My Fibreglass Project.
 

As we all know air takes the easiest route, so after fitting my oil cooler, I wanted to duct the air from the bumper straight into the cooler itself.

This would involve removing the bumper. Not too much of an issue as the wheels are already off. The only problem I had was removing one of the nuts that secures the side of the bumper. It was rusted on and snapped, so I've bought some replacement parts ready for when I refit the bumper:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct007.jpg

I had already bought a plastic ducting part from demon tweeks, and after a little cutting here and there, got it to fit over the cooler quite nicely.
Next was to lay the fibreglass over the bumper hole. You have to remember I've never done fibreglassing before, and it's a very messy job :D:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct001.jpg

After fitting and removing the bumper more times than I care to remember I was eventually in a position to bond the two sections together to form this:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct004.jpg

After a few more layers of glass mat, I had what looked like a rough outline of a duct:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct005.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct006.jpg

Next job was to apply some car body filler, in this case P38. I've never donme this before either so it doesn't look that professioinal at the moment :). This is the outcome after using the entire tub of it :D:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct008.jpg

And after 2 hours of sanding down with grade 120 wet and dry:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct011.jpg

Now that I have a basic shape I want to slowly fill the parts I never done the first time. This is going to take quite a few attempts. Here is my effort after tonight:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct012.jpg

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get chance to sand it down and have another go at filling it :).

I applaud your attention to detail as i think for me that would be a bit too much for the amount of stress my car ever gets. However I do intend to properly duct my intercooler at some point.

How (and which side) are you going to attach the duct to?

The cooler sat much lower than the hole in the bumper which is why I'm going down this route, plus I'm anal retentive :D I have to be honest, the amount of time this will/has taken me so far, would never be cost effective. Lucky my time doesn't cost me ;)

The duct fits snug over the cooler, and as the cast has come from the bumper hole, it fits very tight in position, basically squashed between the two if that makes sense.
It fits on the bumper the same way the SMIC ducting does.
Here's a picture of the Oil Cooler fitted, thanks to Dunk's custom brackets:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct002.jpg

I'm going to be fitting my grilles as the bumper is off. With these and the ducting, it's going to be very difficult to get to the bulb holders which need to be removed inorder take the bumper off. To over come this problem, I've bought some waterproof connectors, which I'm going to fit between the stock wiring and the front indicators. These are IP67 rated:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...lerDuct009.jpg

Looking good and with it being low level i'd be adding a fine mesh in there too

I have a set of grilles for both side holes and the main bumper mouth, thanks for the heads up though :)

I'd still put a finer mesh in between your grille mesh and the cooler, i did this on my intercooler and for the extra work its well worth it.

Well I've managed to apply two more layers of P38. Here's what it looked like after the third fill:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct2002.jpg

And after the fourth:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct2003.jpg

I know there doesn't appear to be that much difference between the two but it's now a case of filling the imperfections.

I've also sent my facelift indicators off to a guy to get converted to LED's, which I'm hoping will look great. This should also eliminate the problem of a bulb going :)

Unless an LED or two goes ;)

I've put mesh on my side vents as well but purposely did not go all the way to the top so that I can get at the indicator bulbs if I need to. You can't notice unless you get on your hands and knees.

I realise that but if one or two go it won't cause any grief :)

This mesh doesn't go to the top but it would be difficult to get to the holder with it in place.

Well I gave it a sand down tonight. I know it's nowhere near finished but it's getting hard to see where the filler is required, so I've given the duct a scratch coat. Most of the imperfections is where different filler was used, and I would imagine would get covered in a few coats of paint. I can now work on filling the effected areas:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct3004.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...v/Duct3003.jpg

At the moment Kev I'd say it looks like a small explosive device has gone off in your air box, interested to see how the finished article turns out.

I could've just said, here's the before and here's the after. But I wanted to show how these things look during, to give people an inside into it all :)

looking good kev :)

Kev i don't envy you with the fibre glass task at all. I used to do it to my front bumper weekly as you know,but i can say you are doing a great job there and it looks great so far.

Keep up the good work mate it will all be worth it in the end :)

Looking great Kev :coolpeek:

Thanks for the nice comments guys. Well after a few more efforts with the filler, I applied another coat of paint. I really can see the wood through the trees. Still have a little more to do though:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...inished002.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...inished005.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...inished006.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...inished007.jpg

It's getting smoother Kev keep going it's good to see the effort.

Must be heavy Kev, is that why you are having to use the "muscle and weight gain protein" stuff shown in the second picture of post #13 ?

- And to think you took the mickey out of Adams toe nail polish !

Seriously - its looking good !

It's Weight Gain 4000! :D


- Back on track - you can see it's taking shape now; and it's nice attention to detail as usual! :)

I knew someone would comment about that :D

I'll weigh the duct once I've finished but it's not actually that heavy.

I managed to get another two coats on the weekend. I tried some one coat filler as some of the marks were so small, but most of it came out after a quick sand :(:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting001.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting003.jpg

Here's the next couple of fills I done:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-03-09001.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-03-09002.jpg

Here's another coat of paint which helps me see where the defects are:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-03-09003.jpg

I've now finished off my second tub of P38. I still need a few bits touched up here and there but overall I'm fairly happy with what i've achieved so far:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-03-09009.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-03-09010.jpg

How much does it weigh? :p

Looks pretty good to me, think i'd be bolting it on now.

Definite improvement throughout, Kev. Are you going to do much more on it , or is that it pretty much good to go?

I just weighed it on some dodgy kitchen scales (used to measure my flour for my bread) and it's saying 1KG. I really don't think it's much more.
Those small bumps on the last picture will sand out. The primer I was using came to an end and spat paint everywhere.
I'm in two minds about doing too much more. Half of me wants to bolt everything back on and the other half can't let the few remaining marks go :(. Either way I need to apply a few more coats of paint as that's just primer. I'm going to keep it matt black.

Nice Kev.

Are you going to wrap it in carbon fibre ?

No I'm going to spray it satin black. I've been advised to try 'dolphin glaze' by Colsoop as this should help remove the small imprefections.

Thanks for the kind words guys :)

cut it down the middle have it painted high gloss and make a carbon one from it using the glass fibre piece as your mould! :D happy days

Are you offering Jay :D

Oh no, don't give him any more ideas Jay:D

hahaha sorry!

Well it's taken me a long time, but I'm really happy with the outcome:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting014.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting016.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting015.jpg

Here it is fitted to the oil cooler:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting017.jpg

I bought some draft exclusion foam from B&Q and sprayed it black to help give it a better seal:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting018.jpg

Here it is with the bumper fitted and the grilles added:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting047.jpg

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...Ducting048.jpg

Yep, does look pretty good Kev. I think you can be rightly proud of that after all your hard work :coolpeek:

Definitely worth the effort and I like the side-vent grilles too.:)

Top job Kev, i knew it would be :)

Thanks for the nice comments guys :)