With my race weekend cut short by the continuing problems I’m having with excessive crank case pressure, I decided to try to salvage the weekend by installing a bunch of exterior goodies that I’ve picked up over the last couple of months.

First up were some parts from Rexspeed. These guys have some really nice carbon fiber goodies at a great price and, despite the usual Chinese production facilities that they use to spit them out, the quality is top notch. I picked up their Type 1 trunk spoiler, carbon fiber “EVOLUTION IX” trunk lettering, and their wide-angle side view mirrors. Rexspeed is active on evolutionm.net, and so I ordered directly from them.

I gave the car a good bath to get all of the oil and track grime off, and then prepped the trunk by removing the old diamond star logo and cleaning it with some de-greaser.

The trunk spoiler is an easy install; some 3M double-sided automotive tape does the trick nicely. The spoiler lines up right between the stock wing uprights (yes, I’m back to the stock wing). I’m not 100% sure of the effectiveness of this spoiler, but a similar design on the old ‘95-’99 BMW M3 had a fair amount of downforce being generated by controlling the air off of the trunk this way. I’m expecting this spoiler to do the same.

Next I installed the new carbon fiber trunk lettering. The Rexspeed letters come with 3M tape on the back, and a plastic alignment surround that makes sure the letter are lined up properly. I capped everything off with a new, red vinyl diamond star logo. This is not a badge — literally just a sticker, but it looks great on the race car.

The close-up of the logo shows that the carbon weave between the two Rexspeed parts even matches. This would look great on a street car if you have a carbon fetish.

Next up was to install the wide-angle mirrors. These are hugely helpful for driving on track, and a must-have for any racecar driven on the street. If you have a race seat and harnesses checking your blind spot is nearly impossible. These mirrors will let you see anything next to you on the road without having to turn your head to look back.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:

Installation is as simple as using the (you guessed it) 3M tape that Rexspeed includes on the back of the mirrors. You place the new lenses over the old mirrors and you’re done.

With the litte parts done, it was time to move on to the more serious parts — C-West side skirts and C-West carbon fiber canards to go with my new C-West bumper.

After an unfortunate off at Turn 1 at Infineon Raceway (I wasn’t driving), I needed to replace my front bumper and splitter. I took the opportunity to go for an upgrade, and went with the CWest FRP bumper. The Cwest bumper is lighter due to it’s construction and due to elimination of the front crash beam, has an integrated spoiler lip, and allows for more airflow through the intercooler and radiator. It’s a very nice design, both functional and good looking.

I installed the bumper back in May in preparation of my next track day, but I did not install the side skirts or canards that I picked up to match it. With the car clean and up on jack stands, I went to work on installing the skirts. The CWest parts bolt to the car using the two factory front side skirt mounting bolts and two of the factory bottom screw points. Complementing that CWest supplies a screw to add to the rear of the skirt behind the rear door that further stabilizes the part.

The C-West canards are designed specifically for their bumper. The 4 carbon fiber pieces are designed to do two things; route air around and above the front wheels while helping to increase front downforce. To keep it simple, rather than using bolts to hold the canards in place I used some black aluminum rivets. This saved me from having to remove the front bumper, with the trade off that I won’t be able to remove the canards if I want to (there shouldn’t be any need to).

The finished product looks great and — once the motor problems are resolved — should hopefully run as fast as it looks.

≡ Recent Entries

• It’s Alive (Almost)!
• Motor FAIL… Again.
• One More Chance…
• WORKS=FAIL, or Why I Am Parting Out My Evo…
• C-West and Rexspeed Goodies
• The Good News and the Bad News… and More Bad News
• Building a 2.2l Race Motor for the Evo IX
• Installing Invision DVD Headrests on the X5
• In-Car Video - Leg 2
• In-Car Video - Prologue

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Installs & How-to's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.