I'm doing the clear bra on this car. Even with moderate street driving I am amazed at the amount if abuse that the side air intake receives on my '14 CS. Those side gills are going to take a lot of rocks from the front wheels. If you don't want to spend the money I would do the side panels behind the doors and the low area behind the rear wheels.

FWIW I paid about $2,500 for an excellent front/side gill clear bra on my white CS. My SA paid $1,000 and after a year mine looks perfect and his has started yellowing and looks awfull. You get what you pay for.

Rickdm

 

Which part of the side gills are you referring to that take abuse? The black portion of the gills themselves or some painted area around it? On the GT4 with its ram air intakes, I suppose one could clear bra just the piece that protrudes from the rest of the body, but I'd be surprised if that area took much of a beating from debris. But on the CS, unless you're referring to that narrow painted strip below the intake that runs along the underside of the door, every other painted area around the intakes is part of the single panel that creates the rocker panels and the rear quarter panel. That's a whole lot of coverage -- or did you just put a slab of clear bra in the middle of that panel in the area behind the intakes? That seems like it would stand out.

The only places I'll be doing partial panel coverage are on the front part of the rocker panels behind the front wheels, matching the width of the front fender at that area that I'll have completely covered, and then on the portion of the rear quarter panel that faces directly out toward the side behind the rear wheels (ahead of the crease in the panel) up high enough to hopefully cover debris that the rear tires might sling up there.

 

The part that gets pounded is the outside of the black plastic air intake and the painted surface just beyond it. I had that panel covered from the door opening to the wheel opening, up to the body seam that runs a few inches above the intakes. The film was tucked in so no edges show.

rickdm

 

Interesting, somehow I missed the body seam before the rear quarter panel while I was looking at CS images before writing that post. That makes much more sense now. In that case on the GT4 I'm thinking that the raised nature of the ram air intakes will actually protect the main body panel beyond them, in which case one might only need to cover the intakes themselves -- though the problem there would be the imprinted "GT4" logo. I'm not sure how an installer would deal with that. Cutting around its outline with a razor isn't appealing to me, plus I can't see them being able to put clear bra down in the recessed area, but just running the clear bra across it would look awkward too.... Maybe they'd just cut a rectangle in the clear bra around the logo area rather than cutting precisely around it, but I'm not sure about that look either. Anyhow, it also looks like there's very little painted surface between the door and the intake opening, unlike the CS, so that at least works out well. Thanks for posting about this, I'll definitely consider adding that to my clear bra plan.

How far below the air intake did you go? It looks like that painted surface extends all along the underside of the doors, so did you go that far or did you stop short of that and still somehow prevent edges from showing?

 

The scoop is a very small part and removable. Ideal for repainting IMO.

 

The Xpel GT4 kit templates are already released, so most certified installers with a plotter system and the Xpel software will start with those and possibly modify them to their own needs or customer requests. Notice the rocker panel kit already has the GT4 logo outlined. While many installers cut their own pieces with a razor using bulk film, and some of the best ones only do it this way, I like that my guy uses the plotter system so there's never any razor needed pressed on paint and he can often maximize the bulk film real estate to throw in free sections. You can still get panels to be wrapped over the edges as the Xpel software has that option as a simple checkbox.

http://www.xpel.com/products/paint_p...bmodel=1009212

 

Wow, very cool. Didn't realize the general public could buy XPEL as a kit like this, though I definitely wouldn't want to attempt this on my own. It's also interesting that the Rear Wheel Impact Kit seems to protect the part of the body in front of the rear wheels, whereas I'm planning to protect the area behind them, basically just the narrow vertical strip of the smaller piece of the Rocker Panel Kit, plus full hood, fenders, mirrors, and bumper, and maybe a piece on the front of the rocker panels as wide as the fender above it in order to extend that protection all the way to the bottom of the body.

 

JP, I called Ryan at AutopaintGuard in Tampa and he confirmed that he has the template for the GT4. He is going to cut me a piece for the front that I will take with me and install temporarily during European Delivery. This will be about $250 of film but will give me piece of mind. This will only be temporary as when he does it, it is perfection - my goal will be just no bubbles!

 

This is a pretty good advertisement for clear bra!

 

Clear Bra FTW. I full frontal on my GT3 and its a life saver. I don't worry near as much about track and road debris.

 

Car will be wrapped and have CQuartz Finest applied from day 1.

Only changes will be brake pads, SRF brake fluid and perhaps centre exhaust. Alignment perhaps after a few track events to see how I want to set it up.

Thats all I did to my GT3 and thats all the GT4 will get, they set up and come from the factory ready to go.