mesh rear fascia mod

[solmio]

After upgrading my 2.4 NA exhaust to a Solo dual exhaust ~6 mos ago I have been wanting to replace the rear fascia. Guess I got tired of my hillbilly mod of the old fascia to add the driver side exhaust cutout. I had bought a surplus GXP fascia from KYGXP and finally got around to modding it. I like the way it turned out…



It took some time to do. First I cut most of the old honeycomb section out using a jigsaw. I decided to leave what amounts to a stiffening rib in the center. This did a few things for me. First, when you cut away that area of the fascia it loses a lot of stiffness. I was afraid if I cut it out entirely that I would have problems keeping things aligned and that it would put more stress on my glue. Second, it makes the pieces of mesh you need much smaller so they are cheaper to procure and easier to work with. I used a 3 mesh with 0.054” wire diameter. A heavier wire might look better, but 0.054 was pretty tough to cut so I’m glad I didn’t go heavier. I cut the mesh so I had about a 1” border beyond the edge of the cutout. Then I formed the mesh as best I could to conform to the shape of the fascia.

After I cut out everything I went ahead and hit the outside of the fascia with a few coats of Bumper Black. Then back on the interior, I roughed up the area I would be gluing to with coarse sand paper and then primed it with some spray-on Bulldog adhesion promoter. Then I used a polyurethane construction adhesive to glue the mesh to the fascia. While the glue dried I held the mesh tight to the fascia with some screws, washers and wood shims. BTW, I was conflicted about what adhesive to use. I knew it had to be somewhat flexible and that I would need a lot of it so I figured epoxy was out. At first I tried roofing cement – big mistake. Next I tried the PU and it seems to work really well. Time will tell.

I am procured a Pontiac arrow emblem to cover the center rib (thanks Triple Blk!). After finishing the project I’d say you might be able to do without it if you want mesh all the way across. But I’m happy with the result.

[mistergib]

I think it looks really good....great job.....but.....no offence, but the
Pontiac emblem, to me, looks odd and out of place when mounted so
low on the car....

But what do I know....it's all in what YOU think looks good, she's your
baby... Again, you did a fine job on the facia.

[turbochargedsol]

I like it except for that Pontiac logo in the middle.

[TomatoSoup]

Nice job. Where did you get the wire mesh from?

[solmio]

Thanks for the comments. Just got back from a 1500 mile journey through the southeast and everything is intact so that's a relief. A few things about the arrow emblem:

1) I agree that for some reason in the photos it doesn't look that good. But I have to tell you that in person it looks really sharp. Actually the mesh looks better in person too. Maybe the camera does lie!

2) You can't tell from the picture but I had debadged the rear of the car prior to this mod so there is only one emblem back there now.

I was lucky in that we had some mesh out in our factory that I could get. But I think you can get it from mcmaster dot com.

[BellaVerde]

I like the way it looks and have considered doing the same thing myself. A coupl'a noobie questions for the auto engineers hangin' 'bout...would doing the above in conjunction with providing an "air path" to the now-functioning vent help with the heat problem in the Sol's trunk? Say drilling a series of 1 inch diameter holes in the sheet metal brace 'tween the vent and the muffler. Would the heat in the new air stream soften the fascia material and deform it?

[Mac]

The heat is from the HUGE stock muf takes up the whole back of the trunk area. If you replace with a solo shorty or center through, most of that heat goes away. But now you have all that space now where that semi truck muffler gm used was. The thing Gm uses is bigger than the one on my stock GMC suburban. Oh and you shave off 10lbs. This could be a trunk mod too you could drop the trunk down, though its plastic and would be a alot of work to gain 8 +-inchs of space. Could be done maybe move the battery back there too .

[BellaVerde]

I had assumed that huge muffler was a part of the "tune", to get that non-ricer sound from the Ecotech. I would hate to lose that! Not the muffler, the sound. There used to be an "axle-back" muffler and pipe assembly available...I wonder if it still is?

[solmio]

Originally Posted by BellaVerde I had assumed that huge muffler was a part of the "tune", to get that non-ricer sound from the Ecotech. I would hate to lose that! Not the muffler, the sound. There used to be an "axle-back" muffler and pipe assembly available...I wonder if it still is?

Here is a thread on Solo's standard axle back for the N/A...

SOLO's "N/A AXLE BACK" Exhaust Kit

And here is my thread on a variant of that that has dual exhaust from the muffler (but still only one pipe in)...

New Solo exhaust clips and pics

[prattm]

Quick question.

Is the mesh in the GXP rear fascia smaller in height then the NA rear fascia?
I always thought the only difference was dual outlet vs. single outlet.

[solmio]

yep, there's a huge difference...

[Yamatr3]

Lookin Good!

[Spedee]

Good work!