Cyberpunk Mx-5 Build

Slow progress but definitely getting somewhere.

First of all, happy new years to all of you hope you've been having as much fun with your breaks as I have. I've got stuck in to the wheels over the past couple of weeks and finally got all the aero covers finished.

To start off with, I had to re-make my mould since the first one shat itself when I was removing the first pull from it. To make de-moulding a little easier I tried adding a few handles to the inside of the mould (they did not help at all)



I made sure to modify the shape and give it much more draft angle but the geometry of this sort of mould just makes so much suction when you try to pull it off that there was no way to do it cleanly.

The only way I could get the covers off was by cutting a small slit in the top and releasing it from there while popping it off from the bottom.



I got each cover down to 1 day to make, which meant that by the end of the week I had 4 new covers. Then I just had to drill out the holes using the template I designed on cad and then some slight shaping to get them to fit.





Since they're all hand made and each one slightly different from the next, I ended up colour coding them and marking orientation on each one to make sure that they lined up perfectly on each wheel.

But all in all I am stoked to finally have these covers made. Not sure whether they will be painted or wrapped at this stage.

In other news. the company machining my moulds has been on break but I'll try getting in touch with them next week to see if we can get some movement on the passengers side moulds.

I went ahead and bought a 57" BGW which should arrive in a week or two and then I'll have a crack at finishing up the rear ducktail end caps as well as making mounts for the new wing.

I've also just picked up a rear view camera that I will be fitting soon to give me some visibility out the rear of the car.

I finally got around to posting some progress pics of this car up on reddit to get some more feedback. The main points I got were that it could do with some skirts and the transition between the front flare and the bumper isn't quite 100%.

At the moment the skirt has a black wrap on the bottom half, making it look smaller. Hopefully when I wrap the car in the future it will make the skirts appear a little bigger. As for the front, I plan to make some canards to go over that transition and hopefully tie them together a bit better.

As I've been stuck waiting for a lot of things I did another quick sketch of the car at this stage.



Not sure about the light bar or the hoses but we'll see.

And last thing I thought I would just put these up as well.





So this isn't a filter or sunset or anything. I took these photos a week ago and this wonderfully Bladerunner-esque hue is actually from ash and smoke that drifted over to NZ from the Australian bushfires. For a lot of us here in NZ this was the first taste of just how bad it was over there and personally it hit pretty hard. Many of us have friends and family in Aus and what is happening there right now is pretty devastating for everyone.
Just thought I should let anybody from Aus know that all of us here in NZ are fine with putting our sibling rivalry aside for a second and sending some love and support over to you guys. Hope you all get through this and we can get back to fighting over dumb shit again soon.

 

Few updates.

Been in touch with the guys machining my moulds and sounds like they've got the software all sorted out, going to give me a final quote tomorrow and then we can move on with the machining. Hopefully get it all done before the end of next month.

While that's being taken care my wing arrived so I've got started on modifying my ducktail and making the extra end caps.



I now welcome myself to the big wang gang. This thing arrived crazy fast and for being the cheapest wing I could possibly find, I'm honestly impressed with the overall quality.

After that I got stuck into planning the changes to the ducktail,



Then out came the angle grinder and i took the ends off so I could extend them out to the edge of the boot.



The piece in the middle that I cut was a mould defect. Pretty massive warp in the fiberglass that meant the wing wouldn't sit down flat across the back.



After adding more glass to the wing, I fitted it back up to the car and got out the laser level again to mark out a vertical line to trim to. This thing is turning out to be super handy.



With it trimmed I then put together some quick forms to pour in the expanding foam for the caps and then after it had time to dry I just went ahead with the sandpaper and shaped it to what I was after.









With it shaped roughly where I wanted it, I then thinned it out to account for the thickness of the fiberglass, and then covered straight over it. Rather than make a plug and a mould like I did for the flares, these are just a one off (for now) so I'm just making the finished part.



I had to be super careful not to snap anything as this foam was super thin. I only ended up gently putting 2 layers of glass top and bottom and waiting for it to go hard before I tried to wrap glass over the sharp edge.

