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Anyone put carbon fiber on their dash?


blueshawk

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I would rather not disturb the CSM plaque, but that's just me...

 

Yeah,

 

If I do carbon fiber, I would not put that piece in for just that reason. I thinking that I would also not do the shifter console too. But everyhwere else that the Roush kit has pieces for look good to me.

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The true beauty of carbon fiber is it's strength under pressure, it's weight reduction and it's ability to shed heat better than aluminum. It's used in a lot of medical and industrial applications, and is gaining popularity in the automotive world. It's not a metal, it's graphite compressed into shapes of nylon and polyester cords (some are even Kevlar) much like you would lay out fiberglass. 10X stronger than iron and steel, 10X lighter than any aluminum, and high heat transfer for added cooling. Considering that you can mold it into any shape you want without a blast furnace and expensive molds, it works very well in many race car applications to replace other components that otherwise retain heat and weigh more.

 

Dash trim was never one of the target markets, but I respect that some folks think it looks cool. Maybe in some cases it does, but carbon fiber was never meant to become dash trim. Kind of like replacing a fuel tank with a trunk mounted fuel cell, just because it looks cool...

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The true beauty of carbon fiber is it's strength under pressure, it's weight reduction and it's ability to shed heat better than aluminum. It's used in a lot of medical and industrial applications, and is gaining popularity in the automotive world. It's not a metal, it's graphite compressed into shapes of nylon and polyester cords (some are even Kevlar) much like you would lay out fiberglass. 10X stronger than iron and steel, 10X lighter than any aluminum, and high heat transfer for added cooling. Considering that you can mold it into any shape you want without a blast furnace and expensive molds, it works very well in many race car applications to replace other components that otherwise retain heat and weigh more.

 

As an aerospace enginer, I might be able to add a small bit of information to the discussion.

 

The main attraction of carbon fiber has been its very high strength to weight ratio. You all know how important weight savings is to cars, well it's critical for airplanes and helicopters.

 

Like everything, it's best when used to take advantages of its strengths. When a load is applied to carbon fiber in certain directions its much stronger than steel. But if applied in other directions it will shatter. For those Formula One fans, remember how the carbon fiber front suspension of Kimi's McLaren shattered when his tire flat spotted and created an unbalance.

 

As "Lulu" mentioned, it's very similiar to fiberglass. However, it's thermal conductiviy is actually much worse than aluminium 0.06 W-m/deg C vs. aluminum's 180 W-m/deg C.

 

So, like most things, if used as intended, it works very well. :):)

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As "Lulu" mentioned, it's very similiar to fiberglass. However, it's thermal conductiviy is actually much worse than aluminium 0.06 W-m/deg C vs. aluminum's 180 W-m/deg C.

Thank you for correction, I must have misunderstood this as I was learning it. I had both aluminum and carbon fiber bellows on my last supercharged 4.6L, and the aluminum seemed to collect and retain engine bay heat much differently than the carbon fiber.

 

Aluminum got hotter faster and stayed warmer longer, and it was eating into my air charge temps after the MAF. When I went to carbon fiber (which cost twice as much to procure a custom part) the problem went away. So, I made a logical presumption, I apologize for the misrepresentation.

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