[fortythirtyfive]

Well.. pretty much 6 months since starting this I finally found a 5 day week to take some time out of work and try finish this haha.

I made another mould and used an epoxy compliant spray adhesive to tack the fabric down, rather than the traditional "pour resin in and wait until B stage to stick the fabric down". This resulted in an OEM grade finish of carbon, it looked pristine and so much brighter than your average carbon skinned finish, sadly the offset still wasn't enough to make this a slip on piece though and it fell short so I made the decision to just wet layup the diffuser and cut my £300 losses on mould materials.

This is the difference between moulded carbon work and wet layup:


Right now I'm just post curing the diffuser before a final sand. Because it's a custom project all 3 bodyshops I tried quotes with want between £450 - 500 to paint this body colour so I'm going to paint this one myself once my supplier gets a free moment to mix me some paint by eye, that way I can get an edge to edge close match without blending.

[rusty_sojah]

Looks great. I successfully returned my maxton one last month and ordered the m perf one from ECS and the fitment was about 99% as perfect as the oem one i removed. I am super thrilled with my new diffuser and wish i would have gone this route the first time. Install took me 20 minutes and all mounting points were same as OEM. Just fyi to anyone on the fence who is reading this.

[fortythirtyfive]

Finally found an edge to edge match for my variant of Alpine White - my local suppliers use Mipa and believe it or not Alpine White III (most recent) has 11 variants on the Mipa mix system.

If it's any help to anyone I settled on the Redder Darker variant with a slight recalibration to get me even closer. Depending on the month/year/factory where your car was built the variant could be totally different

Anyway I got my makeshift paint booth setup and made the most of last weekends warm weather..





27c outdoors and 48c inside the tent when left zipped up - a massive benefit for baking the clear coat, Max Meyer ask for 15 minutes at 60c so I'd say this came in perfect.

I'll give it a quick cut and buff in a day or so, then I'll post some fitted photos.

[fortythirtyfive]

Well.. I was 50/50 about posting these.






The Alpine White formula still isn't 100% and yeah I know this is why you blend into a bumper, but I really wanted to avoid that haha.

I guess the solution here is to spray something more substantial than a sprayout card lol - when angled vertically it almost matches 95% however the horizontal surfaces let it down big time.

I'm going to see if I can persuade my paint guys to sell me some black tint for the base and see if I can mix up a darker version. The irony is this formula is a darker variation of what most bodyshops will blend into your car. The other "sort of" solution is to give it another lacquer and see if I can yellow it a little seen as too much lacquer warms the colour.

[rusty_sojah]

Originally Posted by fortythirtyfive

Well.. I was 50/50 about posting these.



The Alpine White formula still isn't 100% and yeah I know this is why you blend into a bumper, but I really wanted to avoid that haha.

I guess the solution here is to spray something more substantial than a sprayout card lol - when angled vertically it almost matches 95% however the horizontal surfaces let it down big time.

I'm going to see if I can persuade my paint guys to sell me some black tint for the base and see if I can mix up a darker version. The irony is this formula is a darker variation of what most bodyshops will blend into your car. The other "sort of" solution is to give it another lacquer and see if I can yellow it a little seen as too much lacquer warms the colour.

i honestly think it came out looking amazing!! madd respect for completing that job. I am a bit colorblind but it looks matching enough to me in those photos although i know real life eyes can often see things a bit more clearly.

can i ask you what rear side diffusers those are? i am going to order them as soon as you tell me so hope you don't mind . i have been searching for a long long time for the perfect rear, front, and rear side pieces and those look like the best i've seen so far. also, since you seem to have such good taste with rear diffuser and rear side diffuser, do you have a photo of your front splitter you can post up by chance? i think we can all agree the m-perf ones you have on the side are the way to go.

presently for my next big mod, i'm searching for a bracket that doesn't have to be custom molded to mount a g series m perf wing. i found one for the f82, and thinking the f82 boot lid may be identical to the f32 but i want to try to confirm that before ordering, you know...

[fortythirtyfive]

Feel like I've made a better formula, I changed the black tint out for a deep black, then I increased the Ocher tint to warm it up. Just need to test spray a large item before I re-do the diffuser paint lol.

I also might try wrapping the exhaust area and reflectors with a carbon wrap just as a temporary DIY to see what its like

mockup here:

Originally Posted by rusty_sojah

i honestly think it came out looking amazing!! madd respect for completing that job. I am a bit colorblind but it looks matching enough to me in those photos although i know real life eyes can often see things a bit more clearly.

can i ask you what rear side diffusers those are? i am going to order them as soon as you tell me so hope you don't mind . i have been searching for a long long time for the perfect rear, front, and rear side pieces and those look like the best i've seen so far. also, since you seem to have such good taste with rear diffuser and rear side diffuser, do you have a photo of your front splitter you can post up by chance? i think we can all agree the m-perf ones you have on the side are the way to go.

presently for my next big mod, i'm searching for a bracket that doesn't have to be custom molded to mount a g series m perf wing. i found one for the f82, and thinking the f82 boot lid may be identical to the f32 but i want to try to confirm that before ordering, you know...

