bowls for mixing the resin batches. You want stiff nylon/plastic bristles on the brush. You can stack a new bowl into an old one as you make new batches of resin. You could even pre-pour the resin into the bowls and then just add hardner one by one as you go. You only get about 10-15 minutes to get the resin on the layup before it starts to sludge up. For the first layer you may need to put down a stripe of resin and then lay the fabric on it. Work it and fill in the rest of the resin. Then over-lay the next piece with the overlap and it will stick on the prior piece. From there you just paint the resin on after you stick the cloth down.

If you ever did paper mache' as a kid you can do fiberglass because it is really the same process.

 

[Bowtie70ss]

Where do you get the foam? Is it the stuff like they use for flower arrangements? How do you get the foam out, dissolve it with gas or something?

 

[vrooom3440]

The flower arrangement foam can work. I have also used the polystyrene extruded sheets used in home insulation. The polystyrene seems to come in pink and blue and also cuts well with a hot wire. I favor the extruded foams over the beaded foams. I usually start my shopping at Home Depot

Yeah they usually dissolve the foam using any number of things. Gasoline may work. Acetone works.

Note also that you do not have to make the part all in one piece from the beginning. You could for example make the tub as one part and the duct as another. Then use some layup pieces to connect the two into one part if you want. It is a good idea to roughen things up a bit with sandpaper before a next lamination layer. Like paint it provides a bit more "tooth" for the bonding process and breaks through the wax that is part of polyester finishing resins. If you find/get "laminating" polyester resin it will not have this wax but will also never totally cure on the surface. It will remain just a bit tacky as it is intended for inner laminations and NOT outer laminations.

When you have the part finished you can use bodywork techniques on it to make it as perfect as you like. Bondo. Primer-filler. Etc.

 

[Matty B]

they also make fiberglass sleeving as well as carbon fiber... For a lost mold process you can buy stuff called aqua pour. It works the same as the lost foam process but the aqua pour disolves in water and works a thousand times better than acetone to disolve foam away.

Heres a link http://www.acrtucson.com/products/Aquapour/index.htm

More or less you make a hollow form of the part, pour the stuff in, wrap it in composite and then disolve out the mandrel. Composite tubes arent the easiest thing to make this way though..

Id fab it out of metal and powdercoat it with a black textured powder to replicate ABS as itd be faster to finish, easier and more than likely way cheaper