E30 Fiberglass/Carbon Fiber Late Model Front Lips - How to Install

Overview

This new front lip design adds a more aggressive look to your E30 and is a fresh design that lets you stand out from the rest of the lips on the market. While we always strive to produce the highest quality parts, the finish will require some body work for a perfect finish as do most aftermarket fiberglass and carbon parts. We do recommend having a professional body shop to prep and paint for the best results but here are some modifications you can do yourself to fit this lip on your E30.

 

There are two methods of mounting this lip that we recommend which we will go over below.

OEM Clip Method

As mentioned earlier, fiberglass and carbon fiber parts almost always need some body work done to get them to fit 100% perfectly to your vehicle; this part is no exception. 

If you would like to mount your lip using the factory "is" lip clips, you will simply need to shave down the clip mounting points on the new lip until it can snap in place into your factory is lip. 

 As shown below, the molding around the clip on the lip may sometimes need to be filed or sanded to fit the clips.

Note - The photos show a plastic lip but the same steps apply to the fiberglass and carbon version as well. 

Once you get them filed or sanded to a thinner profile so that the clips can go on, the installation will be the same as the OEM lip as seen in the previous section.

Zip Tie/Cable Tie Method

While using factory clips is often recommended, the clips are known to break fairly easily and they are also known to release from the lips with fairly little force if pushed or pulled in a certain way- especially when scrapping on driveways or bumps.

Some of us here at Garagistic prefer to mount the lip with cable ties instead which can be a more secure mounting method in some cases. In this case, you will want to make sure you leave a sufficient amount of material around where you drill to avoid any cracking. The only modification needed to your lip would be to drill holes on the lip for the cable ties.

Note - The photos show a plastic lip but the same steps apply to the fiberglass and carbon version as well. 

Step #1

Mock-up a factory IS lip clip next to your lip. Mark the lip with where the mounting holes on the clip would land as seen in the photo below

Step #2

Drill a 1/4in hole

Repeat this step for the rest of the clip locations.

Step #3

Using zip ties/cable ties, loosely secure the lip to the valence using the clip mounting holes. Once you have a zip tie loosely connected through each hole, you can then tighten and secure them all.

If you still have some factory IS lip clips installed in your valence, you can easily remove them by pushing the plastic cylinder on both sides of the clip with a small screwdriver.

Below are photos of an E30 equipped with our "IS" Style front lip using the ziptie/cable tie method.

ALL DONE