Carbon fiber Tacoma parts, your thoughts.

I think there's possibly potential for CF parts, but I can't imagine them being affordable for the majority. High-quality CF items are extremely expensive...but would certainly be curious to see what you can create and for how much.

 

The top carbon fiber or 3D printed items I am interested in:
1. grill
2. hood
3. interior carling switch panel mounting on the headliner behind the map light
4. panel centered on top of the dash for carling switches or wide band gauges
5. interior bolt in kick panels or door panels with standard aftermarket speaker openings/enclosures.
6. tool chest to fit in the bed behind the wheel and below the top of the bed

 

Op posted and never returned. I guess he thought better of it.

 

A carbon fiber hood and scoop would be great!

 

I know this is a fairly old post but cf parts are pretty easy to make. I paint match everything or do a dry fiber look to engine parts or interior pieces to separate myself from the tuner crowd. Just make a mold and experiment.

 

For anything structural you'll need core in the middle of the plies of CF.

and by structural I mean something like fenders, or anything that would need to support itself. Another possibility is add some unidirectional CF to give it more flexural strength in a certain direction, this would go towards the middle of the laminate rotate the direction 0, 45, 90, -45, 0.

Of the glass fenders I've seen the weave style panels are pretty hefty in thickness yet are still floppy when driving on the street. The hood I've seen was made using the chopped mat with resin and sprayed into the mold. It was super flimsy, but a couple plies of CF could have been layed on it both front and back to help with its rigidity.

 

I definitely agree with you 05tacopreruner. Fiber glass can be used in a lot of applications if you steer clear of the heavy matting and go with thin fabric sheets doing a ten or so wet ply layup with fiber glass then following up with a few sheets of carbon at maybe 0 45 and 90. If you do about 8 layers of thin quality carbon using 0, 45, 90, and -45 under vacuum that should be rivaling steel fenders for strength.

 

I think you could also use internal voids to create stiffness and strength sort of how the metal hoods are designed. The metal is thin but the top and bottom skin are separated by a space.

 

Yes to everything in bold! Number 5 I would buy right now if it existed. I LOVE carbon fiber.

 

Never really cared for the carbon fiber look.

 

I'd be interested in a CF hood to save a few pounds.