Clear Bra! The best thing you can do for your 86

[Boxer486]

Wow, if OC can't even handle birds I wouldn't even bother. Thx for the heads up!

[vroom4]

What exactly aare you trying to protect under your emblem?

[GhostShield]

Originally Posted by imom

Hey Ghost,
I'm thinking of wrapping the car myself...how do you apply the emblem back on over the PPF of the front bumper. Also how hard is it to do the BRZ trunk...do you have to remove the rear spoiler? Appreciate some pointers if you don't mind.

For the rest of the folks...after having opti coat done on my car... I would say it's better to invest in PPF if you can afford it or had to pick one or the other. Rocks and gravel on the freeway suck.

My detailer did a great job with the color correction, but OC still have issues with protecting from bird poop and the orange and yellow spots...still gets eaten away. It's a nice to have...but PPF is the way to go if you can afford it or do it yourself. For cutting the PPF don't use a razor...go knifeless.

Honestly call around to local installers and try to find prices for their installs. There's a good chance you won't be happy with the final product if you do it yourself. It's not really a DIY application. But hey if your confident or have experience with vynil or other automotive films then give it a try.

Let me know what film you'll use and I'll give you as many pointers as I can. I can also get you kits for bumper, lights, mirrors stuff like that. I can also get you bulk film. PM me if you wanna go that route through me.

As far as reapplying the badges, just get the grey 3m sticky tape from Home Depot that's rated for like 5 or 10 pounds. Shit sticks good! Clean all the old off the badge and apply new in strips. You don't have to completely sticky tape it up like the factory does. Only a little would hold the badge on cuz that tape sticks that aggressively.

The scion or subi badges have pins that go through the bumper and trunk, the front you'll have to remove that gasket thing that's held on by some 10mm nuts under the hood at the top of the bumper. Pull the top of the bumper up and just snap those pins off the front badge. They have a lame rivet type thing in there. I tried to remove it nice nice off my car and wasted some time, ended up saying screw it and just broke them off. Upon reinstall of badges just eyeball it's location and you'll get it pretty good. Take pictures with a tape measure in place for reference. Ditch the lame frs or brz badge on the trunk.

Since you have a factory spoiler I would remove it yes. That way you can do one piece on the top of the trunk and another piece on the back of the trunk and hide the seam under the wing. I could do the trunk in one piece but there's no way someone with no expieriance could :/ be warned that the front bumper on the twins is not easy either.

I've had multiple bird shits bake onto my Suntek film with no etch or stain. I whipe clean with shine supply spray detailer, rubbed it with alcohol, then spray detailer again and it was fine Suntek is very tough film!
Thanks for making my point about OC, it's good but not the end all be all like dudes make it out to be.

To me it's like this. Say my clear bra gets messed up, that's fine! IT DID ITS JOB AND SAVED MY PAINT

[GhostShield]

Originally Posted by vroom4

What exactly aare you trying to protect under your emblem?

It makes the install cleaner because you don't have an oval cut out in the film around the emblem.

I would have debadged my frs completely if scion wasn't lame and put pins through the bumper I HATE badges.

I loved it when I had my Integra type r, fully debadged, I'd get pulled over, hand the cop my insurance card which has the make and model on it and they'd still always ask "what kind of car is this" haha I loved it. Had a jdm front on it aswell and people really got confused hahahahah
To me you aren't a real car guy if you need badges to know the type of car.
Mercedes and BMW maybe you do need badges because Mercedes and BMW insist on have like a thousand models of cars haha German junk.
Just my opinion and 2 cent rant haha

[imom]

Originally Posted by GhostShield

Thanks for making my point about OC, it's good but not the end all be all like dudes make it out to be.

To me it's like this. Say my clear bra gets messed up, that's fine! IT DID ITS JOB AND SAVED MY PAINT

I call it the way I see it. My detailer did a great job getting the scratches out from the showroom and OC made it a little bit more shiny or it was the detailer's polishing...but I just see the effects weeks later out in my work parking lot of the etching.

I am too surprised that a lot of people say OC is the best thing since slice bread..it's a nice product...but if I had a choice between PPF and OC...I would pick PPF ... even though I haven't used it yet. I agree that if PPF gets messed up there's less damage possibility than just getting Opti Coat. Opti coat will make the car stay shiny for longer...but when a rock flies at it or bird poops at it...it's not going to protect it but rather be the sacrificial layer of paint... Too many times and your paint will get etched too. With PPF, you have 8 mils or more depending on what product so to me that makes sense... can't wait until the price drops to do the whole car.

Far as debadging...well some cars you can and I believe it's not going to look good debadged because they designed in the impressions for where the emblems go...had it been a smooth flat surface...it would have been gone. I already had the lettering removed when I had the car detailed and OC.

[GhostShield]

Originally Posted by imom

I call it the way I see it. My detailer did a great job getting the scratches out from the showroom and OC made it a little bit more shiny or it was the detailer's polishing...but I just see the effects weeks later out in my work parking lot of the etching.

I am too surprised that a lot of people say OC is the best thing since slice bread..it's a nice product...but if I had a choice between PPF and OC...I would pick PPF ... even though I haven't used it yet. I agree that if PPF gets messed up there's less damage possibility than just getting Opti Coat. Opti coat will make the car stay shiny for longer...but when a rock flies at it or bird poops at it...it's not going to protect it but rather be the sacrificial layer of paint... Too many times and your paint will get etched too. With PPF, you have 8 mils or more depending on what product so to me that makes sense... can't wait until the price drops to do the whole car.

Far as debadging...well some cars you can and I believe it's not going to look good debadged because they designed in the impressions for where the emblems go...had it been a smooth flat surface...it would have been gone. I already had the lettering removed when I had the car detailed and OC.

Rock on man! You and I are on the same page 100%

Yeah your car was def shinier because of the polish job not because OC. I've heard if you do multiple layers of OC you get some more depth to the paint. But clear bra does the same thing. It'd been a while since I'd done a job for Jermey at Shine Supply. I full wrapped a black Mercedes e350 for him this week and he was blown away at the depth it have the black paint.

Today I did a partial hood front end on a black zl1 camaro and the part of the good covered by PPF was deep gloss and swirl mark free, above the film was swirled and just didn't have the depth or gloss. Granted a good polish job would enhance it a lot, PPF would preserve that hard work of achieving that polished depth.