Carbon fiber pedal box cover

TL;DR this one is just for the looks

A keen eye will have spotted the the 170R press cars have fancy painted pedal box covers that match the car body color.

Left : HLZ 727 with a golden pedal box, Right : GNZ 737 and its red pedal box cover.

Below : VIL 737, the light blue 170S, has no custom paint job on the pedal box.

As it felt impractical to match the firecracker yellow of my car, carbon fiber looked like a good option. It will complement the carbon fiber stone guards and sill protectors nicely.

WARNING : carbon fiber can be a nasty stuff, it's not biodegradable and should'nt be inhaled or enter your body in any way or form. Wear gloves to work with it and a respirator if you are using power tools.

I got a 200x250mm sheet of twill carbon fiber from Amazon, I chose a thickness of 0.5mm as we are talking about a simple lid with no structural role and no stress to endure.

The actual size of the panel on my LHD car is 155x165mm, with the external side to be cut at an angle.

I started by tracing the perimeter of the original part to the carbon sheet using an exacto knife.

The cuts were made with a manual thin metal blade, the round corners were achieved with a flat file.

All the edges were then sanded off with 600 grit on a flat wood block.

The holes were punched with a spring-loaded center punch. 3mm pilot holes were drilled, then finally 6mm holes followed at high rotation speed to keep the finishing clean.

The finished carbon cover weighs a measly 19 grams, compared to the 95 grams of the aliminium one.

Further 30 grams were saved by using M5 nylon screws and washers instead of the already oxidized galvanized steel ones. Even with the GSTOP module stuck to it, this upgrade saved me 100 grams.

Finally, a perimeter of 10mm wide, 1mm thick adhesive gasket was added to prevent the water ingress under heavy rain, a common occurence since the beginning.

The result is subtle, I really like it.