Ok some of you drag racers that want to get rid of 30lbs might be interested in this. I will say right now, in my opinion, this is not a mod for a daily driver. I would do this for a weekend warrior or race car only (my opinion).
As this decklid is carbon fiber, its extremely light, thin, but strong. I decided to mount it using Dzus fasteners. 1st step is to build the Dzus fasteners. I first riveted the springs underneath the mounting pad like this:
Now, as you can see--the rivet sticks out on the other side, which needs to be flat, so I just grinded down the rivet until smooth:
Once I had those made, I decided to position them on the car. I did NOT rivet the L brackets for the dzus fasteners to the car. I used sheet metal screws. Why? Because the sheet metal screw was smaller in diameter then the holes in the L bracket. What this allowed me to do was make small changes in the bracket height until I got the deck lid height exactly matching the 1/4 panel. I had to do this by making several test fits until I was happy with the result.
Once I had the brackets in place and I liked the height, I then had to install the top portion of the dzus fastener. I first started with only an 1/8th inch pilot hole at each location. That way, if I was off a little, I could still have the hole end up in the correct spot by making corrections. The holes ended up being a little larger the 1/2 inch. Actually I only had to adjust one hole. Once I positioned the decklid how I wanted it, the center of the mounting hole was exactly 1 inch from the mounting flange, so it was easy to measure and drill the hole where it needed to be.
^^^^So after a few test fits this is how I ended up---but notice there is a little unevenness. That is because the dzus fasteners were really tight. I used a pair of pliers to compress the gold spring in picture #1, and by decreasing the height just a little, the dzus fastener did not compress the decklid so hard and that corrected the deformation it was causing by being too tight.
Here it is installed with the skinny kid race car wing. The decklid itself is nice and even along the window, the seams along the 1/4 panels are good, and it also matches the seam along the wing (where the wing meets the top of the decklid--there is a 3/16 gap that stays even all along the decklid). The alignment with the decklid along the bumper could be better though.
All and all a good piece and it looks good for the drag strip---all though any of you show car guys out there would need to stick to a Trufiber or other high end piece. But it should be mentioned this was not an $800 piece, this was $299. And for me, in addition to dropping 30lbs, by being able to remove the decklid all together will make it easier for me to add fuel, change batteries, or do any other work in the back of the car. Oh, and I no longer have to worry about locking the keys accidentally in the trunk haha!
As this decklid is carbon fiber, its extremely light, thin, but strong. I decided to mount it using Dzus fasteners. 1st step is to build the Dzus fasteners. I first riveted the springs underneath the mounting pad like this:
Now, as you can see--the rivet sticks out on the other side, which needs to be flat, so I just grinded down the rivet until smooth:
Once I had those made, I decided to position them on the car. I did NOT rivet the L brackets for the dzus fasteners to the car. I used sheet metal screws. Why? Because the sheet metal screw was smaller in diameter then the holes in the L bracket. What this allowed me to do was make small changes in the bracket height until I got the deck lid height exactly matching the 1/4 panel. I had to do this by making several test fits until I was happy with the result.
Once I had the brackets in place and I liked the height, I then had to install the top portion of the dzus fastener. I first started with only an 1/8th inch pilot hole at each location. That way, if I was off a little, I could still have the hole end up in the correct spot by making corrections. The holes ended up being a little larger the 1/2 inch. Actually I only had to adjust one hole. Once I positioned the decklid how I wanted it, the center of the mounting hole was exactly 1 inch from the mounting flange, so it was easy to measure and drill the hole where it needed to be.
^^^^So after a few test fits this is how I ended up---but notice there is a little unevenness. That is because the dzus fasteners were really tight. I used a pair of pliers to compress the gold spring in picture #1, and by decreasing the height just a little, the dzus fastener did not compress the decklid so hard and that corrected the deformation it was causing by being too tight.
Here it is installed with the skinny kid race car wing. The decklid itself is nice and even along the window, the seams along the 1/4 panels are good, and it also matches the seam along the wing (where the wing meets the top of the decklid--there is a 3/16 gap that stays even all along the decklid). The alignment with the decklid along the bumper could be better though.
All and all a good piece and it looks good for the drag strip---all though any of you show car guys out there would need to stick to a Trufiber or other high end piece. But it should be mentioned this was not an $800 piece, this was $299. And for me, in addition to dropping 30lbs, by being able to remove the decklid all together will make it easier for me to add fuel, change batteries, or do any other work in the back of the car. Oh, and I no longer have to worry about locking the keys accidentally in the trunk haha!