The diffuser extensions were a collab between me and Geex, they did the final tweaks to a design that I made out of cardboard, 3D scanned, drew in and then sent to them. The guys I used to make a small production run of these went on to sell them without me knowing.

If you want to pick up a set you can find them here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006025478783.html

They're obviously able to make them for a lot lot less, my original costs were above £450. They also don't have the correct mounting holes on those as the resize skewed them out of position.. so you'll need to do some chopping and drilling into the underside of the bumper, nothing major but just be prepared to buy some long bolts and nuts, fit them by peeling back the wheel well liner.

The last front shot I took is this:



I need to make a new set of the bumper fangs that sit in the fog light recess as I'm missing those right now, my last set got destroyed after a bird strike.

[rusty_sojah]

Originally Posted by fortythirtyfive

The ones I have I paid £300 in total after shipping and taxes, they'll be the same though as I'm fairly sure my friend bought them from the same reseller.

cool man thanks, i think i got the order placed, now let's see if they will use my US credit card info to send to my address in Japan that part is always a bit tricky, sometimes my CC blocks it as suspicious, sometimes the shops selling the pats think it is suspicious.. the struggle is real out here. i actually just got my missing mid-pipe section for my Turner b58 full cat back kit in the mail today that i had originally ordered back in May, having received all but the mid-pipe a month ago.

[fortythirtyfive]

Doing a last minute trip this weekend so won't be re-painting it until after then, so instead I took the chance to quickly wrap the rear reflectors and tail pipe inlet areas to match the photoshop..





Much happier now, it really breaks up all the white. The downside is I've used that questionable "6D carbon" vinyl which doesn't like moisture lol! I've only used it once before in the engine bay and it sort of held up, apparently water creeps under the gloss layer though so time will tell.. I really don't fancy skinning those areas/pieces.

[fortythirtyfive]

Also an FYI I found that you need to put your hand behind the bumper when pushing the Maxton diffuser tabs in, you'll feel them click in place if you push from both sides. I believe this will be part of the reason so many get fitment issues with them (apart from the 3 middle screws).

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by fortythirtyfive

Doing a last minute trip this weekend so won't be re-painting it until after then, so instead I took the chance to quickly wrap the rear reflectors and tail pipe inlet areas to match the photoshop..





Much happier now, it really breaks up all the white. The downside is I've used that questionable "6D carbon" vinyl which doesn't like moisture lol! I've only used it once before in the engine bay and it sort of held up, apparently water creeps under the gloss layer though so time will tell.. I really don't fancy skinning those areas/pieces.

That looks awesome!

Now how much would you charge to do one just like it but estoril blue?!

[rusty_sojah]

Originally Posted by fortythirtyfive

i received those rear side diffuser trim pieces this past Friday and set about installing them. it was a pain in the butt, but thanks for the heads up about it. The fact that they were only $160 shipped via that alibaba link was enough to motivate me to keep drilling until i got it correct

once i got it mounted to the most rear underside part it wouldn't sit flush for the side sketchy ass screws i was about to put in, so i shoved something under it to keep it super tight to the body and used a heat gun for like 10 minutes a side. i have no idea if that helped or even works on these semi carbon fiber plasticy pieces i got (they smelled like bad china chemicals at one point), but then i just put the 3 or 4 screws in and it came out looking pretty damn sweet to me, so thanks a milli for that part info!!

i'm waiting on my OEM f82 LCI Ikon style headlights to arrive from Denmark and when i install those i will do the yellow DRL modules and fog delete. but after that I think i want to add the side skirt trim and possible an inch or 1.5" lower in the front. i have been trying to avoid coilovers for the first time in my life and just keep with the H&R super lower springs or whatever but the front is just too high for my liking.

[fortythirtyfive]

Originally Posted by rusty_sojah

once i got it mounted to the most rear underside part it wouldn't sit flush for the side sketchy ass screws i was about to put in, so i shoved something under it to keep it super tight to the body and used a heat gun for like 10 minutes a side. i have no idea if that helped or even works on these semi carbon fiber plasticy pieces i got (they smelled like bad china chemicals at one point), but then i just put the 3 or 4 screws in and it came out looking pretty damn sweet to me, so thanks a milli for that part info!!

If you managed to burn or re-glass the resin it would smell like cigarets. They're definitely carbon, they just have a backing of biaxial fabric to strengthen out the cosmetic twill on top.

Not 100% sure if it's the same third party manufacturing these now, but the batch I had were clearly force dried after being painted. You could smell the lacquer as I sanded into it.