Dash Trim Kit

Installing a Carbon Fiber Dash Kit

[DNG] Just finished installing my carbon fiber dash kit I got from Rebel Motorsport. The pieces fit VERY NICE! It was harder than I thought. Took me 1.5 hours. The pieces are shipped flat, but as you know, the NSX dashes are curved. Here's the trick:

1. Use plenty of heat! I used a 1600 Watt hair dryer. This works great!
2. DO NOT peel off all the stickers at once. Start from one corner, put in position, and slowly peel back the sticker. Press and smooth out as you go.
3. Keep heating the carbon fiber panel. With the heat, the pieces become very flexible. Don't worry about cracking the coating. It WONT crack! I messed up one of the pieces and had to heat the back side to peel it off. When I did, the coating still remained plyable.
4. Install the pieces in the following order:

1. Clock Cover: This is small as to get a feel of what is to be expected. The piece is small enough that you can peel off all the sticker, but try method 2 above. This will give you practice for the mother of all panels: Main Dash
2. Passenger Side Cover: heat up the carbon fiber plate. It will 'seat' into the curved cover right before your eyes. Make sure the piece fit into position before you remove the sticker. Get a feel of where it will seat. Start peeling off the sticker from the top and pull downwards.  REMEMBER, HEAT OFTEN. This will cause the cover to 'sit' in place.
3. Driver Side Cover
4. Tach Cover
5. Main Dash Cover: Mother of all pieces. Not really difficult, but take your time. Heat often. Pre-fit the pieces and get a feel of where to position things.
6. Ashtray Cover: Notice that the ashtray cover it curved. Believe it or not, the piece fits perfectly over it once it's been heated up and formed into place.
7. Top Dash Cover: I choose this piece last because you need to know where it will seat relative to the main dash cover. If I did this piece before the main dash cover, things will be misaligned. Also, this piece is a lot smaller than the main cover; hence, you have more leeway on misalignment. The main dash cover has to be exact or else  things won't be aligned at the bottom.

Whew! That's it. Just remember to heat often. Mission accomplished.

[MCA] We did mine in Chicago ~40 degree weather, and used a shop heat gun (thetype used to install heat-shrunk molding). Randi Marchetti of RM Racing tells me he just parks them on roofs in the (100+) Arizona desert sun. A few more tips...

• Another thing we did was heat and pre-mold on before we peeled off the adhesive. That helped make final positioning a snap
• Goes without saying that a thorough cleaning of the exposed (metal over plastic) dash pieces was required. Denatured alcohol or some fluid to remove all oil, etc.