Xtra

Making progress every day, and pricing will be settled in very soon. The first black one has been molded and is ready for trimming and drilling. The screws did their job and made clear center marks for drilling the rivet clip holes, a huge time saver. Hopefully, it will be done and installed by tonight.

Lift the hood after driving and see if the smell is coming from the engine compartment. If so remove the engine cover and have a look for any fluids. The Sports have a very high-pressure fuel pump, hundreds of pounds PSI if not more. A very small pinhole would spray fuel as a mist and vaporize quickly so there may not be a puddle. After you get the engine cover off if you don't see anything, then start the engine and have another look. Good luck be safe.

The shop has the mold now and they will try and make two intakes by this Friday, one in black and one in carbon. Hopefully, after doing two in a row they can figure out how much time is needed, and how much to charge per unit when doing a batch. Unfortunately, I have to pay the full price for these first three units, no group discounts are available yet. If the carbon works well, it will become available in Black, White, and Red. Other finishes include black with a textured finish on the outside and smooth on the inside, and clear. If the carbon passes muster there will be a total of 5 different finishes to pick from. The carbon will have a bit of a lead time as the material is custom made. The black and clear will be in stock and should have a faster turnaround. That is unless the shop has to wait on the carbon to run a minimum size group discount batch.

Congratulations, well done ?

The carbon arrived one day early and It has a nice gloss finish. Now to test to see if it can be vacuum formed and is compatible with the mold. The plastic shop has never seen or worked with this type of composite material before. This is a very special material, it has a thermoformable plastic base with carbon fiber laminated to it, then a clear top layer is laminated over the carbon. # Bring the Bling!

As long as I had the mold at home I did a few tweaks to it. As you know I added the screws to locate the holes then I tightened up some of the tolerances for an all-around better fit, and last I adjusted the wings to be more distinct and line up with the body panel better.

Just finished patching the wood frame and gave it one heavy coat of varnish. A few drips, but they will sand out and the varnish is not on there to look good, it is to seal the wood grain and add some strength to the plywood-veneer. The good thing is that the mold will be ready when the carbon material arrives next week. I will be relieved when all the work is done on the mold, It seems like there is always just one more thing to do.

I don't know yet, I asked the shop to break it down today. They are working on a minimum order number necessary to get a price break, and what it will cost per unit. I asked if they could give me the price break if we did 5 or ten units at a time, we will see what they say. All I know for sure is that the clear and the black will cost less than the carbon.

When I picked up the mold today from the shop, they had tape over every gap and over every screw head of the wood base. So I filed all the gaps and covered the screw heads with Bondo putty, it will take a couple of coats and more sanding to get it smooth and ready to varnish. Apparently the vacuum is so strong that it lifted some of the unfinished wood into the hot plastic, so I am going to have to varnish the wood as well. All this has to be done and put back together ASAP to get the samples done before the shop goes on Christmas break from December 23, 2020 to January 4, 2021. It will be tight but it is possible that Santa could bring me a Carbon Fiber intake for Christmas.

Omar302, I took the mold home from the shop for some tweaking, and to add the hole marker screws. The screw heads will make a little bump on top and a little indention on the backside that I can use to guide the drill. Hopefully, the placement of the screws are spot on... We will see on the next intake just how accurate they are, if necessary they can always be adjusted.

Finally got around to putting together a short video of the start of the event. The guy that crashed is OK, not so much his car. He went off the road within one mile of the start. My car was just warming up, the tires were still ice cold and the road was slicker than normal. I am sure this is why the guy went off the road. The rest of the run was uneventful and safe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-WtTzLgMRo&feature=youtu.be

UPDATE : I had originally ordered the sample of the special carbon material on 11-14 and they just shipped it today 12-2, and it won't arrive until the middle of next week 12 -9. If this new carbon material works as intended then the lead time on the carbon part is now up to 3 to 4 weeks. The black and clear are in stock and ready to go. I am just waiting on the carbon, and when it arrives I will make two samples, one in black and one in carbon fiber. That way I can save on the setup expense. Hopefully, during the week of 12-14 to 12-18, the sample intakes will be done.

