b.obsdian | b.orginal

The GD chassis STI wing is one of my favorite OEM wings of all time. One of the few OEM wings that’s on par with the F40 wing. In my opinion, most GDs look naked and unbalanced without it. I didn’t plan to put an STI wing on my Bugeye, but a friend offered his carbon fiber STI wing for sale, so I picked it up. I’m not sure what brand it is, but I think it is a Carbon Creations wing. I painted the sides and the base WRB to match the car.

While I like the WRX wing in the abstract, it looked kind of weird on these cars. For an early 2000s car, it is a pretty aggressive design that is hampered by being mounted low on the trunk.

As much as I don’t like wingless, I hated the WRX wing more.

After running the STI wing for a few years, I felt like I needed something different. I never intended to build an STI clone, but those parts just seemed to fall into my hands. After seeing the Zero/Sports wing risers a few years ago, I knew I wanted a set. Unfortunately, they are out of production.

The Risers

I picked up a set of Zero/Sports “style” risers from eBay. They didn’t come with recess or spoiler mounting holes, even though they have access holes. Weird.

I trashed my OEM spoiler years ago, so I picked up a new used one from eBay. Two studs were broken, and the other two were bent at the spoiler mounts. A heat gun helped straighten them out.

The next step was to remove the old wing. I have no idea how this wing didn’t leak. I didn’t have a seal or anything between the wing and the trunk surface.

Next up was test fitting the risers. They don’t sit completely flat, but we can work on that later.

There is also some misalignment with the spoiler. I didn’t expect these to be perfect, so I am not surprised.

Once we take a step back, we can see just about what it will look like once we are done.

After some adjustments (elongating mounting holes), we have better alignment between the riser and the spoiler.

The risers have a gap between them and the spoiler that couldn’t be filled with the foam tape I had on hand. The mounting surface was also a little flimsy, so I decided to reinforce it with a couple of layers of fiberglass and kill two birds with one stone.

I taped up the spoiler to create a makeshift release barrier from the fiberglass.

I added a couple of layers of fiberglass and bolted the wing down. I didn’t have time to take any photos of this process. It was very messy! In the pic below, it is just after I trimmed off the excess.

I got a little ahead of myself and painted the risers black.

Fiberglass can be a pita to work with. I didn’t need the bottom of the risers to be super structural; I just needed the gap closed to keep water out. I used fiberglass reinforced Bondo to fill the gaps. It is much easier to work with, and the fumes aren’t nearly as strong as fiberglass resin.

I sanded them down and gave the risers another coat of paint. I put some foam tape on the bottom, and they haven’t leaked since.

Overall, I am happy with this new look. I wouldn’t mind if the risers were another 25mm or so higher. If I ever pick up a 3D printer, I will experiment with different riser heights.

After driving around for a while, I noticed I had a slight vibration at highway speeds. The setup had some flex in it on the trunk surface due to the narrower mounting surface. I added some custom braces, and that solved the issue. I tried larger washers, but they only helped a little.

Cheers!