My S2000 and my sister's S2000

[chilicoke]

Gabeasher, any particular paint cleaner you would recommend? I'm guessing in order for the cleaners to be able to wash them away they would have to be pretty abrasive? any long term negative effects?

FIY, it wasn't my intention to have "matching cars" with my sister, just that there simply wasn't any other cars that offer the same driving experience (as well as reliability) as the S2000. The Elise was out of my price range.

[frankiess]

I have a strange respect for people taking meticulously good care of their car's appearance. Not to say James May is a bit odd with his vent-cleaning brushes, but this is just fantastic work. Short of a naked woman, I'd stare at a shining white Honda S2000 all day if they'd let me.

And a huge respect on the car choice. Although my money's probably going to fall into the pink sleeved hands of the M Coupe-owner, I'll always secretly want one of these.

..And to be honest, I'll probably drive the Beamer for a couple of months, get bored and try a Honda anyway.

[chilicoke]

Thank you for you compliment frankiess.

As some of you might remember, I love to build absolutely useless stuffs to kill time and it's about to happen again, but this time I figured I might as well try something new, something for my car.

Well here they are, a pair of spare OEM fenders:





They are pretty beat up. First of all they are not in OEM color. Second, the fender lips are really messed up as they've been caught and pulled completely out of shape from previous owner's lowered car ridding on much beefier tires. On the bright side, I got them at a great price and I think they are perfect for what I have in mind.

I am a huge fan of the aggressive look of non-staggered, low-offset wheels on the S2000. However, the cost and hassle to modify the stock fender to have enough clearance is a major annoyance that turns many people away from the idea.


The car's build thread <1> <2>

Simply put: I love to build things, I've always wanted to try out fiber glassing and metal shaping (especially having watched pretty much all of American Chopper and American Hotrod), I got the time, I got friends (who are also car nuts) who are willing to help, I have connection to a paint shop, and now I have a spare pair of fenders. Why not?

After considering many different approaches to fender flaring, I have decided to go with this approach on the bases that:
1. to untrained eyes it looks very OEM-like.
2. gives additional ~.5" of tire clearance.
3. only requires modifications (repaint) to the fenders.
4. removes the body line around the wheel walls.
5. can be easily reversed by switching back to my stock fenders.
6. appears to be something I could possibly accomplish (with time and patience of course )

This car's build thread.

Here's my plain: (keep in mind this is going to be a long-term project, not something I want to finish in a few week or so)
- Order a set of dolly kit (similar to this one), carefully flare out the fender lip (mostly likely with the assist of a fender roller), remove the fender line, and also take care of any dings/misalignments.
- Smooth out the body work, test fit, if it turns out good it could go either:

A. Prep, paint, and fit them on my car.

or

B. Make an inverse mold from the finished fender, replicate myself a set of fiberglass fenders, than prep, paint, and fit which ever set I desire

If it all goes well, I might be interested to make a set of carbon fiber (depending on material cost of course) from the same mold.

I have done tons of research and built a collection of links on constructing the plug, mold, and part cloning with fiberglass as reference, if anyone has any experience/information/link to composite construction or metal shaping, please feel free to put in your 2 cents as I would greatly appreciate any information on this subject.

Whats keeping me from starting this project tomorrow:
On top of balancing my free time, in order to have a good idea on how much to flare out on the fenders, I would need to first lower my car to the ideal height and order/fit the size of wheel/tire of choice. All these would cost a big chunk of money and I would much rather take my time to plan everything out.

What do you guys think?
Brandon.