A friend of mine has just started a young family and is struggling to pay the bills while his wife is off work. He is a carbon fibre fabricator by trade and works for an F1 team. In his spare time he’s been making wings at home for Caterhams (he has an VX HPC himself) but it isn’t exactly a high demand product. I suggested to him that he should investigate making bits for Loti instead.
I just want to state that he’s not in this to go treading on anyones toes so if anyone on this forum is in the same business then I apologise and we’ll steer clear of making competing parts.
The question is - if he were to make some parts what would we as a group think would be worthwhile?
I suggested initally a front splitter - the Sector 111 version has no number plate so I thought it would be good to make one similar to the original? I also thought that the hard top with a Cup 255esque roof scoop would be good to try and get some better airflow for the S/cup owners? (I thought this was a bit OTT at first but he thinks it should be possible. For copyright reasons I guess we’ll have to make “subtle” changes though
He doesn’t have an autoclave for everyday use so to keep costs down these parts would be cured in an oven instead. If a part did require autoclaving then he does have access to commercial facilities and could get them done for an additional cost.
This isn’t a commercial venture, just a hobby for him to pay for a ported head I’m helping him build. I’ll be lending him some bits of my car while I’m on holiday in August so you may see various bits on my car changing! I’ll vouch for the quality of his work. The caterham wings for example look superb even without any lacquer on.
Err, yeah, but Geary is top bloke who keeps most of us on the road with a high quality parallel parts supply chain. I’m sure he will argue that his margins aren’t exactly OTT and that he charges a fair rate.
If Geary were to ask us to do some parts on the other hand that would be a bit different.
Now I like the idea of an extension to the S roof scoop, maybe initially to double sided tape on, then maybe fit properly and filler and paint.
The good thing about using CF for this is to keep the weight down and a very thin wall allowing loads of cool air in
How about a scoop with a step in the end that would slot inside the existing scoop and a loop at the other which hook around thefront lip of the roof? You could then bond the edges using double sided trim tape?
Okay, I met up with Bryn on Friday. He took a look at the front splitter - piece of cake, side pods- ditto, for the roof he could do just a scoop no probs but a whole roof would be tricky. We’d need to get a bare roof panel i.e. pull all the rubber seals and capret off etc - not impossible but messy?
In the meantime rear diffuseers should be okay and maybe a wing too but dont be surprised if the wing has the same profile as Jensons!
I’m off on holiday this week so I’ll be taking lots of bits off my car and leaving them with Bryn for a week or two!
