Clubman Race Car Carbon Fibre Body

Jarred and his father build and race cars in the Clubmans Sports Prototype Championship. Originally, the manufacturer supplied bodywork had been heavy and poor quality, using chopped strand matting, polyester resin and a gel coat. As with any racer, Jarred strived to make his cars lighter, stronger, and more aerodynamic.

He started his journey with repairing damaged bodywork, progressing on to wet lay laminating small carbon panels. Jarred has now produced his second set of full resin infused carbon fibre bodywork.

The race car needed to be ultra lightweight whilst sustaining the high aerodynamic loads. If they also appeared beautiful at the end, then this was an added bonus! For this, carbon fibre and epoxy resin was the obvious choice in terms of both reduced weight and high performance.

As such, Jarred used resin infusion for three main reasons; firstly this saves weight, secondly it provides a superior finish, but thirdly (as this is his weekend hobby) it allowed him to laminate the panels over several weeks.

The moulds he currently uses are not ideal as they were designed for wet lay laminating with fiberglass. This means they have poor quality flanges, and in some areas have ‘spider cracks. This makes a traditional flange seal impossible. To get around this, Jarred devised a method of envelope bagging the entire mould (one of which is over 3m long) while using MTI hose around the entire perimeter. This meant he could maintain a full vacuum and infuse fully with minimal resin leaking onto the back of the mould.

Jarred has sourced all his products from Easy Composites. For most of his panels, he uses a Light, heavy, light carbon layup of the following Fabrics:

• 200g Black Stuff Carbon Fibre
• 450g Twill Carbon Fibre
• 200g Black Stuff Carbon Fibre

Where addition stiffness was required, Jarred used Lantor Soric as a core and an extra ply of carbon fibre to create a balanced sandwich structure.

The results show it is possible to manufacture to a high standard - even if the moulds used are not ideal!