Tips on installing body kit
 

Hello, I'm getting ready to install my GP sports bodykit and do a complete paint job on my 7 and I'm looking for any tips from people who have installed this specific kit. Ive worked in a bodyshop for about 6 years so i have a lot of experience with bodywork and painting but Ive never installed a fiberglass kit. I'm experienced enough to know to get this thing to fit perfect before i paint it. I know I'm going to use the front and rear bumper brackets from the original bumpers but i cant decide on what to use where the front and rear bumpers wrap around the fenders and quarter panels, id like to use rivets if i can because they look much cleaner then screws but i haven't fit them up yet to find out if rivets will work in the wheel well areas. i have no clue what to use at the area where the bumpers meet the body where the old side mouldings/side markers would be, any ideas? only thing i can think of is urethane glue or rivets/screws underneath the side markers.

I also have no ideas on how to mount the side skirts. i noticed that where the side skirts meet the body where the mouldings would go, they have a strange lip with about a 1 inch flat surface that looks like its meant to slide down on something or to kind of hang on some type of bracket but it didn't come with any hardware or instructions so i dunno.. any tips from someone with a little more experience with this specific kit would be great, thanks in advance

i am surprised that with 6 years with body and paint knowledge you have not put on a body kit before. Like most kits including yours its not going to fit perfect, there may be areas with some serious gaps or excessive tightness. But you wont know where they are until you do a test fit. During your test fit note those areas as you might need to do some grinding. Note the mounting points of your stock bumper as you may need to drill holes if your kit is not predrilled. You may use zip ties for test fitting, but do not use zipties for your final product. If you want show room type quality and fitment you better be well diverse in fiberglass knowledge and repair. Depending how OCD you are about it you can spend 1 afternoon, 1 day or 1 week test fitting. As far as hardware is concerned use as much of the stock items as you can. If you run out you can piece some up at your local hardware store. Good luck

heres a good tip. take ur time with it, no one has a gun to ur head to finish it. haste makes waste. nuff said

best advice. :icon_tup:

Also, please dont mold your kit in!!! It seems like an easy answer that people come to for a crap fitting kit lol.. You may need to trim some of teh fiberglass here and there. Just test fit etc.

You may need to use some muscle to fit the kit, like forcing it to wrap around the fenders etc.. I suggest rocking the kit for a while before you paint it, so it can work its way to fit the car if you can, or work out all the kinks in the kit so there will be no problems when you have it painted and put it on the car.

my Gp-sports kit was put on really nice, they fixed the skirts and rear bumper seemless to the car. front bumper is fixed with the stock bolts and some small screws inside the wheel arch

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well I'm going to be pretty OCD about this kit. I think its impossible not to be if you want to be a good body man. i know its strange i haven't ever installed a kit after all these years but our shop gets all our work from the manheim auto auction, they are all dealer cars so no kits on these cars. I just finished doing a complete interior restoration on the car, its going to be a show quality car so this kit needs to be perfect. if you want to have an idea how OCD I'm going to be with this thing, i can tell you that i have already covered the entire kit with a skim coat of fiberglass reinforced putty and i block sanded the whole thing since even the highest quality fiberglass has waves and imperfections. this kit will look as smooth as the rest of the car. i figured im going to have to do this since the car will be black and you would see every wave very easily.

Im going to be taking alot of time to make this fit perfectly, ive been in the business long enough to know to take my time. I just spent three weeks of working everyday to restore the interior.

im more concerned with how im going to mount the side skirts and how to mount the sides of the bumper since the stock bumpers didn't wrap around like this kit does.

oh and BTW i will never mould a kit. thats for cars that never get driven. they all crack out at sometime....

oh man thats literally the most perfect job ive ever seen.

if you mould the front bumper, it will crack! eventually you will hit a speedbump or whatever.

but for the sides and rear it is no problem. the bodyshop that did mine has years of experience in this and cars are running over 12 years without cracking.
it all depends on the skills of the guy in the shop and quality of the materials used....

