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      07-10-2019, 10:44 PM   #1
arashir
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Post OCD F82 Sideskirt installation

I wanted to get some carbon fiber sideskirts, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and I also wanted to mount them flush with the body instead of sticking out horizontally like many sideskirts do. I also wanted to ensure that there would be no gap whatsoever where the sideskirt mates with the body. Since I decided to drag this out to an unreasonable level of overengineering, here is a little chronicle of my preparation and installation process and what I learned along the way.


I started with getting some cheap knockoff carbon fiber sideskirts, which looked real enough but had a lot of heavy filler material on them. Test fitting them on revealed that they will stick out some amount when mounted, since the body part this mates with has a lip on the inside that prevents it from being mounted any more inboard than this:



So with a dremel I cut the inside 1/4" edge of each piece, as a nice bonus this dramatically reduced the weight of the pieces:



Then it was time to drill holes into the parts, they did not come predrilled. Since we are doing some unreasonable overengineering, naturally I drilled more holes than other applications I've seen, although in retrospect it was completely unnecessary. Here each hole is about 5" apart, using masking tape to mark the part that will be mated to the car. The idea here was to place the holes as close as possible to the outside without screwing something up, in order to ensure the tightest mating of the two parts:



I obtained stainless steel hex head screws and the biggest stainless steel equivalent fender washers I could find, which are these black oxide coated 1.5" wide fender washers. It did strike me that this many fasteners could be adding unnecessary weight to the project:



Next, it was time to prepare the underside of the parts. With these giant washers, I had to level the area around the holes to ensure the washer would be pressing on the maximum surface area:



Now the pieces are fully cut, drilled and leveled and ready for the next step:



In keeping with the theme of this post, I obtained special 2mil thick 3M VHB adhesive, and some 3M Adhesion Promoter 111, because why not:



Of course you have to fully clean all surfaces before you apply the Adhesion Promoter. Here you can see the lip on the underside of the body that prevented the original piece from being mounted further inboard:



Finally, it was time to perform the fastening. Here is where I learned the hard way that the original 1.25" screws would hit sheet metal for every single hole I drilled except for the first two on each end. I got the 1.25" length from assuming that the bag of cheap screws that came with the product (that I didn't use) were the correct length. Through a lot of pain and bad measuring I eventually realized I had to go all the way down to 1/2" screws in order to avoid the sheet metal. At such a short length you only have about one or two threads in effect, but since I went overboard everywhere else it didn't seem to matter:



And here is the final result. Thanks for reading!
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      07-10-2019, 11:07 PM   #2
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Awesome post. Thanks !
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      07-11-2019, 07:20 AM   #3
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Congrats!!

Where did you buy the carbon fiber sideskirts?
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      07-11-2019, 07:22 AM   #4
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damn ebay got side skirts with 14 pre drilled holes self tapping screws, perfect fitment, 290 bucks

nice install OP. posting for people who dont feelcomfortable using a dremel
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      07-11-2019, 07:33 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G35POPPEDMYCHERRY View Post
damn ebay got side skirts with 14 pre drilled holes self tapping screws, perfect fitment, 290 bucks

nice install OP. posting for people who dont feelcomfortable using a dremel
For M3 or M4?
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      07-13-2019, 06:39 PM   #6
arashir
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Txipi84 View Post
Congrats!!

Where did you buy the carbon fiber sideskirts?
it was from a forum member here, they didn't specify a brand
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      07-15-2019, 03:33 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arashir View Post
it was from a forum member here, they didn't specify a brand
Could you send me a pm with the contact, please?

Thanks!
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      07-15-2019, 12:11 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Txipi84 View Post
Could you send me a pm with the contact, please?

Thanks!
sure, sent
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      07-15-2019, 01:20 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G35POPPEDMYCHERRY View Post
damn ebay got side skirts with 14 pre drilled holes self tapping screws, perfect fitment, 290 bucks

nice install OP. posting for people who dont feelcomfortable using a dremel
Got a link?
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      07-21-2019, 07:10 AM   #10
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nicely done and very well documented. great work!
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      07-23-2019, 05:24 PM   #11
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Thank you for sharing
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      08-01-2019, 11:03 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G35POPPEDMYCHERRY View Post
damn ebay got side skirts with 14 pre drilled holes self tapping screws, perfect fitment, 290 bucks

nice install OP. posting for people who dont feelcomfortable using a dremel
Whenever using a dremel on the sheet metal of a car, use some kind of waterproofer around the hole to prevent rust.
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      08-01-2019, 12:25 PM   #13
arashir
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PhatLyfe View Post
Whenever using a dremel on the sheet metal of a car, use some kind of waterproofer around the hole to prevent rust.
To be clear, none of the steps in this DIY involved using a dremel on the sheet metal or piercing the sheet metal with the fasteners. But if you are going to somehow get the sheet metal involved, that would be an even more overengineered approach
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      10-17-2019, 04:11 PM   #14
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Wow, great work! That's not OCD at all. I mean, anyone would have done this. lol
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