[REVN MR2]

I’m making this post because I see all kinds of fender flares on spyders but there just doesn’t seem to be much info or an organized place where everyone can show what flares they’ve put on their cars and how they did it.

I originally decided on the jdm fender flares because I saw a spyder with them and I always wanted wide wheels to further increase this cars already amazing handling.

The ones I chose are 3 inch fender flares as I wanted flares large enough to completely cover the oem fender curves. Cutting the oem curves out and attaching the flares above them means the 3 inch flares really only add 2 inches of width overall. The flares also are positioned pretty high so you will get about an inch of extra wheel gap so lowering the car aggressively is necessary.

I picked my wheels from my favorite choices on fitment industries because their site makes it easier to find the correct offset and they have plenty of options for wider wheels in the scarce 4x100 size.

I decided on a square setup, my wheel specs are 17x9 et 25 and I have a 15mm spacer in the rear since the front wheels would stick further out in a square setup. Honestly the 15mm spacer really isn’t enough and I may eventually go with a 1inch spacer in the rear (25mm) but I just ordered different flares and want to see how the fitment is for my new setup first.

The flares looked kind of wide so I went with a taller tire than I liked to fill the space plus I wasn’t sure how low I would be able to get the car as I was only running lowering springs. I chose 245 40 17 tires all the way around and the fitment looks good but in the future I will be ordering 245 35 17 tires to replace them.

After installing the wheels and flares using riv nuts to allow easy removal I knew I would need to lower the car more and did my research on cutting springs. Only certain springs can be cut and you have to have the correct type of strut with an indent for the spring to rest against. I also drilled a hole in the strut and used a metal zip tie to secure the spring in place so when the car is lifted the spring won’t get out of place since the spring is shorter. I had tein progressive lowering springs and they always felt way too soft and didn’t lower the car much.

I cut the stiff spring rate so the car still rides comfortably over bumps and I am very happy with how it turned out. I cut 2.5 coils off the spring half a coil at a time until I got the desired height which lowered the car about an additional 2.5-3 inches more than the teins and now there is virtually 0 body roll but enough suspension travel to make for predictable handling. Honestly the car rides and handles better than my sti with coilovers and custom spring rates. I would not recommend cutting linear spring rate springs very much, it dramatically stiffens the spring rate of the springs and without a progressive spring rate you will feel every bump in your head from hitting it on the roof so wear your seat belt if you do ; )

After lowering the car the tire would rub on the outside sidewall of the tire at full lock when turning the wheel so I had to take an angle grinder and cut out the entire pinch weld inside the fenders. Now I don’t have any issues but I definitely remember going through quite a lot of cutoff wheels for that, obviously everything I cut I painted so don’t worry it hasn’t rusted.

It has actually been a couple years since I installed the flares and I accidentally torqued down the bolts too tight and drilled the holes in the flares too big so they actually cracked where the bolts are touching them. I ordered a set of brz wide body flares made out of abs because I saw 2-3 spyders with them online and I am currently in the process of installing them. They just came in the mail today and I’ve got one front fender on already. They will take a good bit of time because there’s quite a bit of trimming you have to do to each flare plus measuring and repositioning 50 times. They do need to have some flex so it is vital to get the plastic fenders, the bolts flex and secure the fenders just fine. So far I had to bend the front tip of the front flare down in order to gain just a tiny bit of extra clearance for my wheels and also trimmed the inner fender lip.

 

[scotched]

All this talk about fenders and you're not even going to explain your awesome headlight housings? 350z?

 

[refirendum]

looks like aftermarket celica lights.

 

[Solennel]

Appreciate this post, as it's timely for me! Currently functional wheel shopping..

I've got some DAMD flares around somewhere (I hope) - if you're unfamiliar with them, turns out they're not especially accommodating.

..kind of want to dig em out and have a look.

 

[forringer]

What wing is that? I'm thinking I'd like a mild (cosmetic) wing for my spyder.

 

[FormInFunction]

Your car looks so odd to me in an almost overwhelming way. I don't mean that in a bad way at all, its incredibly unique when viewed from every angle...the headlights, front bumper, spoiler, diffuser, exhaust, fender flares, blacked out tail lights & headlight housings. All familiar, yet not quite as they "should" be. Forget this thread, make a detailed build thread!

 

[rcntype]

Funny this post shows up while i'm looking for tires. So your tires with a 24.7" diameter is fine on the car? Got any pics of the cut pinchweld? I bashed mines in instead of cutting. Were there any other areas of contact? The rs4's i wanna get is the same diameter and I was worried about fitment.

 

[phattires]

It's for sale on market place .....

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[GABRIEL1]

Yeah, I would like to know how much work it was to mount these headlights. Like that diffuser too.

 

[REVN MR2]

Thanks! I’ve had the car over six years now and before I even bought it I wanted to widebody it. I really was in love with the luxury parts kits but I know I’d never be able to afford them so I did what I could on a budget to change everything that I wasn’t fond of on the spyder.

I got most of my inspiration from other spyders really. Everything I’ve done had already been done. Unless you are lowered about 4 inches you are not going to have the issue I was having where the front tires rubbed.
I’ll post some mods because I get questions all the time. 2002 camaro billet grille(I cut the upper plastic out for increased airflow to the radiator), spec d celica headlights(took an angle grinder to the hood fender and bumper plus made a simple bracket to secure the lower outside part with a straight piece of aluminum with a hole bolted on one end and a notch pressing against the headlight. Needs bodywork welding to fill the gaps), celica gts seats(use the factory mr2 brackets), ebay bmw style wing-hard to find $500, 2 curved type Dodge Challenger rear diffusers 22” wide, lotus style center exit exhaust (license plate bolted to the rear bumper support hangers)

New is the Subaru BRZ flares I installed today, it took roughly 15 hours so I obviously didn’t have time to clean the car but I like how it came out. I’ve got to trim the inside rear flares still because I decided to fit them pretty low on the tires but I ran out of time. Don’t mind my ridiculously torn up soft top lol that’s my next project.

