Sometimes when building a car, things get done slightly out of the order of what would otherwise be preferred.
In the case of the Bauerspeed Racing MX-5, one of those items was the cutting of the fenders and addition of flares. Preferably, this would have been done prior to getting the car painted.
To be fair, the flares that we ended up putting on the car weren't available at the time that the initial work was being done, but we did end up getting lucky with the tires not having extreme rubbing issues with the otherwise stock bodywork. Of course, part of the reason for this was the ride height that we were at.
While we had experience previously with running wide 285/30/18 tires on 18x9.5" wheels on our CSP MX-5 without cutting the fenders/quarter panels, the shorter, wider 23.5x11x16 tires on 16x10" wheels that we run on the DP car were going to be different. Since the tires are an inch smaller in overall diameter, that meant that the DP car would be lower, which would affect offsets, etc.
So, as it turned out, we were able to run the car with just an extreme rolling of the fenders and quarter panels. However, the car was not nearly as low as we would like it. To get it to the height that we wanted, it would require cutting the fenders to allow the needed wheel/tire clearance.
As you know if you've been following the build, we are VERY proud of our body and paint work on the car, so cutting the fenders would detract from the beauty of the car, as it would be very difficult to make the lines look right. In addition to that, there is always the danger of messing up the paint with the actual cutting.
Enter the SEMA show and a one off, special edition MX-5 that Mazda brought. The "Super 20" had flares that not only looked like they would allow the extra clearance needed to cover our big tires, but would hide whatever cutting of the stock fenders would be needed.
Sounds great, but the problem was that these flares were also one-offs. Fortunately there was a great enough clamoring amongst MX-5 owners, that Goodwin Racing was able to get the okay to have these flares built for sale.
The flares were built from fiberglass at the time that we bought them, although they are now available in urethane. Timing of course is everything, and were we to do it again, we'd definitely order them in urethane for a couple of reasons. First of all, they are more flexible (below you will see why this is important,) and secondly they would be more sturdy/less breakable.
We were able to see pictures from another owner that bought these for his daily driver and noted that there were a couple of negatives to the flares. It turns out that the flares were really more of a cosmetic item as built. The attachment to the car was by double stick tape both on the body of the car, and on the inside of the stock fender lip. We had already rolled the stock fenders, so there would be nothing to attach the flares to inside. Also, this area is where we were looking to gain additional clearance. Secondly, the flares were one piece items. Seems okay, but as the flares are being held to the car with double stick tape, this would make removing the bumpers and side skirts very difficult.
These same pictures did however show us that the flares looked to bring the body lines out far enough to cover our tires if we did some extra work.
So we ordered up a set and mocked them up on the car. As we expected, they did increase the overall width of the body work. Next up would be taking advantage of this extra width.
Okay, enough talking, here are some pics.....
This picture shows why we needed to cut the fenders in order to allow proper tire clearance. Obviously, we couldn't lower the car too much or the tires would start hitting the fenders. This picture is of the rear, but the front was very similar.
Here is what the flare looked like from the inside prior to cutting along with the intial piece cut off where the fender lip was. Futher trimming would be done later to fine tune the whole thing.
The first picture is of a rear flare and uncut fender, while the second is of a front. As you can see, there was probably a little over an inch at both ends of the car. While it wasn't extreme, keep in mind that this was with the fenders already sporting a very heavy roll/flare with my fender roller.
I used painters tape to allow me a clean cutting area. The second picture shows the actual line being cut on the rear. The tape allowed me to see where I was cutting and also allowed a little extra protection to the paint. I used my Dremel tool with 1 1/2" thin cut discs for the cutting of both the fenders and the flares. They are reinforced discs that allow for fairly precise cutting, and don't wear out excessively fast.
The first picture shows the rear after being cut. As you can see, there are two parts to fender back here. The quarter panel attaches to the inner fender normally at the fender lip. So this required cutting both the outer and inner fenders. I then took my fender roller to the inner fender to help push it up a little more. Fortunately it is fairly flat, so even if the tire hits it, there isn't any damage to the tire. The second picture shows the tire now tucking in under the flare. Both of these pictures are with the shock out to show what would happen under compression. The front fenders were much easier to cut as it is just the one piece fender.
Here you can see the car after the cutting of the fenders, without flares. This gives a good idea of what the clearances are at static ride height. Obviously the car is nowhere near as pretty. The cuts could have been done much better if the flares weren't being put on, but all I needed was clearance, not beauty.
I can't seem to find pictures of the additional work I did to the flares, so I will describe it as best I can.
First of all, I wanted to make sure they were strongly attached to the car. As previously noted, the provided attachment was double stick tape along the tops to the body work, and then inside the fender lip. Since the cutting that was done took away some of the attachment points, I decided to screw the inner portion to the lips down towards the bottom of the car. This required drilling holes in the flares and the lips. I then used rivnuts in the lips so I could screw them in. This was subsequently strengthened with more double stick tape. I used 3M "Super Strength Molding Tape."
Secondly, I decided to cut the flares along the stock mounting points between the bumpers, sideskirts, and body/fenders. This was challenging to match the stock lines due to the curvatures involved. In the end, I used a laser level to line up the stock cuts and then drew lines on the flares which I then cut to match. While the match didn't end up 100% perfect, it is very close.
An unfortunate byproduct of this cutting was that the flares no longer matched up at the cut lines. The reason for this is that the flares needed to be twisted a little to fit tightly against the body work. I could twist them to match up by hand, but it would require some way to hold them together other than my hands.... ;-)
My first attempt used double stick tape attached to 2" by 3/4" metal pieces. I then put these at the seams to hold it all together. This took a couple of tries as the tape didn't stick very well to the flares due to the fibers in the fiberglass. The other downside to this solution was that it didn't help with the reason that the cuts were made in the first place, namely the ability to remove the bumpers.
In the meantime, we took the flares to our friends at Pacific Auto Body. They did an outstanding job painting the flares to match their previous work to the car. The finished product was incredible. However, we still had problems with the double stick tape coming off at our mating points.
In my mind, velcro seemed like an obvious solution, but the problem was that there was a bit of a force needed to get the two sides to match up. Typical velcro wouldn't be strong enough to hold. After looking around and doing some research, I came across something similar to velcro, but much stronger. I purchased it at Radio Shack, and it is called "Superlock Fasteners." It has high strength tape on one side and the other side is bascially a bunch of small plastic mushrooms. When two pieces are mated, they create a very strong connection which is similar to velcro, but much, much stronger. This allowed me to use the same metal pieces from before with one side attached to that. I then attached one piece to each side of the flare. When mated together, the small metal plate, holds the flares together! This solution was used for the front, as I was able to use some additional double stick tape in the rear on the bumper portion of the flare to put it where I wanted. The added benefit to this velcro-like solution is that if the flare gets hit hard enough by a cone, it will just pull the "velcro" apart rather than pulling the tape off of the flare.
And here is the car after the flares are attached and painted. Beautiful and very functional.
