Eliseto - Custom front bumper

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:10 pm

Since I love the Lotus Elise so much & because am planning to keep my FTO for quite a few years, I figure the next best thing to owning an Elise, is to customise my FTO to incorporate some of the more distinguishable features of the Elise - starting with the Front Bumper.

If nothing else it will give me something to work on on the weekends & give me some practice with fibreglassing ... 'tis an idea I've been thinking about for a while & finally photochopped the design to see what it would look like, & I'm very happy with it

I have the spare bumper laying around, so I might as well put it to use

I'm hoping that some of you will be able to answer some questions about the fibreglassing ... Yang, I am guessing you might be able to at least.

First question:

Are you restricted by how many layers of fibreglass you can put on / how thick you can layup the fibreglass?

Is there any way you can build the general shape of the design & then lay the fibreglass over that? i.e. using clay / plasticine, sculpt the design on the OE Bumper & then start putting on fibreglass - then once I have the general shape made with the fibreglass, take it off, remove the clay etc & attach the fibreglass structure to the OE Bumper somehow (more fibreglass / bolted on ...etc...?)
if i can do this it will save me a crapload of time & save me loads of $$$ in fibreglassing materials..

oodLes · Post by **oodLes** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:43 pm

This concept scares, confuses, then sickens me. Not necessarily in that order.

maggsy · Post by **maggsy** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:55 pm

it looks good however i think the opening needs to be wider (as in left to right)

FTO338 · Post by **FTO338** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:31 am

maggsy wrote:it looks good however i think the opening needs to be wider (as in left to right)

Yeah i also think it need to be wider and for some reason it reminds me of Vampire LOL

Grue · Post by **Grue** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:27 am

Front Indicators... Don't you need them to be seen from the quater front angle?

Post by **dstocks** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:19 am

Yep, need to add the indicators in there. ANd they have to be positioned correctly or theyre illegal. Really like the look though!.

MissxFTO · Post by **MissxFTO** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:43 am

reminds me of one of those smiling cars from the movies cars...

Agree with it needing to be wider though

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:56 am

MissxFTO wrote:reminds me of one of those smiling cars from the movies cars..

Agree with it needing to be wider though

hehe, funny you should mention it ... thats what I was planning to do with my spare bumper a while back lol ... Would've been pretty difficult though

I have to agree with everyone about it needing to be wider / bigger / extended out toward the edges more - both for airflow & looks

Thanks for mentioning the indicators, had been planning to possibly get some crescent (moon) shaped indicators if I can find some & stock them around the edge of the two vents -
will have to make a few designs for the indicators & check what the rules say about their placement

Appreciate all the feedback so far, keep it coming

Post by **BorepYano** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:04 pm

yes u can build the general shape with anything u want almost, actually the easiest vs best result way is probably to buy a massive block of foam and carve the shape u want out of it then bog it so it's smooth, and use that as a mold. - this way u can design whatever u want

but what u suggested would work too, it all depends on how much change u want, if u dont need to really cut much into the OE bumber then urs would be easier and cheaper.

and no i dont think there is a limit to how many layers of fibreglass u can lay up but an adverage of 3 layers is a good mid way point between strength and flex.

since u can draw real well, can u draw up a wire frame of what u want to do? u'll probably need it as a plan for your work anyway, and this way if u want to show me it, i can tell you if there's any curves thats too sharp for you to lay up or osmething...

and if u r just going to stick it on to your OE bumper then u'll need bolts/screws + fibreglass + bog.

hope that helps

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:43 pm

Thanks Yang. .. yeah, it helps .. still gonna be a massive effort though
One of my mates told me about the foam blocks & suggested that I could use those to shape it ... but apparently they're expensivee as hell .. Will see if i can get some pricing on it though

Ideally I Would like to take a mold of the original bumper & make a plug & all that crap & then have a full fibreglass front bumper ... but I am thinking that it would be easier just to mod my existing bumper - even if fibreglass has a hard time sticking to plastic..

Instead of a wireframe, this sohuld give a better idea of the curves etc...

And theres a few good closeups here;
http://www.jalopnik.com/photogallery/LotusTire/

So pretty much, sharp 90' bends are not really possible to lay up with fibreglass? Or you can do it, but you will have more splinters of fibreglass sticking out of the edges that you have to sand off etc?

Post by **BorepYano** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:47 pm

fibreglass wont take... any curve that's sharper than 30 dgrees?
not sure, cant remember now, look it up (i think i found out the exact angle from one of the pages i managed to google up)
which means u'll have trouble doing the 6 sharp edges that i can see in the photo...
but u can make it as close as u can and sand it off, it's real easy to sand fibreglass, and u wont have to worry about the fibres sticking out, just ignore them and sand them off
though... i think using bog to form the edgs would be easiers

and if u r worried about fibreglass not sticking to your plastic bumper, just sand the crap out of both pieces with 45 grit sand paper, that should do the trick.
and/or screw the pieces together with tack screws or just drill holes in your bumper so the fibreglass + resin can go through it and then have another layer of fibreglass on the back, so it sandwichs the whole thing together.

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:50 pm

damns .. that answers half of the stuff i was wondering about ... I think I will do all of the above, roughening up the bumper, drilling holes in it, fibreglassing the back & using screws & bolts etc to hold it in place

could even just use a bit more resin on the corners & sharp edges I spose .. might even be able to use FG Mat rather than chopped stuff on the corners yeah? It should hold together better over sharp curves?

Come to think of it ... i might even be better off to try & make a mould of the inside of the bumper & then fibreglass from the inside out to the front... mmm ... I dunno ... will get stuck into it after Autosalon ...

Richy · Post by **Richy** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:39 am

holy big job...

think u can be a professional body kit fabricator if u get this project done..

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:16 am

Richy wrote: holy big job...

think u can be a professional body kit fabricator if u get this project done..

hehe, true ... only prob is, I can deal with doing so much work for my own car, but theres no way I could do it all day, everyday as a job

Same as I love doing mechanical work on my own car, but couldn't bring myself to do it for other peoples cars

lol

Grue · Post by **Grue** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:10 pm

Looking at my main headlights today.... possible to put your indicators in the main headlight somewhere? Should be able to get the angle right i think...

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:14 pm

Grue wrote:Looking at my main headlights today.... possible to put your indicators in the main headlight somewhere? Should be able to get the angle right i think...

Thats a good idea ... kinda like the vantage

might look pretty good .... just have to find some now

might also be a custom job..

Grue · Post by **Grue** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:57 am

hmmm... I like.

Amber angel eyes as indicators around the high beam wouldn't be enough would it.... Will be bored in office all day, so will think on it!

FtoSam · Post by **FtoSam** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:05 am

Agreed that it needs to be wider...

and you'd need some pretty bright angel eyes to be legal

Grue · Post by **Grue** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:10 pm

Nope... can think of a few ways to mod the exisitng headlights to have an indicator bulb, but wouldn't look very smooth.

Thoughts on how much a custom job would cost? Stupid price I'm guessing.

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:54 pm

Grue wrote:Nope... can think of a few ways to mod the exisitng headlights to have an indicator bulb, but wouldn't look very smooth.

Thoughts on how much a custom job would cost? Stupid price I'm guessing.

I think a few LED Clusters inside some custom fibreglass thing sohuld do the trick...