carbon fiber tempurature threshholds

[V10 MOJO]

can plastic engine parts be carbon fiber coated (like what exotic wood dash does to items) or is the engine compartment heat too high?

 

[McGuireV10]

Carbon fiber can withstand extremely high temperatures, and it does not burn.

However, it isn't something that can be applied as a coating. It's sort of like fiberglass -- its "natural state" is a sheet of fibers woven in various patterns (different patterns provide different strength characteristics). It is hardened by applying resins then vacuum-sealing it in a bag and baking it an autoclave at very high temperatures (something like 900 degrees, if I recall correctly).

It would probably be easier to simply make new parts out of CF rather than trying to cover up existing parts. Probably cheaper, too -- cheaper, but still very expensive.

 

[Chuck 98 RT/10]

I thought there were different resins that could be used for different temp requirements.

 

[McGuireV10]

That's a good point that I didn't consider. While carbon fiber itself doesn't burn (it's interesting to look up the government's Material Safety Data Sheet on it), the resins definitely have different temperature ratings. As an example, I found a carbon fiber hood for the NSX in which different resins are available, rated for continuous service temperatures ranging from 250 to 350 degrees.

Also if you add resin to the search when looking up material safety sheets, you'll find a bunch of product-specific entries and all reactive properties of those products are related to the resins (except for high electrical conductivity, which is a property of the carbon fiber itself).

Either way though, it wouldn't be feasable to use as a coating.