"my Gp-sports kit was put on really nice, they fixed the skirts and rear bumper seemless to the car. front bumper is fixed with the stock bolts and some small screws inside the wheel arch"

how did they screw it in the wheel wells? theres not really anything to screw it too...the lip that tucks around in there is only like a quarter inch and the kit sits pretty far away from that lip..

they fixed a small bracket on the inside of the body panels were you can screw into...

ahh that makes sense.. so your saying the bracket is screwed thruogh the lower flat part of the fender (where the factory chip guard is) where the body kit covers it, like you would see the screws to the bracket if the kit wasnt on..if that makes any sense..lol

yes, kinda like that

Thats right, As for myself instead of screws i used Rivets, on the back side i made a single piece bracket about 4 inches in length. Made 4 and put them on the back of the lower wheel well arch. This allowed me to properly stabilize the kit without any bulky heavier screws, and let it sit flush. I want to redo it however and replace the rivets with flat hex bolts, so i can use allen wrenches to dismount kits when i need to.

what i like about body kits now days is that you may purchase them in flexible urethane, rather than a stiff crack prone FRP materials that i am used to in the late 90s early 2000. Not only are they great for fitment, but during an auto accident they absorb energy & dampen very well and still retain a very good shape. Iv seen a S13 at a drift competition in Hawaii that slammed right into the wall, Fenders, lights hood doors were mangled yet the front bumper and side skirts retained their original shape, and it was obvious that the bumper did receive impact because the of paint exchange.

Although i hate molded kits, even for sideskirts. I have to admit your body guys that did your work did a very good job. They kept the seams of the molding and it looks very straight cut. Furb your car always looked good regardless, i cant complain.

Really good site
http://fiberglassforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12
you have to register to view it but its worth it. Fiberglass forums, people do all kinds of crazy stuff there.

so then what i should do is make a bracket and rivet it to the inner flap of the front bumper in the wheel area then have it so the bracket bolts to the lower flat area of the fender that the bumper covers up? the bolts or screws will be accessible from the inside with the plastic wheel liner removed? any of you guys have a pic of your brackets so i can get a better idea?

my advice is when your fitting your parts dont just hold them up in place, you MUST attach them. Where you might use rivets use a small zip screw, where your using double sided tape use a small dab of hot glue.

when you just hold it up with your hands you dont realize that a stiffer part like fiberglass wont give a bit like urethane will, so you hold it up with your hands checking fitment and it all looks good, but when you go to attach it for good suddenly that corner does not line up anymore because the opposite corner wont have that tiny bit of give. Remember it might be slightly flexible, but it aint gonna stretch.
I learned that the hard way after taking 10 hours to fit and trim a FC2000 front bumper for someone, I literally needed a 1/16th of a inch give- well it gave in the form of a small crack.

oh wow that sucks... i do plan on bolting up the factory brackets and all then using small screws or rivets in the sides to test fit it. im planning on taking many many hours to fit this up perfectly i guess i have enough experience to be able to make my own brackets and other forms of mounting this kit, i just figured some people who have installed this kit could save me some time by telling me what they used...so far you guys have already provide some very helpful info but keep it coming..

some flat aluminum stock comes in handy to make brackets for supports, easy to bend and drill. Cut some stock 1" wide, its easy to work with that size. Using the aluminum means you wont have to paint it and wont have to worry about rusting makeshift metal brackets.

wow thats an awesome idea! i was worried about the brackets rusting..and also your right it would be way easier to work with..now ill have to figure out where to find some..

I had some cut from a local shop, they used a press, I forget exactly how thick the material was but its under 1/4" thick, easy to bend in a vise, easy to drill.

you might want to buy a heat gun.. since you're ocd about fitment and such.. it'll allow for easier small adjustments

heat gun works on fiberglass? thats news to me....

zip ties are a great invention, wont leave home without them, Zip it an drift it!

ahhhhh zip ties
where would my fc be without them