This one is too good not to post both. 

-Ethan 

 One of the best 14" TH-line applications of all time in my opinion.

-Ethan

Since the last update I made on my car I have gotten a few odds and ends done. All the new body panels are hung and the interior is 95% reinstalled as well. There are a few other projects I am trying to finish up before H20, one of which was refinishing the iS rear spoiler I acquired about a month ago. I found it on r3vlimited.com for pretty cheap, and when it arrived it looked pretty haggard. It came from the west coast and the original bronzit paint from 1988 was cracked and falling off in large chunks. 

Today over lunch I took a few minutes to sand it down and hit it with some primer. Here's are the highlights:

This is post-sanding, unfortunately I forgot to take a before pic. 

This is after a few coats of high-build primer and a little light sanding with 600 grit. It came out really nicely and no longer looks worse for the wear. I'm going to order some BMW schwarz paint and clear in a spraycan from paintscratch.com this week and do it myself, we'll see how it turns out!

The other part of this process worth mentioning is that I've decided to cut the mounting studs off the bottom of the spoiler and attach it via 3M molding tape instead. My new to me, freshly painted trunk lid is too nice to drill into, plus the water leak and rusting hazards are more risk than I want to take on. Plus, having it mounted with 3M tape will allow me more flexibility should I decide I want to go spoilerless again sometime in the future. 

-Ethan 

Did I ever tell you guys I love Heavy Machinery? 

-Ethan

After getting the car home I was pretty anxious to dive in and start throwing all the new stuff at it. In addition to the new fender I had sprayed at Performance Collision, I also ended up getting a used OEM passenger fender and trunk lid that were freshly resprayed as part of a favor for a friend during the time the car was in the shop.  

I started with the trunk lid, which was a fairly easy swap. Took some adjusting to get the gaps right, but I got it dialed in pretty well.

After that I took some time prepping the car for its new fenders. There were a few spots of surface rust on the unibody that i sanded down and hit with POR-15, as well as the driver's side pinch weld area. I was concerned it might be in bad shape considering how rusty the fender was in that area, but I lucked out. Some scraping and sanding revealed it was fine, but i buried it in POR-15 to be safe anyway.

The factory sealant that bonds the fenders at the top by the cowl area had to be removed to get the fenders off, which left some areas of exposed metal. I took some time to tape things off and hit them with some paint and clear, then wet-sanded and compounded them. The goal wasn't hi-gloss, just an OEM type look, I'm happy how it turned out.

Finally, I ended up having to retexture the bottoms of both freshly painted fenders, both body shops painted them full gloss, which wouldn't match the rest of the car.

Both fenders are now most of the way bolted onto the car, but I'm waiting on a package from Tischer with some new hardware before they are fully installed.

The final stage was installation of the carpet.

This is pretty much exactly where I am right now, not a ton of big stuff left for this year, just some small odds and ends. I've got an iS rear lip I need to refinish and install, and I still need to throw some paint or powdercoat at the RSs.

The goal is H20 at the end of next month, hopefully I can get it all done. 

-Ethan

The final new design we're releasing for H20 dropped today. We've gotten a lot of requests for Rado and Rocco designs, so we tried to knock em all out at once. I decided an old school Kung Fu movie theme would be cool, so that's what I did! I'm pretty pleased how it turned out. It's available in the Shop as we speak so check it out!

-Ethan 

 This was sent over by a fella on Vortex by the name Breezy, pretty dialed in Miata. Figured we'd change it up a little bit today!

 -Ethan

I got a call Friday that the E30 would be done by day's end. Since I was heading up to York that evening for VAG Fair festivities I knew I wouldn't get a chance to see it until today. So I stopped by to check it out and settle up on my bill, then tomorrow I will go back and pick it up, once I can get a ride to the shop from Dave. 

I was pretty excited all weekend to finally see it, so I went with camera in hand to document some before/afters. It turned out even better than I had hoped. The floor, which had been pushed up about 3/4" due to rust and my poor floor-jacking decision looks fantastic, the only thing betraying the fact that it's ever been touched is the weld line and fresh undercoating. Everything was massaged back into place and it really looks great. I'll post up the new pics with the before shots for reference:

Passenger pinch rail/outboard floor 

Passenger side of rear valance

Rear passenger side of valance/battery box area

Overall, I'm super pleased. It feels good to know the car is rust-free moving forward, so I can focus on other areas in need of attention. I haven't shown any pics of the driver's side fender yet because it's not on the car yet. 

My plan tomorrow is to reattach the old driver's fender and bumper to get the car home, then spend some time getting the car sorted out. I may grab some new hardware and also POR-15 some surface rust on the pinch rails before i mount my two freshly painted fenders. I also scored a freshly painted trunk lid from a friend in exchange for a favor, and it will be receiving an iS lip once i can throw some paint at it. I'm going to finally get to install my cardinal carpet as well. I'll take a bunch of pics of the process and end results as I go.

All the work was done by the guys at Performance Collision in Catonsville, MD. I'd recommend them to anyone, they are priced fairly and do outstanding and trustworthy work.

-Ethan