A friend on mine brought in his son's Mitsubishi Gallant for some modifications.
They had already done quite a bit of work to this very clean car....and ran into a few issue with things they needed a professional to handle for them.....cue Trax Customs.
They purchased this full fiberglass body kit, which includes the Front Bumper, Full Side Skirts, Full Rear bumper and Spoiler.
Most of the time, when you see an aftermarket bolt-on kit like this, the installation is sub-par. The front bumper sways in the wind when driving, the side skits look like they are a dress and flap everywhere and the rear bumper is usually the only thing that looks decent.
I wasn't going to allow this to happen to these guys....so I took it over and made this car look very OEM....ish.
FRONT BUMPER
First things first, remove pretty much ALL bumper components and get this thing to where it'll kind fit on the car. They say these are 100% bolt-on with minor modifications.....but for most people, minor modifications could take a month!
Once I got the bumper to fit ON the car, I reinforced the lower portion with some custom brackets and then made the very ends fit as flush as possible. Then I secured the entire upper structure via the OEM metal support and fiberglassed some added tabs for even more mounting.
All in all, the manufacturing company wanted you to bolt this with only 2 bolts and a few hopes and dreams.....I chose 12 bolts in total.....so I win :-D
SIDE SKIRTS
These were kind of a pain. After slight modifications to the Front and Rear wheel wells, I was able to get the wrap-around skirts on the car...but the doors wouldn't close....problem!
So after some cutting and fiberglassing, these badboys fit super snug.....they won't be flapping in the wind anytime soon....and the fitment is on-point when you open the doors....once painted, you won't be able to tell where they end and the OEM begins.
REAR BUMPER
This was a PITA. The factory bumper line is vertically straight down from the taillights....this bumper stretches out across the side rear body panels and ties into the rear of the wheel well......all of which extends from the factory body about 1-1.5"s....so with the help of Dova, we got the puppy to snap into place......also with the help of modified wheels wells, dripping holes everywhere to line up with poorly fiberglass mounting bolts and not lining up with the oem muffler....also a few hours of Dremel time cutting and sanding this thing to fit as close to the body as possible. There was a gap under each taillight that can be remedied via some rubber hosing to fill the gap. This couldn't be remedied due to the fact that the trunk lid only had about 1/8" clearance cap from the new bumper and the taillight gap was over 1"....but after everything is painted and final assembled, you won't be able to tell the difference.
SPOILER
This was pretty straight forward.....lined up the spoiler to the edges of the trunk.....rechecked fitment about 30Xs and then drilled holed.
I needed to add my own servicing holes in the trunk to get to the bolts....but nothing a layer of sound deadener won't hide.
This spoiler had an LED Brake Light integrated into it...which I ran into the trunk and soldered up with the rest of the LEDs.
LIGHTING
I replaced ALL exterior lights with client-supplied LED lights....
I also upgraded the headlights to the new Profile LED Dual-Beam bulbs....which are perfect for these older cars where the electrical system won't throw a fit when you replace the halogen bulbs.
I also custom fabricated new foglights for the new bumper. I used my Baja Designs Squadron Sport pods and hooked them up to the factory fog circuit. They are aimed a bit lower than the factory fogs because they are about 5Xs brighter....but with the Wide-Cornering lens installed on them, they do a decent job are disbursing the light outwards and not forward.....so it shouldn't be a huge annoyance to oncoming traffic.
All in All....this car turned out very nice.
Most clients that came into the shop while I was working on it said "why would you put money into that thing?"......easy......the father is showing his son value in doing something right the first time. This is the kids first car and they haven't cut corners on it....that's more than what I can say for a big majority of 'car people' nowadays...so I commend these guys. He's starting his kid off right and he's got the right mentality now!
I'll post pics once this thing gets painted!
They had already done quite a bit of work to this very clean car....and ran into a few issue with things they needed a professional to handle for them.....cue Trax Customs.
They purchased this full fiberglass body kit, which includes the Front Bumper, Full Side Skirts, Full Rear bumper and Spoiler.
Most of the time, when you see an aftermarket bolt-on kit like this, the installation is sub-par. The front bumper sways in the wind when driving, the side skits look like they are a dress and flap everywhere and the rear bumper is usually the only thing that looks decent.
I wasn't going to allow this to happen to these guys....so I took it over and made this car look very OEM....ish.
FRONT BUMPER
First things first, remove pretty much ALL bumper components and get this thing to where it'll kind fit on the car. They say these are 100% bolt-on with minor modifications.....but for most people, minor modifications could take a month!
Once I got the bumper to fit ON the car, I reinforced the lower portion with some custom brackets and then made the very ends fit as flush as possible. Then I secured the entire upper structure via the OEM metal support and fiberglassed some added tabs for even more mounting.
All in all, the manufacturing company wanted you to bolt this with only 2 bolts and a few hopes and dreams.....I chose 12 bolts in total.....so I win :-D
SIDE SKIRTS
These were kind of a pain. After slight modifications to the Front and Rear wheel wells, I was able to get the wrap-around skirts on the car...but the doors wouldn't close....problem!
So after some cutting and fiberglassing, these badboys fit super snug.....they won't be flapping in the wind anytime soon....and the fitment is on-point when you open the doors....once painted, you won't be able to tell where they end and the OEM begins.
REAR BUMPER
This was a PITA. The factory bumper line is vertically straight down from the taillights....this bumper stretches out across the side rear body panels and ties into the rear of the wheel well......all of which extends from the factory body about 1-1.5"s....so with the help of Dova, we got the puppy to snap into place......also with the help of modified wheels wells, dripping holes everywhere to line up with poorly fiberglass mounting bolts and not lining up with the oem muffler....also a few hours of Dremel time cutting and sanding this thing to fit as close to the body as possible. There was a gap under each taillight that can be remedied via some rubber hosing to fill the gap. This couldn't be remedied due to the fact that the trunk lid only had about 1/8" clearance cap from the new bumper and the taillight gap was over 1"....but after everything is painted and final assembled, you won't be able to tell the difference.
SPOILER
This was pretty straight forward.....lined up the spoiler to the edges of the trunk.....rechecked fitment about 30Xs and then drilled holed.
I needed to add my own servicing holes in the trunk to get to the bolts....but nothing a layer of sound deadener won't hide.
This spoiler had an LED Brake Light integrated into it...which I ran into the trunk and soldered up with the rest of the LEDs.
LIGHTING
I replaced ALL exterior lights with client-supplied LED lights....
I also upgraded the headlights to the new Profile LED Dual-Beam bulbs....which are perfect for these older cars where the electrical system won't throw a fit when you replace the halogen bulbs.
I also custom fabricated new foglights for the new bumper. I used my Baja Designs Squadron Sport pods and hooked them up to the factory fog circuit. They are aimed a bit lower than the factory fogs because they are about 5Xs brighter....but with the Wide-Cornering lens installed on them, they do a decent job are disbursing the light outwards and not forward.....so it shouldn't be a huge annoyance to oncoming traffic.
All in All....this car turned out very nice.
Most clients that came into the shop while I was working on it said "why would you put money into that thing?"......easy......the father is showing his son value in doing something right the first time. This is the kids first car and they haven't cut corners on it....that's more than what I can say for a big majority of 'car people' nowadays...so I commend these guys. He's starting his kid off right and he's got the right mentality now!
I'll post pics once this thing gets painted!
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