Ended up with a gap between the top and bottom layers of glass which I just filled with bog



And then I went over it one last time, folding the glass over the edge as well to make sure it was all one solid piece.

With it dry, I trimmed some excess and threw the wing on for a quick look,



Very happy.

I've got some filler with fiberglass strands in it that I will be using over all this to build the final shape and then all that's left to do is add the caps onto the insides for when you open the boot and also to give somewhere to mount the spoiler legs.

 

So some more updates.

Started off by getting my wheels back and fitting them back on the car with the aero covers. Definitely much happier with this than the old metal death spikes I had before.

I also finished shaping the rear ducktail.

Started out by trimming the loose fiberglass from the gaps between the 3 pieces and then coating all the inside edges with glass as well. Making sure to leave enough space for the boot to open and close even with the wing attached.



Once the glass on that was done everything got a coat of kittyhair for some strength and then some regular filler over that to blend them all together.





With them all smoothed out and as symmetric as I could get them, I marked out where I wanted to cut them and then made a template to transfer to both sides.



And so that's the lip finished for now. Time to move on to the BGW and designing the legs to support it.



I tried a few designs. Initially I wanted to avoid curves and make it more geometric, but they just looked out of place. In the end I used the curve off the back of the lip and then marked a line straight up to get the final design.





I made the spoiler about as high as I might want to run it, that way I can trim some off the tops of the legs to make it lower if I decide to later.

For materials of these legs, I'm going with 6mm Polycarbonate. I was going to use some off-cuts of 4mm Al that I had lying around, but the idea of using clear and having it look like the wing is floating is going to look fucking awesome. Plus Polycarbonate is strong as h*ck. There's no way its going to break under the loads that this car will be at. Also tossing up whether to make the end plates clear too.

So I got the finished templates for the legs all scanned up and sent off for laser cutting. Should be getting them back by the end of the week/next week.

In other, much less awesome news. I finally heard back from the mould makers about how much the other side flares were going to cost and it was just way too much. It's just not the right way of doing this at all. I've gone and ordered some more expanding foam and resin and am getting ready to start making the other side by hand again. This time at least I'll know what I'm doing and should be able to finish it quicker.

Guess that means a lot more updates coming soon. Hope you guys are looking forward to my slow, foam induced descent into crippling depression, I know I sure am.

 

Okay holy shit, time for an update.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've taken them all on board and have plans to implement pretty much all of them on this car when it's done. Clear poly is going to be a recurring theme on this I've decided. expect some funky splitters and canards in the future.

So where I left off last update, I had just discovered that I was going to be making the other side again from scratch and not going with the machining. It was a good lesson to learn but I wasn't in the mood for more shaping so I focused on the wing for now.



I got the final shape scanned and sent away to get it machined from 6mm clear poly. Unfortunately the guy I sent them to didn't quite get the message and I ended up getting back parts that were rediculously undersized. Ended up getting refunded and sent a blank plate of poly to cut them myself.

With them cut and to a state where I was happy with them I fitted them to the wing and I'm pretty happy with how they all look.



Also testing out some comically oversized f1 styled spoiler end plates. Just getting the size and shape where I like it then I plan to mock these up using some scrap clear plastic.

Took the opportunity to finally get around to finishing the cut rear bumper, starting with a template transferred from one side over to the other,



then taking out the jigsaw and cutting it. Took a bit of back and forth with the files and sanders until it was perfectly symmetric but it got there in the end.



With all the small stuff now finished off I had to pull my finger out and get stuck back into these flares. First up I had to clean up the moulds for the drivers side and make a fresh pair since the plugs got damaged. Unfortunately while cleaning up the moulds I figured out that the bracing I put on them caused some sort of reaction and left some deformations on the mould surfaces.



You can very faintly see in the picture above the outline of where the wooden brace goes across the back surface. Guess is that the body filler I used to make the fillets on the bracing reacted with the fiberglass and caused it to warp.

