Made another DIY carbon belly pan
A while ago I made this post about a carbon fiber belly pan for the 2022+ that I made. You guys seemed toreally like it, so I figured I'd share the new and improved version I made.
The basic process was the same as last time. I built the CAD in Fusion around an existing true-to-scale model of the XSR. The goal this time was to reduce the volume of the part and make it hug the exhaust and engine as tightly as possible. The old version was a lot wider than necessary, which is sub-optimal aerodynamically, and looked a bit goofy from some angles.
I then printed the molds on my Bambu lab A1 mini 3D printer. I'm kicking myself because a few weeks later I got myself a P1S, which has a much larger print volume... each mold could have been only like 4 parts. But alas, a ton of super glue and many hours of sanding later, the molds were ready. I regret I didn't take pictures of much of the process, I had a few days off this week and was rushing to finish the project before the weekend.
The cardboard box with the aluminum foil lining is my idea of a redneck engineered carbon curing oven. Since this version of the belly pan gets much closer to the exhaust, I needed to use a more heat-resistant resin on this version. These resins must be cured in an oven and require a post-curing cycle to reach their full performance. Professionals use expensive equipment for this, my version was as such:
Big cardboard box, lined with aluminum foil
Heat gun blowing into the box through a small duct
Amazon PID controller with a thermal probe inside the box, cycles power to the heat gun to hold a set temperature
This worked flawlessly. I hand-laminated the parts and vacuum-bagged the molds using simple clothes storage bags and a vacuum cleaner, then ran them through the oven for the initial cure for 12h at 40C. Then they were de-molded (see image) and ran through the oven again for the post cure, which was a slow ramp up from 40-120C over 6h. Definitely sketchy running a heat gun for that long, but it worked out fine.
After that it was more sanding (there's always more sanding), then paint, clear coat and done.
I did unfortunately get some more surface imperfections on this version than on the last one. Maybe it was because I was rushing, maybe I should have sanded more. Regardless, the part looks flawless on the bike and I'm incredibly happy with how well the CAD matches real life. Everything fits perfectly around all the coolant lines, the O2 sensor and exhaust.
I love this kind of thing. I would do it for a living if it weren't so much damn sanding.