Went on a Malibu Autobahn run last night and gave the intake a thorough shakedown. There were no problems and the car ran great. Ran most of it with someone in a 2021 SVR Carbon edition Range Rover with a 575HP supercharged V8. I estimate 300 to 500 cars went on this run. and everyone had fun.

CrackedDSM, I will be able to make them in clear, and in black. The bling that I have mentioned, but have not tested yet is, ....Carbon Fiber !! Not just Black but in Red and White Carbon Fiber as well . WWWPerfA_ZNOW I checked for you and unfortunately, sprinkles are not an option at this time...

Lol, I hear you. Within the next couple of weeks, I intend to bring the bling....

The problem is in trimming the intake. It is done by hand, each one is a little different, and it takes time . That is not a bad thing but, these will never be 100% flawless and perfect . After all they are homemade. And people now days are accustomed to perfect flawless products made by robots in huge facilities. I have been working close with the shop trying to get the best price, and it is looking like runs of 5 or ten will be necessary to do that. Heck, I don’t know if anyone is even interested..

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving . My new material supplier is working with me to bring the bling ?. Hopefully a sample sheet should be arriving next week. If it does then I will make 2 units, one of each finish.

Great minds think alike . ? You are correct that was one reason for clear, to locate the holes and then transfer them onto the mold. The plan is to drill dimples, if that doesn’t work then I will try round head screws as markers.

I just realized that this project started in June of 2017 and should be completed by late December 2020. Almost 3 1/2 years to get to this point if I counted correctly. That includes my first mod to the grill as mentioned at the start of this thread, the design of the intake starting from clay, and several months of testing the fiberglass prototype for proof of concept, and making the mold. Overall, I am very satisfied with the look and quality of the part. It does not have the very fine detail of an OEM pressure molded part, but it still way better than the fiberglass prototype, and it did not cost $15,000 or $20,000 for the mold. Still, IMHO the quality is as good as any vacuum formed part available. To me, it still has some of that hand made feel to it, not computer / digitally perfect, more organic.

Thank you so much, you are correct, it has been quite a journey to get to this point, and I agree, having a clear component cost me some $$ but it was well worth it. Just got back from a test run and it works as intended. Although the clear intake works, the next step is to make the real thing with much better cosmetics. TBC

It fits.... and the hood closes. I am over the top happy with the results. With the first one being transparent it was clear that there were no interference problems..... LOL In this photo, you can see how the holes line up for the hood release and bump stops. The cardboard shows where the air enters then moves across to the snorkel.

Thank you handfiler for your encouragement, I can use it. Progress is being made. I sure hope it fits after all this work....

The shop got around to testing the mold and it worked great! There were no problems with the vacuum, and the positive air input I added to pop the part off of the mold worked so well that the shop will be adding that feature to their molds. I still need to trim, locate and drill the mounting holes, and test for fit. Hopefully, can get it done by the end of the day because tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Confirmed, H6 sized batteries do fit in 2016 Edge Sports. Just now finished installing an AGM one. Most AGM H6 batteries have 700 to 800 CCA and the H6 is a standard size offered by many different manufacturers so it is easy to obtain. The OEM battery that came with my 2016 Edge Sport has only 610 CCA and much less reserve than an H6, it had to be replaced three times in 3.75 years. The only drawback to the H6 is that the H6 is a heavier battery, and the weight is in a bad place for the best handling and performance. Perhaps that is why Ford uses a small battery in the Edge Sport and reserves the H6 for the luxury versions of the Edge and those with auto stop and start. That is how I figgered out that the H6 would fit in a 2016 Sport even though every book and site said that it would not fit. ***** The battery tray is designed to hold an H6 size battery. There is even a threaded bolt hole for the battery clamp.