Freshly wrecked..... Questions about body kits
07-15-2008, 05:29 PM
#17
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Location: Gainesville Florida
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NismoKnight.... from reading the many posts of yours on this forum, i realize you know your s***, i got a question for you.... the kit is something like a fiberglass.... they call it some Hi-Flex thing-a-ma do.... the reason why i bought it is because my budget it very limited, (paid under 600 for the kit), and i can't afford one of those $1500-2500 kits, hell the only reason i'm getting one if cause my girl hit a guard rail... and i think that particular kit is one of the cleanest I've seen for the S14.... the question tho is have you had a chance to go to that site ( www.raceonusa.com ) and do some investigating? maybe you may be able to make more out of it than me... sounds all good to me, but i'm just your average guy...i know a whole lot about nothing... haha.. but they do have a pretty descriptive site, to me it seems and sounds pretty legit.... only time will tell i suppose....
07-15-2008, 09:47 PM
#18
"HiFlex™ products are free from normal fiberglass deficiencies including waviness, spider cracks, chips, and gel coat damage."
I am calling them on this since the material they use is actually fiberglass, but with a different primer AND the stuff is thinner than normal fiberglass kits. Its the same junk they sold to my buddy who got his stuff through their ebay store, same description etc.
"Hand made with only the highest quality materials used, each and every part must pass our highly detailed quality control before leaving our factory."
Although it is "hand-made", quality control is just some guy running around a warehouse doing a quick glance at everything thats on the way out of the shop. Some guy bought a kit for his GS300 when I was working for this one body shop, the upper bumper section where the lights and grill are located had very little, very thin fiberglass material. One section looked like the fiberglass gun ran out of material to spray and the guy never went back to fill in the mold.
Not sure how yours will come out, but I would be careful. I do understand that you're working on a tight budget, my recommendation woulda been to source out OEM JDM parts, they woulda come out to be about the same price as that kit, but genuine OEM quality.
I am calling them on this since the material they use is actually fiberglass, but with a different primer AND the stuff is thinner than normal fiberglass kits. Its the same junk they sold to my buddy who got his stuff through their ebay store, same description etc.
"Hand made with only the highest quality materials used, each and every part must pass our highly detailed quality control before leaving our factory."
Although it is "hand-made", quality control is just some guy running around a warehouse doing a quick glance at everything thats on the way out of the shop. Some guy bought a kit for his GS300 when I was working for this one body shop, the upper bumper section where the lights and grill are located had very little, very thin fiberglass material. One section looked like the fiberglass gun ran out of material to spray and the guy never went back to fill in the mold.
Not sure how yours will come out, but I would be careful. I do understand that you're working on a tight budget, my recommendation woulda been to source out OEM JDM parts, they woulda come out to be about the same price as that kit, but genuine OEM quality.
07-15-2008, 10:09 PM
#19
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Winston-Salem NC
Posts: 175
They seem to be a little overpriced to me, may not be true for the 240sx stuff, but there E30 stuff is a bunch of knock-off Mtech stuff. Mtech kits are like NISMO kits except rarer especially since it is from a car in the 80's and made in West Germany. They are only selling it for 200-400 bucks cheaper than what a real kit would cost that is much higher quality and as I mentioned rare. So I don't think they should be trusted that much if Nismoknight is right about the quality as their prices aren't exceptionally cheap either.
Found a thread on r3vlimited about them and the only real piece of information was this post: "idk about there e30 products but my friends get alot of there s13,s14,ae86 parts from them..i was lookin at a kit for my s13 myself...but like all aftermarket "professional" kits,dont expect a oem fit." and other than that there was just this, "Hi-Flex and fiberglass don't really belong in the same sentence though." so whatever that means, either Hi-Flex is worse or better than Fiberglass, I would probably think worse.
Found a thread on r3vlimited about them and the only real piece of information was this post: "idk about there e30 products but my friends get alot of there s13,s14,ae86 parts from them..i was lookin at a kit for my s13 myself...but like all aftermarket "professional" kits,dont expect a oem fit." and other than that there was just this, "Hi-Flex and fiberglass don't really belong in the same sentence though." so whatever that means, either Hi-Flex is worse or better than Fiberglass, I would probably think worse.
Last edited by Kaiser; 07-15-2008 at 11:26 PM.
07-16-2008, 01:42 PM
#20
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Gainesville Florida
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well it's already on it way.... side skirts got damaged en route to the distribution center so they had to order more..... like i said before, customer service said that this is off their newer fabrication process that has supposedly eliminated a lot of the earlier problems.... lets hope they're right.... even though my g/f is paying for it cause she wrecked it... i don't want the install tab to be too high her her sake.... that i hope it's not a ya live ya learn kind of experience.. at least i'll be taing it to a highly reputable body shop here in town... mostly services high end cars.... jags, porches, BMW, etc. so they can work thier magic, better so than "Earls Paint And Body".... so wish me luck guys... there's no turning back now......
07-16-2008, 03:56 PM
#21
If you can, do a quick "test fit" and see how the kit lines up on the car. If its off by even justa tad, see if they'll send you another one.
Just put it on without screws or anything, have a buddy hold it up if necessary. We used to do that with a company that was a few buildings away from us who sold kits, now theirs fit without problems.
Just put it on without screws or anything, have a buddy hold it up if necessary. We used to do that with a company that was a few buildings away from us who sold kits, now theirs fit without problems.
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