carbon fiber wrap Archives - DaRtLeNe OrAnGiNa

Carbon Fiber Wrapped Mirrors and Vinyl Graphics

December 2, 2015 ericnyoder Leave a comment

I don’t have lit mirrors like the Fancy-pants Dart Limited, so I decided to do some more carbon fiber trim, to tie things together. I haven’t had time to do the headlights, yet, so we’ll see how i fare on them. For now, I did a silly sticker on the front windshield, and did carbon fiber wrap on both mirrors. Let me tell you – total PITA! I actually did them 3X’s before getting them close to perfect, and they still aren’t quite right. Now I wish I had lit mirrors, too.

This is my pit crew (wife, sister-in-law & foster daughter) helping me with them over the Thanksgiving Holiday. If you are doing carbon fiber wrap, be sure to pre-stretch the material before you apply it. This will “train” the material to elongate, then when you apply heat as you install them, they will shrink back to shape, instead of stretching out. This is so they do not lift up on the edges after a few weeks, or after drastic temperature changes. You should start in the middle of the mirrors, then work your way out to the edges. Then I trimmed them slightly large to heat and fold the ends down and eliminate the color shining through.

Some battle scars from Wolverine! (vinyl wrap)

*edit: I later removed the battle scars, move over graphic, and has stripes, as they did not work so well with the new hood, and some commented it looked like a tiger theme…

Later, I got carried away with the extra carbon fibre wrap:

I tried carbon fiber gas door. I’ll be honest, I really like the black Mopar fuel door, but I can’t justify the $140.00 price tag, seems a bit outrageous! I did the wrap with the same carbon fiber, instead, but ended up taking it off. I didn’t think it really worked with my graphics, but I don’t know. Maybe others will think it looks cool and I can redo it. I’ve gotten a bit better now applying the wrap, and I still have some leftover.
Finally, I experimented with carbon fiber hood wrap, but couldn’t do it alone without the wrinkles. I’d have to hire someone if I really wanted to do it, but I’m not really sure it works with my other graphics, such as the hash stripes and center stripe. I’m going to pass on this one for now.

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Carbon Fiber Wrap

November 23, 2015 ericnyoder Leave a comment

Maybe not the first, but I installed carbon fiber (wrapped) side skirts, chin spoiler & door pillars.

This weekend, I got Dartlene ready to drive out to Ohio. Both mine and my wife’s families are from Ohio, so we’ve made this journey about 10,000 times. None of my Ohio buddies have seen the ride, yet, so I’d thought I’d do a few more mods:

Carbon fiber door pillars – I bought a large roll of carbon fiber, the thicker stuff (0.5mm instead of 0.2mm) and went wrap-crazy. I used paper to trace and cut templates of the door pillars. Once I had them right, I cut reverse them for the opposite side. I attempted to do the mirrors, but failed MISERABLY. I couldn’t figure out my problem, until I did more research and found out about the different thickness models. The thinner stuff will stretch further, and is good for interior trim & mirrors. The thicker stuff was perfect for these jobs.

Door pillars:

side skirts chin spoiler:

Here’s some close-ups of the carbon fiber side skirts and chin spoiler before I heated them and removed the wrinkles: (they look fine, now)

Tags: carbon fiber carbon fiber wrap carbon fibre cf dodge dart vinyl wrap

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Shift Boot, Short Throw Shifter & Interior LEDs

June 16, 2015 ericnyoder Leave a comment

I finally got my parts in the mail all the way from Europe – My Custom Redlinegoods shift boot! I installed this at the same time I installed the MPX short throw shifter, as well as a Momo shift knob. I really thought I wanted the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Carbon Gear Knob – but it was out of stock. I’m patient, so I would have waited, however, after doing more research, i found that this was not the best option. It is a plain grey ball, and didn’t seem to have the leather/comfort/grip/feel that I really wanted.

This is really the coolest combination! The Redline Leather Shift boot looks AMAZING! They put a lot of detail into the products, and it looked even better in person than it did when I designed it on their website using their color tools. You can pick out stitching color, stripes, two stripes, you can do virtually anything. I got an email right away explaining the international shipping information, and what to expect. It showed up just as they said it would, and I am extremely happy with the whole setup.

The throw of the shifter took a week to get used to, but now it’s like butter. I have not missed any second gear shifts, and the metal grommets (which replace 4 stock rubber bushings) feel more solid, more like a sports car should. The grip of the MOFO shift knob is groovy as well. Yeah, I know it’s Momo, but now I’m the Mofo!!

I’ll be showing this beast off tonight at our local Berwyn Cruise Nights at the Depot District! Shazam!

I replaced all of the interior lights, as well as the trunk lights with LEDs.

I later added red gap trim, in several sizes and trimmed the interior. I also installed the MPX short throw shifter, and Momo shift knob. I later painted the yellow Momo logo with orange/red color shift chameleon paint. The vents, HVAC controls, and dashboard was wrapped in Carbon Fiber vinyl. The leather shift boot is from Redline Goods. The switch on the left is for the electric exhaust cutout.