Either way it took a lot of sanding to try and get them all smooth again, Still not quite 100% but I wanted to see how much it would effect the new pulls so I applied fresh wax and made some new flares using the brand new moulds.



The shape of them was perfect. The rear fit with no hassle at all unlike the first mould and so I'm pretty happy with that. Unless you're looking really hard you cant spot any of the deformations from the mould in the actual flares, but even so, I'm gonna smooth the moulds out some more until I'm happy with them.

Some quick pics of the final flares on the car now with the wing and everything,







Now time for the shitty part, copying these flares to the other side and remaking them again from scratch.

Started off by using the laser level again to mark out a set of guides on all 4 corners and then transferred over the distances to the tops of the flares. That would give me an exact match for the outer line for the other flares.







With everything laid out and the car finally all ready for foam I put it in the 2 post and started boxing up the flares ready to pour.



Then a couple of days of shaping later we have the shape roughed out in the foam. The most amazing tool in the world is the new profile gauges that I bought to do this. No more cardboard templates and I was able to super easily get all the curves and spacings from one side transferred over to the other.







So just a few more things to smooth out before the new flares get a layer of filler and then the car starts looking almost finished.

Shaping the passengers side has actually been a lot easier than I expected, you can get the outer line just from measuring the other side and then for the clearance on the wheel, just use a ruler and measure both sides and shave until they match. It was pretty stupid to think that I was going to pay more than the price of the car to get these machined when it's only taken a few days from pouring the foam to get to this point.

Should be more updates coming soon, I hope to have filler on it by the end of the week and then from there it's just the same old stuff as last time.

 

Yeah it's taken a little while because my other car was taking up space in the two post, finally decided to just roll it out of the way since parts are taking ages to arrive for it.

Cost was the main thing. Scanning and machining all up was going to cast around $5000 NZD, I'd already paid $1000 for the scanning (which was pointless now) and was not keen to pay another $4000 when I got the whole car for $3500. The deal I made with the machinists was to buy the foam and pour the blocks myself, then deliver them to have them machined. And honestly by that stage, I had the foam already so it was just easier to make it myself.

It's the standard way of doing it for a reason. Scanning and machining is only practical for massive companies like Rocket Bunny or Vertex, not for people like us just starting out. The profile gauge I used is sitting on the bonnet in that 2nd to last pic. About 500mm long, I got another one about 250mm long as well.

Again, cheers for the comments guys. Heading back out there today to do the last bit of trimming on the foam and then I should get the first layer of filler on by tonight.

 

Wow it's been over a month already. Time for an update I guess.

So I've been focusing on my other build a lot over the past few weeks and so this one has been put on hold. But with the Silvia almost completed and running again, I moved it out of the barn to free up some space to get back into this thing.

When I left off I had just started applying filler over the front flare. After a few passes and some rough shaping I realized the 2 sides weren't matching up perfectly so I cut back some of the foam and poured some more.



To make sure that this side was a mirror image of the drivers side, I aligned the wheels to make sure the steering was dead center then I made a quick template around the wheel to show where the inside edge needed to go.







With that I was able to trim the foam much closer to the actual finished shape and then apply a few more layers of filler over that.



Once I had the inside line all smoothed out I used my guides from the other side to mark out the width of the lip the whole way around and then started sanding the body of the flare down to the line.





It was the same deal as before. A lot of layers and a lot of sanding. Marking out the low areas and applying more filler, it took a while but eventually it started to creep up on the final shape.





In some ways mirroring it is a lot easier than making it free hand for the first time. This time I know exactly at which point the curve dips in, where the lines go, how deep to take some of the details. Some if it may be out by a few mm but that's inevitable with almost any process. The profile gauges have really been incredible.

I've left off today just finishing up the front half of this flare. It might take another couple of days until I've got this front flare ready for first primer but it does feel good to get back into it.

Since I've done all this before already I'm hoping it should be a bit faster and so I wont have to bore you all with the same updates all over again. I'm definitely ready for shaping these flares to be over.

 

Update.