 

[ofranco]

Dude I like the looks! Now I want flares on my car. Got minor rub on rear 234/40. I want those headlights too!

 

[REVN MR2]

If anyone wants these flares I wouldn’t mind ordering more and cutting them to the correct size and shipping them. It takes a lot of measurements and trimming to get right especially since these are made for a brz.

It took me 2 whole days to do and I could ship them ready to be bolted on with different color riv bolts just remember my wheel specs are 17x9 et 25 with a 15mm spacer in the rear plus I am lowered 3 inches or so so you can predict how they would look for your car.

The front could probably be repositioned where you need it to sit but the rear has the gas cap so it has to go where it is. Luckily it sits very low on my car so if yours isn’t lowered quite as much as mine it should still be fine. Even though the flares look like they would rub I test drive the car through some serious bumps through construction and took some very fast turns and they don’t touch at all. Because I trim the inside of the fenders back for maximum clearance you can have very close fitment and be ok. I’d do all the work for $1500 shipped in the US with your choice of riv nut color( silver, gold, black, purple, green, red, blue)

 

[Solennel]

Thanks for the additional info and pics!

I'm not planning to do small flares, even, until I've got a full spare set of QP/fenders/bumper skins...

This will go in the list of options!

 

[scotched]

The rear diffuser looks like it was made for this car. How much extra cutting did you need to fit it?

 

[refirendum]

I don't know what to say other than

• I think it would look better with smaller hardware (no washers)
• it needs a lot of bodywork to fill in the gaps and match up the hood curve to the headlights
• the RB style kit needs more edge shaping to really get it to match the Spyder's body shape/ stylistic lines.

See below where i've penned in red where the body lines would flow better (and also where the seam on the two pieces of the rear flares which i think should be bonded and filled):

Edit: Is this a joke post making fun of facebook spyder listings? i don't really catch onto these things without extremely obvious sarcasm

 

[REVN MR2]

I don't know what to say other than

• I think it would look better with smaller hardware (no washers)
• it needs a lot of bodywork to fill in the gaps and match up the hood curve to the headlights
• the RB style kit needs more edge shaping to really get it to match the Spyder's body shape/ stylistic lines.

See below where i've penned in red where the body lines would flow better (and also where the seam on the two pieces of the rear flares which i think should be bonded and filled):
View attachment 89079
View attachment 89078

Edit: Is this a joke post making fun of facebook spyder listings? i don't really catch onto these things without extremely obvious sarcasm

Hmm I really like your idea of trimming away some of h the sharp angles the kit came with. I was originally just trying to get them to fit and keep as much as possible but it definitely would look good rounded off a bit.

I might trim it up a bit. For the front instead of adding to it I could trim off the point that hangs off where the headlight is and shape the lower part to match the curve. In the rear the lower section wouldn’t have so much of a gap if it wasn’t for me cutting so much away from when I installed the other fenders. Other spyders could measure how much really would need cut and follow the fender curves better but I can’t exactly add that material back to mine.. maybe a body shop could do something in the future but for now I’m taking my spyder to a guy who is going to finish the metal work on the headlights/fenders. The hood is going to be painted satin black when it’s done.

As for the diffuser I didn’t cut anything besides the lower part of the rear bumper which a lot of spyder owners do. My flex pipe rusted out on my exhaust causing it to touch the diffusers so it melted a bit away lol. I put on shorter exhaust hangers which put less stress on the new flex pipe and repositioned the exhaust tip more towards the center where it should be but I just need to order some new diffusers to replace the old ones.

 

[REVN MR2]

I’m surprised nobody else wants to show their fender flares… kinda disappointing as I was trying to use this post to have a collection of different flares people put on the spyder and more information on how they did it and their wheel size.
Oh well, here’s what I’ve been working on, I got a cheap celica hood fenders and bumper to try to fill the gaps I have but I found out the hood almost bolts right on so I cut the celica fenders and bolted them to the mr2 and attached the bumper using a 2inch by 2 inch aluminum L bracket since the factory celica bumper mounts are higher and further out compared to the mr2. Then I cut the fenders and bumper to reinstall the flares I previously had.
I’m going to be buying a cheap fiberglass light weight hood-the stock celica hood is surprisingly heavy even compared to the mr2s. I already ordered a gallardo look fiberglass celica front bumper and I’m planning to have a shop/person paint the whole car.
(the picture without the front flares is before the bumper bracket)
The celica fenders do widen the front quite a bit as you can see but even with them cut and the fender flares on they add a bit more space for the wheels so I’ll likely add a 5mm spacer to fill in the slight gap.
Anyone think I should just throw another engine in the front just to throw people off? I might have the room now tbh😂

 

[GABRIEL1]

Damn, that is cool. I don't have flairs but yours is turning out bad ass.

 

[2NDMRS]

Anyone think I should just throw another engine in the front just to throw people off? I might have the room now tbh😂

Throw in one of these in the front

 

[riskyrunabout]

Wow, that looks great! How well do the Celica fenders line up at the doors after cutting? That's looking tempting given my paint is already garbage.