My mate has his own business vinyl wrapping and tinting and has given me a piece of carbon vinyl to have a go with, so I decided to do my engine cover (well part of).
It looks ok but I'm not too happy where I'v trimmed it I can live with it for now but will prob get my mate to do it for me again, he makes it look so easy.

Here's a pic.

 

That's so cool Mate. Please, could you tell us how to do this?

I plan on carbon wrapping the plastic base where the rollbars stick thru in the coupe. Any advice would be appreciated

 

Cheers mate

First you need patience but once you get started it gets a little easier.
You can apply and re-apply the vinyl several times so dont worry about getting it right first time.

You basically lay the vinyl down and warm with a hair drier to make it pliable and press into shape with your fingers and get air bubbles out. It gets a bit difficult on double curves (1 curve going one way and 1 the other way) and keeping the carbon weave straight.

Have alook on youtube, there are loads of vids showing how its done.

 

Thanks for the tips Mate. I didn't think of it buy you are right, lots of "how to" wrap vids on YouTube. Looks like my hair dryer will be doing double duty

 

I'm thinking about getting my motor 'wrapped' in white vinyl...Even though I love my AeroBlue, I think a 'white' crossfire would look stunning. Just need to think about the financing side of it... Probably be around £1000 to do the car but thinking that it may pay dividends in the end due to the yinyl protecting the bodywork & paint.

 

Looks good!

 

You need a smooth surface for the vinyl to adhere properly.

OP:

very nice look!

 

~ looks great !!!

 

You dont think it will work for the plastic piece behind the seats?

 

Nice job!!

 

I think that it would be a real problem. It would stick only to the high spots in the grain on those parts.

And then there's the issue with being baked in the sun, too...

I'd have tried it too. I did my center console with 3M DINOC CF vinyl and have a little experience with it. I' certainly no pro, but the smooth surface requirement seems real...

Try sticking it to a small area to see? I'd like to know too! Use the adhesive primer that is available to boot.

 

nice job it looks pretty cool!

 

So I guess CF on the manifold that still shows after installing the MB engine cover is a no-go ?
What if I put on a thick coat of vinyl paint, think it would adhere then ?

 

Only if you use Plasti-Dip!

 

You did a great looking job! I like it. Made me think about doing something like that maybe in red!!

 

Glad you all like it
I still might get my mate to do a pro job though, he is also going to do the air box housings in carbon for me too (just the outside part you can see, they look a bit more difficult for me)

 

Well I'v finally got round to wrapping the air filter housings myself today, it wasn't too difficult.
Just need to source some polished alloy tubes to go on the front now to finish the job off.

 

Once again: Very Nice!

 

OP: looks good, I have some CF on my car as well

Hydrographics would be the only way to make this work that I am aware of...

 

nice ideda - however would the £1k include all the door-shuts, boot (trunk) guttering and bonnet (hood) guttering or would that bump up the price even more?

The other problem with wrapping as far as I can think is that in real terms our cars are not worth a whole bunch in the UK (in fact the only car I can think of that depreciates worse is the RX8!!) so while it might make it easier to sell you'd probably not see any gain on it . As an aside this does look pretty amazing... not for introverts though!!!