I was talking to a buddy of mine about some fiberglass 240 fenders i found on ebay. He works with Carbon fiber and said that if i could find a company that was not making 240 fenders anymore, but still had the tooling, maybe i could by that from them and make myself some carbon fiber fenders. so...i have been looking around and havent found anything about fender tooling...so does anyone out there know anything or have some connections with someone?

please let me know.

Joe
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I am Joe,- Blue '89 Volvo 244 DL 5-speed w/ 190k, 23mm GT Sways F&R named Douglas

Closed molds are not easy, carbon requires this style, and must use epoxy resin- which is a pain. With the current global lack of carbon fiber due to the war and high use in the aerospace industry, pure carbon fiber by the roll is either very expensive or impossible to find. As an Industrial Designer, I personally called several of the major carbon distributors over the globe in hopes to find enough to build a concept car with my design team.. to receive nothing but closed doors or astronomical prices. Also, a company would not give up their molds to anyone, even if they're bankrupt, they would likely charge and arm and a leg... after you convince them. It's like asking an artist for rights to their artwork.

My suggestion, if you've had experience with closed molds before, have access to a large start up fund, have a nice compressor, and a nice shop, go for it.

my two cents, just reality

If you are really into the idea of carbon fiber fenders, you could always make your own mold. A junkyard fender could be prepped as a male plug to make a fiberglass mold. It would be a lot of work...but no more than convincing a company to give up their tooling.

I highly doubt that you can remove the stock steel fenders without removing some of the passenger safety cage crumple zone engineering that was designed and built into the car.

Why would you want to do this?

If you're going for broke with a car modified for racing - including a full roll bar safety cage welded into the passenger compartment - I can understand the interest in this. Otherwise, I think the slight gain from weight reduction is not worth the safety reduction. Get rid of the rear seat and the a/c components first.

If your interest is in finding a lower cost fender, you're probably best off getting one at a pick-n-pull.
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Sven: '89 245 NA, 951 ECU, open-front airbox, E-fan, 205/65-15's, IPD sways, E-Codes, amber front corner reflectors. Wifemobile '89 245 NA stock. 90 244 NA spare, runs.

Some of us want as little weight as possible, especially on the front end. I doubt that the purpose of this thread was because of that, but some of us actually do race 240s. I autocross mine with the SCCA, and next year I'll be running a class which allows replacement hood and front fenders made from any material.

The stock hood is 46 lbs and the stock fenders are 12 lbs. A carbon hood from Gemini (Canadian composite company) is 18 lbs, but a shell would just be 8-10 lbs. Fenders can be 3-4 lbs. Battery is ~30+ lbs. AC/PS is another 30-50+lbs. Continue removing parts like the airbox, windshield washer system, heat shields and preheat hose, and so on til you've run out of stuff to remove. Over 150lbs off the car, especially from the nose of the car does make a difference.

I could add a roll cage, but it would add weight and wouldn't do a damn thing in a front end accident. For wheel-to-wheel racing on a track, a cage is a must. For solo racing that I do, usually not desirable because of the weight penalty.

A site to bookmark: http://www.kaplhenke.com/

Probably won't have any composite parts available until next summer at the very earliest, but if it happens, I'll be helping out due to my obvious interest in light weight body panels. I've got a line on a CF 240 hood already, but he wants to do trunks, fenders, and maybe 242 rear quarter panels.
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