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| Carbing Aluminium Underpanel |
I won't lie to you; this one was done so I never have to reinstall the stock underpanel and it's 25 or so crappy plastic fasteners. It also looks cool, but that's not the half of it. While this is a great product, there are a lot of little things that I had to do to make it fit properly.
Installation:
1. This underpanel is designed for the stock FMIC - if you have an aftermarket FMIC, you're probably going to have to remove it to install the mounting bracket for the Carbing panel. You'll only have to do it once, but still, keep this in mind since it's a PITA. As you can see, you can use the bolts that the panel bracket mounts to as a gauge to see if your FMIC will work with the underpanel.
 
2. For 05+ cars w/ the ACD system -- the Carbing underpanel bracket crosses pathes w/ the ACD hard line. There are a few different options -- some folks cut a 6-8" notch in the panel to allow the line to pass through. Because I do not have much clearance anyway, with my Perrin FMIC, I decided to slightly bend the line (carefully, if you bend them too much you can weaken them and break them). I then sliced a rubber fuel line in half longways, and slipped it over the line. It doesn't rub on anything, and I don't anticipate there being much movement up there since it's bolted to the frame, but it's something to keep an eye out for. If your FMIC has a decent amount of space behind it, you might be able to use washers to move the bracket forward, this wasn't an option for me w/ the Perrin FMIC.
3. Out of true genius (or perhaps a desire to sell their chassis brace), Carbing did not make any provisions for the middle mounting hole on the frontmost stock chassis brace. In their instructions, they tell you to remove it. Well, I did not want to remove it. You will have problems with any aftermarket chassis brace as well (i.e. Cusco, GT-Spec, Perrin), except the Carbing. To remedy this, you have to cut a 2" x 2" square out of the panel w/ a cutoff wheel, dremel, etc.
The simple way to do this is lay out the underpanel and chassis brace, bolt the chassis brace down, mark the underpanel with a sharpie marker, and cut out the square. You can't just drill a hole, since this piece has a rectangular braket.
4. The final thing you will probably have to do is buy longer bolts. My underbar is shimmed to clear my 3" downpipe, and with the additional few millimeters of the Carbing underpanel, the bolts just aren't long enough. If you go to Lowes, Home Depot, etc. you can get 2 10 x 1.25 (fine thread) Metric bolts, 2 large diameter 10mm washers (to go between the spacer and the underpanel) and 2 regular 10mm washers (to go between the bolt and the chassis brace) you will be good to go for under $5. You won't have to change the middle bolt, because it doesn't go through the underpanel. I chose to go in this order: Frame -> Underpanel -> Larger Washer -> Spacer -> Chassis Brace -> Regular Washer -> Bolt.
Like I said, there's no performance difference w/ this panel, but the ability to drop the thing with six bolts is great, especially for tightening intercooler couplers, etc. Please make sure this panel is on there tightly, and is nice and secure. As always, do this one at your own risk.
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