pic: Carbon fiber monocoque drivetrain Top view

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Edxu

Any clue on how expensive this would be compared to if it was made out of standard drivetrain steel or aluminum?

Extremely expensive.

There are a number of ways to fabricate carbon fiber structures.

The first is to use dry cloth and saturate with epoxy. Generally speaking this is what home-builders use. It's going to be heavier than a well made vacuum bag or pre-empregnated setup, but doesn't require expensive materials or specialized building techniques.

Your next choice is how to form the parts. Will you make a male mold? A female mold? Use a spacer material like polystyrene that can be chemically removed?

Fastening things in carbon fiber can be tricky. The strength in a fiber structure comes from the fiber itself. The epoxy is merely there to hold the fiber in the shape you need. Fastening to the carbon fiber incorrectly will crack the epoxy and destroy the structure's strength. You also tend to need backing plates to spread the pressure out.

Then there's cure times, cure temperatures, mixing ratios, substrate materials......

Starting around 2:10:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=504I_hJDFck

Wet Layup - what many FRC teams would do in their shops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOU3zEigt0

Vacuum Infusion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEyF5KOkhUY

The last two months of my life finally coming to a close (and why I know so much about fiber construction):