Hey fellas, so after lowering the car I've been scraping like mad with not much clearance and after a while the lip is cracked in 2 places. It's a Mazdaspeed lip identical to this one.



I'm not sure what it's made of but it's very flexible kinda like plastic so I was wondering what are some DIY ways I can fix it up just in my garage. A friend told me to do plastic welding or bondo, any tips would be awesome, thanks.

 

Nothing that will hold up to the next curb scrape.

 

i have a decent r1 front lip for sale, cheap

 

actually let me rephrase that.... a pot hole came out of no where in a parking lot going 5 km/h and that's why it cracked, usually it just takes scrapes like a champ.

 

Superglue

 

Well if you want to clean up the color try SEM plastic paint. The "Back to Black" and other rub-in treatments are only very temporary. If you do any bondo the moment you scrape the paint off it will show, which is why that's not a very good option.

Plastic welding is the only real way to fix cracks since it's a thermoplastic. Epoxies and glues IME end up more brittle than the lip material and just crack away.

In terms of hassle and pain a new lip ($130?) is actually not a bad deal.

Murphy's laws though - immediately after I refinished mine I ripped it up on an invisible hole too. Then I drove around like that for months and never touched a thing, so I finally got comfortable enough to buy a new lip. Two weeks later that one got torn up too. Yeah, I admit I'm bitter and I gave up.

Dave

 

I've wanted to lower mine, almost since I got it. But, knowing our roads around here, and not wanting to bottom out / scrape things, I resisted the impulse. Reading stuff like this, I'm glad I did. There is no way you can avoid everything, and stock height gives me more safety factor.

Good luck - driving on public roads is a bit of a crap-shoot.