How's the paint job coming along on your hyper-miler?
Should be done next week by Friday. We haven't see it yet. According to local dealers, there is a 6 month wait for body / paint work in the Erie area.... not good for us.
If my eyes and mind are seeing things correctly they are using a form of ground effects to slip-stream the back wheel/tire setup. Hence the downward slope of the body.
Am I wrong?
I don't know. I know that there is a minimum height that reduces wind shear from the ground. I have not taken an aerodynamics course (and they stopped offering it at my school).
If you want to do carbon fiber, I would do some tests with no vacuum set up first. Use plexi-glass and / or food plastic wrap to make sure the epoxy doesn't stick to anything. Remember that using tape generally doesn't work when holding carbon fiber because the tape gets wet and then it doesn't stick. Our pink foam frame in our car is held together with toothpicks and duct tape. Start off with a small test piece (6" part or so) and make it 3-5 layers thick. Alternate the orientation of the layers for more stiffness. Always cover the part with the fabric first so you can make all of the corners. Cutting wet fabric will probably ruin your siccors if you forget to clean then (and glue them together). Then it requires a hammer to get them apart.
The hardest part is getting the glue mixture right. I suggest a plastic container that you can throw away (cool whip containers work well). Basically you mix the right ratio (ours is 3 parts resin to 1 part hardener). If you get the ratio backwards, you will have a steaming hot plastic dish and you may burn your table..... Once you add the two, mix it slowly for 3 minutes and you are good to go. The amount of glue needed is just enough to get it wet. You can either add glue every layer or at the end, assuming you have the right type of fabric. Then let it dry in a warm place (70-80 F rooms is good). It should take 24 hours to dry decently, 72 hrs for sure. If it doesn't dry, either it was too cold or you got the ratio wrong. The different hardeners provide different drying times. Pot life is generally at least 30 minutes, but it can be more than an hour with the right ratio. If you use the 2:1, then it may only be a couple minutes and the whole thing will be rock hard in 12-24 hrs.
This is where we get our glue (I think the carbon fiber fabric too). They have lots of good info for beginners.
http://www.uscomposites.com/My opinion for the frame rods would be to make sure you plan everything out because connecting things to carbon fiber is difficult. If you have 8 or more layers, you can use 10-24 or 1/4-20 riv-nuts. This is how we are holding our seat belt in. Else, you need to may some aluminum under the C.F. so you can sink some bolts.
Obviously, C.F. is better in tension. Don't expect a C.F. sheet with the same dimensions as a steel plate (say 1/8" thick) to be as stiff.
Option 2 says to buy some pre-made C.F rod, but you will pay for it dearly. 1/8" plate made of C.F. is about $1 per square inch. I think you can make it for less than half that, maybe even $0.25.
If you decide to go the vacuum route, there are some more difficult challenges to over come, like how to get the excess glue out of the C.F. (I used bubble wrap, but the surface turns in to a golf ball).
I'm not sure how much it is worth to spend a bunch of money on making the car lighter. The body can realize a lot of weight reduction, but it takes a lot of C.F. Maybe 2- 3 layers for something to just to push the wind out of the way.... definitely no structural properties. The frame uses a lot less C.F. and it saves you from welding anything. Plus, you can add more C.F. if you want at anytime. We probably saved 20+ pounds on our frame, mainly because you can make the beams taller for a higher moment of inertia than an aluminum beam.