Pretty much finished the fronts now. Just a little bit of smoothing left to do after I prime them to see where abouts they're at but I'd like to save my thinners and prime the front and rears at the same time. So I've been making some progress with those too.

I started off the rears by making some templates to get started on the inner line.





While I was transferring everything over and measuring it all up it just seemed like nothing was lining up properly. Turns out that the leading edge on the flare on the RHS was no longer vertical and got tucked in a little too far down the bottom when I bolted them back. Got out the laser again and straightened it back up and that solved one issue...



However when I went to mark the same vertical line to cut the new flares I noticed that the tyre sat maybe 3-4 cm further out down the bottom on this side. Checked the camber and turns out that the RHS was sitting at -0.5° with about 2.5mm of toe out and the LHS was sitting at around -2.7° with 1.0mm of toe in. Wonky as fuck so had to fix that up.



Luckily adjusting camber and toe is pretty easy with access to this rear subframe and a two-post.

Before:

Camber: LHS -2.7°, RHS -0.5°, Toe: LHS -1.0mm, RHS +2.5mm

After:

Camber: LHS -1.15°, RHS -1.15°, Toe: LHS +0.0mm, RHS +0.0mm

Can't say whether these settings are any good for handling or guard clearance. All that matters is that they are symmetrical.

With the camber finally sorted I was getting the same amount of tyre sitting out from the bottom of each flare now so I could go ahead and cut the outside edge of the flare down to shape.



And with the overall width sorted I could finally finish up the inner line and start applying the first coat of filler.





One change that I have made from the previous side is that I have brought in the bottom edge of the flare a little bit closer to the tyre. Approximately 15mm. I didn't like how much of the bumper was exposed and also how much of an angle it had.

Really rough image for demonstration purposes:


The change is subtle but it makes a pretty big impact on how I'm seeing the flare and it's much better proportioned now in my opinion.

It does mean that I will be remaking the other moulds to match. I'm doing this anyway as those damn braces that I added, while very strong, just damaged the surface of the moulds too much and every time I look at the flares I can see the lines from where the bracing on the moulds were.

When I pick up or order some more resin to make the new moulds after the lock down then I'll speak with the guys there and see what their thoughts are. I'm almost positive it was a reaction with the body filler I used to make my fillets. Seems strange to me since you use body filler on fiberglass parts all the time but it's all part of the learning process.

I've got a few things to do on my other project still so I'll only be slowly chipping away at this one. I'm also running low on filler and I don't want to run out until stores potentially open back up next week for online orders.

So that's it for the next few days.

 

Made some good progress on this despite running really low on resources over the past few days.

Following on from last update I've been building up the rear flare quite a bit getting close to the final shape.



Had a bit of an issue matching it to the other side as I made the same mistake I made the first time and brought in the rear half of it too close over the tyre. This time I was able to measure the finished side and copy it all back over and fix it before I made the moulds though.



Pulled out the laser level again to scribe the separation line in the rear flare. With that done the flares on the passengers side were now finished. (For rough shaping at least.)







I spent a day going over it all with rulers and contour gauges to get everything symmetric within a few mm's. By the end of it, this was all that was left of my four 4L pots body filler.





With the shaping done I got the car ready for primer by wiping it all down with prepsol and masking it up.



First time priming in a while. Discovered mason wasps laid eggs inside my damn air fittings so before priming I had to take my gun apart and clean all the crap out of it. This is not a problem that the pros would have to deal with. With my gun back together I got a few really thick coats on the flares to fill in those 40 grit scratches.





It's looking absolutely awesome. I don't expect this to be the last coat of primer before I make the moulds but it should help me see which areas still need some fine tuning before I make the first moulds. Can already spot a few after looking for only a few minutes.

Some shops are back open for pickup orders now so I'll be heading down in a couple days to grab more resin and gelcoats and then hopefully I can crack out these first moulds in no time and get all 4 flares in fiberglass.

I want to use the 2 post for the Silvia so I need to hurry up and finish this thing.

If everything goes well enough then next update I should be starting on the first moulds. I'm still just as stoked with how this is all turning out. So close to the end now.