We've seen these spoilers all over eBay and such; $359 painted and delivered. I, like many others, was skeptical but when the kids told me they wanted to get this for me as a Father's Day gift, I thought let's give this a go and graciously accepted.
These rear spoilers are replicas of our factory earlier model Nismo and are manufactured by a company called DAR Spoilers out of Kennedale, Texas (
https://www.darspoilers.com/) They are sold by several distributors. I bought mine from eBay seller TheSpoilerCompany. The transaction was quick and smooth and the spoiler arrived as my door well packaged and protected.
My expectations were exceeded after opening the box. The finish on the spoiler appeared top notch.
THE INSTALLATION:
My Z already had the factory sports spoiler. Having this will make aligning the new spoiler a piece of cake, as I'll discuss in a bit.
Pop off the rear panel on the hatch. I failed to take pictures of this, but there is a 10mm bolt under each of those tabs that hold the tonneau cover. Just pop the little flap off the top and take them off.
After that, it's just held on with clips. I used a panel puller to avoid damaging them.
Next you want to look in the two hole circled in red.
In there you will find a 10mm nut and a 10mm bolt in each. These 4 are the only things holding the spoiler, with the exception of plastic clips and tape.
Next, I pulled out this arsenal of stuff.
I purchased these kits from Amazon some time ago for cell phone screen replacing (with 5 kids, someone is always breaking a screen). It has all kinds of plastic pry bars and wedges. I also tossed a few guitar picks in the kit for good measures.
To remove the factory spoiler, I started with some fishing line and used it to "saw" around the outer ends to cut the VHB double sided tape that assists in holding this spoiler down. It cut very easily for me.
PRO TIP: Make sure to clean these crevasses VERY well. The grit that gets caught in here turns into a wonderful course sand paper which you don't want damaging the paint.
The heat gun will be your friend. I set the temperature up high enough to where it became just too uncomfortable for me to keep my hand in front of it. The idea here is if it doesn't burn your hand, it wont burn your paint.
I started heating up the edge I just "sawed" for a few seconds while pushing one of the plastic wedges under the spoiler. It soon popped under the spoiler. I then moved over about 3 inches and did the same.
Continue this until you work your way around the entire spoiler. As I lifted it, the clips began to pop off.
After about 15 minutes, the factory spoiler popped right off. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!
This will give you a good idea of the tape you need to battle. After that, you have the pleasure of having to remove this crap. Don't worry. I hear a lot of folks saying this is the worst part of the install, but not if you have this...
3M Adhesive Erasure Wheel (part number 03612). Put this on your drill (2500 RPM max) and in 5 to 10 minutes, you'll be looking at this.
ALIGNING THE NEW SPOILER AND DRILLING THE HOLES
Place the new spoiler on the car. I used some 2" painters tape to help hold it in place. It will ultimately be held on by 4 machine screws. If you had the sports spoiler before, the two lower holes in the spoiler will line up the two holes closest your third brake light. Center those holes up and you are golden on alignment. If not... look and my pictures and good luck.
I used the paper strip method to locate my holes and of course, I forgot to take pictures, so I shall demonstrate using my Master Builder Lego skills.
#1 Place spoiler upside down on a safe surface.
#2 Lightly tape a strip of paper over the hole and puncture it with a pencil or other similar pointy object.
#3 Align the spoiler on the car. This is where having the sports holes already there will help. You can even tighten those screws down a bit to really hold in in position. Heavily tape the paper strips to your car.
#4 Carefully remove the spoiler. If successful, you sure know exactly where you need to drill your holes.
DRILLING THE HOLES
I'm only going to discuss the top two holes, as I didn't need to drill the bottom two. To be honest though, the bottom two will be super easy. The top two were the hardest part of this hole install.
Using a smaller drill bit, make an initial pilot hole before setting up to the appropriate sized bit for the screw. Only go through the other skin because what you are going to learn is in-between the outer and inner skins is a substructure that's angled to the skins and is probably the most challenging to get through.
Remember this picture?
We are now going to concentrate on the blue area.
I used a 3/4" Unibit and opened these areas up.
Once you do this, you will see that inner structure. Do your best to drill through that. I used a 1/2' bit and I feel like I tore it up pretty badly. Just pay attention to what's going on and don't accidentally drill into a visible area.
You can see in these pictures where I clearanced the inner structure. You can also see the top screws installed.
It really wasn't too hard to do; you just need to take your time.
INSTALL TIME!
I used some 100% silicon sealant and placed a small bead around every hole. Since our hatches are aluminum, there's no need to worry about rust. Place the spoiler on the car, line up the lower holes and tightened in down with two screws and a 10mm socket driver.
Here's the "tricky" part... fishing those flat bladed screws 3 inches into the little hole and not losing said screws into the inner folds of your hatch, where they will roll around every time you turn and drive you nuts.
By the way, since the hatch is aluminum, those can be removed easily with a strong magnet.
Get some masking tape, poke the screw though it and tape that sucker to your screw driver. You should then be able to get it up there with no problems.
Crank those 4 screws down nice and tight, clean up your mess and pop the panels back on.
THE FINISHED PRODUCT
I'm very happy with how it turned out. The fitment is great... easily a 9.5 out of 10 in my book. The color matches perfect and overall with the right tools and tricks, the installation wasn't hard at all.
That's about it. If you have any questions, post here or shoot me a PM and I'll try my best to help.